Steps towards Dictatorship

Digby over at Hullabaloo describes the politics of the last decade quite well. I don't think it applies to all Republicans, but the ones it does apply to have been in the national leadership of the party.

I waited for more than a decade for the press to report what I could see with my own eyes: a powerful political party had morphed into a criminal enterprise that was bent on permanently altering our fundamental system of government. This is not hyperbole. The Republicans wrote about their dreams of empire and executive infallibility. They advertised their plan to dominate Washington. The information was available to those who had the time and patience to wade through the cacophony of media static to find it. But the media itself behaved like a flock of birds, startling to every rightwing noise and flying off together into whatever direction the Republicans wanted them to go.

The smear jobs of the early to mid-90's were not new. The Republicans did it better than most, but they didn't invent it. They fed damaging titillating information to a gullible and eager press at a time when harsh competition, 24 hour cable and tabloid ethics were starting to permeate the news media. It created a constant sense of crisis that served them well when they upped the ante.

But tabloid smears aside, using institutional power and the levers of government to deny the people their democratically elected choice of president, whether it was through impeachment or the Supreme Court deciding an election, was not business as usual. Openly abrogating treaties and setting forth an aggressive doctine of preventive war is not business as usual. Consciously governing on a strictly partisan basis in order to render the opposition completely impotent despite its near parity in the nation, is not something we've ever seen in American politics. Using the power of the executive in "wartime" (the war being purely defined by the executive) to embed a theory of a unitary executive is a dramatic shift in the constitutional design of checks and balances. None of this is benign. These are steps toward dictatorship.

They need to be exposed, the exposure needs to be recognized and believed, and they need to be stopped. Where is the media? They have been AWOL. They have no right to criticize bloggers for exposing their lack of action.

The excuses for Bush leaking classified info won't wash

Steve Clemons places the actions Bush took to leak classified information to the press from the National Intelligence Estimate into perspective.

The information that Bush directed to be leaked has not been officially declassified, and is not in the archives where any researcher can go look at it. Also, Larry Franklin and Donald Keyser have both been arrested and judicially determined to have leaked classified information. No matter what excuse is given for Bush, he has done exactly the same thing as subordinated of his have been declared guilty of. Even if no one dares to arrest the President and the Republican-controlled House refuses to impeach him or otherwise bring him to justice for what he did, he is still morally guilty.

With his Approval ratings at the low, low level of 36%, the American public recognizes Bush's moral guilt.

Judas not a betrayer according to discovered manuscript

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram today published a fascinating story about a document written 300 years after the birth of Christ. The document, belonging to Gnostic Christians in Egypt, tells that Judas, rather than being the betrayer of Christ, was instead Jesus' closest friend and turned him in to the authorities at Jesus' request.

The early Christian Church rejected this story because it differed from the accounts in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But if Jesus had told only Judas of his request, it seems logical that the other Apostles would have seen Judas' actions as the betrayal of Jesus. Anything Judas might have tried to tell them would be seen as nothing more than an attempt Judas was making to excuse his actions.

This should shake up the biblical scholars for quite a while.

The story is more interesting than just what is reported in the Star-Telegram, however. It seems that the new document was discovered 60 years ago and smuggled illegally out of Egypt. From that time on, it has been in the illegal artifact trade. This story is given in today's Christian Science monitor.

This is one Hell of a good story. Some researcher is going to write an interesting book about it. If I had the money to do the interviews, I'd happily track this back. As it is, I'll buy the book when it comes out.

Sarbanes-Oxley law shows surprising benefits

OK. Try to stay awake for this. It's technical accounting stuff, and worse, it's about the expense of internal auditing to try to avoid future Enrons.

After Enron collapsed in 2001 the Congress passed what is called the "Sarbanes-Okley" law requiring that the CEO's and CFO's of public corporations be personally responsible for the accuracy of the financial statements each company publishes. They have to sign a statement that the financial statements published actually do fairly represent the financial status of the company, and they can be fined and sent to prison for lying.

The big complaint was that this was going to require a lot of expensive internal auditing that was not necessary, thus raising prices of their goods and services. From the Christian Science Monitor:

The bad news is high costs and bureaucracy. Companies now have people dedicated solely to compliance with the law's internal auditing rules. Micros, which employs 3,000 around the world, relies on a staff of four for the job.

In a recent survey of chief financial officers by CFO magazine, two-thirds said it had affected profitability - with earnings dropping by an estimated average of 3 percent at companies that felt an earnings impact.

The good news is strengthened accounting, which may also mean higher investor confidence and greater stability of stock-market prices.

"Investors are actually willing to pay a premium for stocks of companies that have a governance framework in place," says Brian Cleary, marketing chief at OpenPages, a vendor of software that helps firms comply with regulations.

The new controls can give management a sharper spotlight on operations and potential problems, he says. "Some companies are actually realizing tangible benefits."

In short, the higher costs and increased complexity and bureaucracy of internal accounting are generally more than offset by the advantages given to managers who more quickly and accurately identify problems and have the opportunity to correct them. The advantages also extend to better knowledge of how effective attempts to correct problems are. There is less guessing, and more decisions made based on reliable and accurate information.

[Addendum April 15, 2006:] Another point is that the better internal information should assist companies to produce and sell new and improved products. This adds to revenue, rather than lowering costs. But it is also something that financial records don't predict well. This is speculation on my part, but I am willing to bet that it will be shown to be true over time. [/Addendum]

This is good news for American businesses.

Alright. For those of you who slept through this subject, you may now wake up and move on.

The were-rabbit attacks!

I don't care what YOU think. I think this is funny.

Though on second thought, is this a result of global warming?

Right wing politicians are dangerous

John Hooper of The Guardian writes that while Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's conservative party is expected to lose in the upcoming elections, there are indications that Berlusconi will not abide by the results of the election and leave office.

My immediate reaction is to hope that this is not the case. My second reaction is to note the many similarities between Bush and Berlusconi and wonder how far such disturbing speculations might also be appropriate here in the U.S. Consider the report I wrote about previously titled Bush makes plan to extend Presidency.

Can we really trust a "President" who directed the leak of classified material from the National Intelligence Estimate in order to discredit his political opponents, then tells the American people that he doesn't approve of leaks, doesn't know who did it, and will fire any member of the White House who leaked classified material? I don't think so.

Senator Feingold's proposed Censure motion simply doesn't go far enough. Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Bob Ray Sanders wrote today that he previously thought that America was at war and not at this time ready to go through the distraction of an impeachment, even for a President who has clearly illegally conducted illegal wiretaps on American citizens. Today Sanders writes that he has changed his mind. Bush needs to be removed from office before he further damages America.

I agree. Bush is a danger to America and needs to be impeached and removed from office before America really loses its way.

Dan Brown wins in copyright lawsuit

Good news! A British High Court Judge has decided for Dan Brown in the copyright lawsuit brought against him by two historians who alleged that he "stole" the ideas from their book The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail.

I haven't understood why the case was even accepted by the Court. It is my understanding that the words and treatment used to convey a set of ideas can be copyrighted, but that the ideas themselves cannot. Or to say it another way, ideas are themselves public property. An author has ownership rights only in the specific words and treatment he created to present a set of ideas.

Had the historians won, that would seem to me to be a broad expansion of the copyright law, and have made research into ideas someone else published extremely difficult to publish.

Fortunately the Judge who made the decision appears to have read the law and understood what it meant. Since the historians will have to pay the legal expenses Dan Brown's publisher incurred, they are out about $1.4 million with this decision.

I approve.

[From The Guardian.]

How to catagorize Republican criminals

Empty Wheel makes the point:

"...the Republicans are a bunch of criminals, or at least accused criminals. Abramoff, Cunningham, Tony Rudy, the NH phone-jammers found guilty; Libby, Tom Noe, Safavian, Ken Lay, Claude Allen, Brian Doyle and two more DHS perverts stand accused; Rove, Frist, DeLay, Santorum, Gale Norton under investigation. And that doesn't even count Dick getting off for his drunk and disorderly shooting accident."

The problem is that the list is so long that it has become difficult to keep them all straight.

Her solution is to assign the miscreants to categories. Here are EmptyWheel's suggestions (which I have reframed):

• the guys who approach elections as unrestricted warfare and don't mind breaking the law: Libby, Noe, DeLay, the phone jammers.
  
• the guys who just want to accumulate unlimited power or money and don't mind breaking the law. Abramoff, Cunningham, Lay, Santorum, and Rudy.
• the guys who break the law for some purely personal other reason. Allen, Fristie, Brian Doyle.

The common thread is a total disregard for the rule of law. The differences are motivation.

The question then must be asked - why are all these people in the Republican Party? What is it that attracts them there?

Read EmptyWheel and see if you think she explains it.

How long will the media keep pushing the"Hapless Democrats" narrative?

Kevin Drum asks when the media will catch up to the real story. The media keeps stating that the Democrats are disunited and unable to do anything in Congress, but look at the last year:

Consider. Democrats successfully killed a Social Security privatization plan that nearly everyone thought was a lock for passage. Harry Reid forced the Intelligence Committee to investigate prewar intelligence by shutting down the Senate. Nancy Pelosi worked shrewdly with Jack Murtha to give him the maximum possible attention for his pro-withdrawal message. (Yes, really.) George Miller single-handedly forced George Bush to rescind his suspension of the Davis-Bacon Act following Hurricane Katrina. And Chuck Schumer was the driving force behind criticism of the Dubai port deal.

These are real successes, not given to a party that is timid and disunited. So when does the media wake up and abandon that storyline?

DeLays' goons practice Brownshirt tactics

Republican goons at Tom DeLay's beck and call work to disrupt today's Press Conference by Nick Lampson. Here are pictures of the would-be Nazis.

Anyone besdies me remember an earlier similar incident during the 2000 Florida recount in which goons (in white shirts and ties) from Tom DeLay's Washington office entered the Miami government office and disrupted efforts to count the vote?

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[Thanks to TPM]

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Addendum
Remember the year 2000 Brooks Brothers Riot instigated by Bush's Republicans? Here is a precis to give details:

After the Miami “Brooks Brothers Riot” – named after the protesters’ preppie clothing – no government action was taken beyond the police rescuing several Democrats who were surrounded and roughed up by the rioters. While no legal charges were filed against the Republicans, newly released documents show that at least a half dozen of the publicly identified rioters were paid by Bush’s recount committee.

The payments to the Republican activists are documented in hundreds of pages of Bush committee records – released grudgingly to the Internal Revenue Service last month, 19 months after the 36-day recount battle ended. Overall, the records provide a road map of how the Bush recount team brought its operatives across state lines to stop then-Vice President Al Gore’s recount efforts.

The records show that the Bush committee spent a total of $13.8 million to frustrate the recount of Florida’s votes and secure the state's crucial electoral votes for Bush. By contrast, the Gore recount operation spent $3.2 million, about one quarter of the Bush total. Bush spent more just on lawyers – $4.4 million – than Gore did on his entire effort.

Extended Deadline

The new evidence was submitted by the Bush recount committee to the IRS under an extended deadline for disclosures of soft-money spending by so-called “527 committees,” which are not directly related to a candidate’s campaign. Bush lawyers had argued that they were not obligated legally to disclose how they had raised and spent their money.

The Bush committee finally reversed itself and filed the records on July 15. The records were released to the public on the IRS Web site in late July. Gore's committee submitted its records in line with the original IRS deadlines.

The documents show that the Bush organization put on the payroll about 250 staffers, spent about $1.2 million to fly operatives to Florida and elsewhere, and paid for hotel bills adding up to about $1 million. To add flexibility to the travel arrangements, a fleet of corporate jets was assembled, including planes owned by Enron Corp., then run by Bush backer Kenneth Lay, and Halliburton Co., where Dick Cheney had served as chairman and chief executive officer.

Only a handful of the Brooks Brothers rioters were publicly identified, some through photographs published in the Washington Post. Jake Tapper’s book on the recount battle, Down and Dirty, provides a list of 12 Republican operatives who took part in the Miami riot. Half of those individuals received payments from the Bush recount committee, according to the IRS records.

The Miami protesters who were paid by Bush recount committee were: Matt Schlapp, a Bush staffer who was based in Austin and received $4,276.09; Thomas Pyle, a staff aide to House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, $456; Michael Murphy, a DeLay fund-raiser, $935.12; Garry Malphrus, House majority chief counsel to the House Judiciary subcommittee on criminal justice, $330; Charles Royal, a legislative aide to Rep. Jim DeMint, R-S.C. $391.80; and Kevin Smith, a former GOP House staffer, $373.23.

Three of the Miami protesters are now members of Bush’s White House staff, the Miami Herald reported last month. They include Schlapp, who is now a special assistant to the president; Malphrus, who is now deputy director of the president’s Domestic Policy Council; and Joel Kaplan, another special assistant to the president. [See Miami Herald, July 14, 2002]

The Bush committee records show, too, that Bush’s operation paid for the hotel where the Republican protesters celebrated after the Miami riot at a Thanksgiving Day party. At the party, the activists received thank-you phone calls from Bush and Cheney, and were serenaded by crooner Wayne Newton, singing “Danke Schoen,” German for thank-you very much. [Wall Street Journal, Nov. 27, 2000; Consortiumnews.com's "W's Triumph of the Will"]

The IRS records show that the Bush recount committee paid $35,501.52 to the Hyatt Regency Pier 66 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where the party was held.

The House of Masquerades

A number of miscellaneous expenses, reported by the Bush recount committee, also appear to have gone for party items, such as lighting, sound systems and even costumes. Garrett Sound and Lighting in Fort Lauderdale was paid $5,902; Beach Sound Inc. in North Miami was paid $3,500; and the House of Masquerades, a costume shop in Miami, had three payments totaling $640.92, according to the Bush records.

The Brooks Brothers Riot – carried live on CNN and other networks – marked a turning point in the recount battle. At the time, Bush clung to a lead that had dwindled to several hundred votes and Gore was pressing for recounts. The riot in Miami and the prospects of spreading violence were among the arguments later cited by defenders of the 5-to-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Dec. 12, 2000, that stopped a statewide Florida recount and handed Bush the presidency.

Backed by the $13.8 million war chest, the Bush operation made clear in Miami and in other protests that it was ready to kick up plenty of political dust if it didn’t get its way.

A later unofficial recount by news organizations found that if all legally cast ballots in Florida had been counted – regardless of which kinds of chads were accepted, whether punched-through, hanging or dimpled – Gore would have won Florida and thus the presidency. Gore also won the national popular vote, defeating Bush by more than a half million votes, making Bush the first popular-vote loser in more than a century to be installed in the White House. [Consortiumnews.com's "So Bush Did Steal the White House"]

Across State Lines

The evidence also is clear that the Bush campaign organized the transportation of Republican activists across state lines into Florida. As early as mid-November, the Bush campaign called on activists to rush to Florida and promised to pay their expenses. “We now need to send reinforcements,” the Bush campaign said in an appeal to Republicans on Nov. 18, 2000. “The campaign will pay airfare and hotel expenses for people willing to go.” [See Tapper’s Down and Dirty.]

These reinforcements – many of them Republican staffers from Capitol Hill – added an angrier tone to the dueling street protests already underway between supporters of Bush and Gore. The new wave of Republican activists injected “venom and volatility into an already edgy situation,” wrote Tapper.

“This is the new Republican Party, sir!” Brad Blakeman, Bush’s campaign director of advance travel logistics, bellowed into a bullhorn to disrupt a CNN correspondent interviewing a Democratic congressman. “We’re not going to take it anymore!”

Around the country, the conservative media apparatus, led by talk show host Rush Limbaugh and pro-Bush pundits, rallied the faithful with charges that a hand recount was fraudulent and amounted to "inventing" votes.

This is from The Consortium.

Did you know Bush is again pushing HSA's?

Dan Froomkin asks "Is anyone paying attention to the president anymore?"

It seems that Bush is pushing Health Savings Accounts especially hard yesterday and today. Anyone heard that?

Except for Froomkin, I sure hadn't.

Froomkin goes on to point out that supposedly HSA's will squeeze health care prices lower because individuals will be more price conscious.

Yeah, right. More price conscious than the HMO's who tried for two decades to squeeze health care prices by squeezing doctors and restricting patient care? I don't think so.

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[Cross-posted from Social Security & Medicare Notes.]

Surprise! Tax cuts on dividends primarily go to super-wealthy.

When George W. Bush was out selling the tax cuts on dividends he tried to sell it by claiming that half the savings would go to elderly retirees. Now that Congress is considering making those tax cuts permanent, the New York Times has made a study of who actually got the benefits. Surprise! It hasn't been retirees.

An analysis of Internal Revenue Service data by The New York Times found that the benefit of the lower taxes on investments was far more concentrated on the very wealthiest Americans than the benefits of Mr. Bush's two previous tax cuts: on wages and other noninvestment income.

When Congress cut investment taxes three years ago, it was clear that the highest-income Americans would gain the most, because they had the most money in investments. But the size of the cuts and what share goes to each income group have not been known.

As Congress debates whether to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, The Times analyzed I.R.S. figures for 2003, the latest year available and the first that reflected the tax cuts for income from dividends and from the sale of stock and other assets, known as capital gains.


The analysis found the following:

• Among taxpayers with incomes greater than $10 million, the amount by which their investment tax bill was reduced averaged about $500,000 in 2003, and total tax savings, which included the two Bush tax cuts on compensation, nearly doubled, to slightly more than $1 million.

• These taxpayers, whose average income was $26 million, paid about the same share of their income in income taxes as those making $200,000 to $500,000 because of the lowered rates on investment income.

• Americans with annual incomes of $1 million or more, about one-tenth of 1 percent all taxpayers, reaped 43 percent of all the savings on investment taxes in 2003. The savings for these taxpayers averaged about $41,400 each. By comparison, these same Americans received less than 10 percent of the savings from the other Bush tax cuts, which applied primarily to wages, though that share is expected to grow in coming years.

• The savings from the investment tax cuts are expected to be larger in subsequent years because of gains in the stock market.

[Snip]

Because of the tax cuts, even the merely rich, making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, are falling behind the very wealthiest, particularly because another provision, the alternative minimum tax, now costs many of them thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars a year in lost deductions.

By contrast, few taxpayers with modest incomes benefited because most of them who own stocks held them in retirement accounts, which are not eligible for the investment income tax cuts. Money in these accounts is not taxed until withdrawal, when the higher rates on wages apply.

Those making less than $50,000 saved an average of $10 more because of the investment tax cuts, for a total of $435 in total income tax cuts, according to the computer model.

During last week's debate on whether to restore limits on the alternative minimum tax or make permanent the cuts in investment income taxes, House leaders chose as their spokesman Representative David L. Camp, a Michigan Republican. He said Republicans favored continuing investment tax cuts because that would help more people and would especially benefit those making less than $100,000.

"Nearly 60 percent of the taxpayers with incomes less than $100,000 had income from capital gains and dividends," he said on the House floor.

But I.R.S. data show that among the 90 percent of all taxpayers who made less than $100,000, dividend tax reductions benefited just one in seven and capital gains reductions one in 20.

Mr. Camp, who had said in an interview that his figures were correct, said Monday through a spokesman that he had been misinformed by the staff of the House Ways and Means Committee. But his office said he supported making the investment tax cuts permanent because cutting these rates was "good policy and good for our economy." [Snip]

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that making the investment tax cuts permanent would cost the government $197 billion over 10 years. But advocates of eliminating taxes on investments say there is no cost to the government because lowering taxes on such income encourages more investment, which should lead to more and higher-paying jobs. Taxes on wages from those jobs should more than offset the tax savings to investors, said Mr. Entin, an advocate of eliminating taxes on most investment income as a way of promoting economic growth.

However, the Congressional Research Service, an arm of Congress that analyzes issues, concluded in a January report that lower taxes on investment income may translate into lower savings because people need fewer investments to earn the same after-tax income. In another report, the research service showed how lower taxes on investment income can encourage investment outside the United States, creating jobs, but not for Americans.

The argument that lowering taxes on dividends will lead to more investment assumes that lack of investable funds currently limits investment. The fact is, there is plenty of investable money to fund investment. The problem is that the most profitable investments are outside the United States.

Nothing about the tax cuts on dividends assures that the money will either be invested, that it will be invested in the U.S. rather than other companies, or that the money will create new jobs.

There is also no indication that the tax cuts have had any effect on the U.S. economy. The mild increase in the U.S. GDP can instead be attributed to the normal cyclical recovery augmented by the extremely low interest rates the Federal Reserve maintained until 2004. The increase in the GDP also has NOT provided enough new jobs for the increased population entering the work force. The result has been a decrease in the workforce participation rate.

The tax cuts on dividends should not be made permanent. The nasty effects of the federal deficit will soon swamp even the most rosy scenarios offered by those politicians who are buying their relection by starving the government of the money it must have to continue functioning.

An excellent roundup of DeLay Resignation news

For a really good roundup of the many, many news stories about Tom DeLays announced resignation, go read TPM Muckraker.

Paul Kiel and Justin Rood have done a very good job of collecting and commenting on the various stories. In fact, TPM Muckraker has been the best place I have found for all stories about the going of Tom DeLay.

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Addemdum 12:55 PM
I had previously overlooked this factoid which I just stumbled over in the Austin American Statesman.

Ironically, DeLay might have been able to avoid a lengthy, costly legal battle altogether.

He might never have been indicted had he not sat down for an on-the-record interview with prosecutors in August.

In trying to persuade them that as House majority leader, he was too busy to orchestrate a money-laundering scheme, he inadvertently gave them evidence that led to his indictment. He was then forced to give up his leadership post after the indictments.

Why did DeLay wait 'til now to announce his resignation?

The Washington Post has what will probably be the definitive article explaining Tom DeLay's motivation and timing for waiting until after the Texas Republican Primary to announce his resignation, yet still not going on to run for reelection in the Fall.

The short answer is that he wants to leave the Congressional District in Republican hands. But he felt that none of his Republican opponents in the Primary were acceptable as his replacement, so he ran in the Republican Primary to beat them. By carefully timing his resignation, he is able to name his replacement on the ballot for the Fall election.

The Election this Fall was going to be difficult. DeLay is aware that he has very high negatives in the District and there is a strong Democratic opponent (ex-Congressman Nick Lampson) who offers the voters in the District a good choice in opposition to the politically damaged incumbent. Although the District went for Bush by 64% in Fall of 2004, it reelected DeLay by only 55% over an unknown Democratic opponent. Clearly DeLay was already having problems in his district even before his legal problems began piling up so badly. Since polls show that 80% of the voters in the district have already made up their minds about whether or not to vote for Tom DeLay, reelection against Nick Lampson was going to be very expensive, perhaps as high as $10 million, and the chance of being defeated even after spending the money was still high. That is money he is very likely to need for legal fees.

Tom DeLay appears to have his legal problems in mind. He stated that he decided on Wednesday, March 29th to resign, but then he also sent out another fundraising appeal to his supporters late Thursday, March 30th. (source: TPM Muckraker) This suggests that Tom is building his campaign funds with the intention of converting them to his Legal Defense Fund when he resigns.

By delaying his resignation to late May or June there is not enough time remaining prior to the Fall election for Texas Governor Rick Perry to call for a special election to replace Tom DeLay. The law requires that DeLay's name remains on the ballot for the Fall unless he dies, is convicted of a felony or moves out of the district. He says he intends to move legally to Virginia in May or June. (Source: TPM Muckraker) This timing throws the choice of who the Republicans will run in the Fall election to the Republican party officials and precinct chairmen in his district.

In short, Tom's announcement that he will resign from Congress is very carefully crafted to get the best possible set of choices he can from the situation. If nothing else, it is an excellent display of how a top-flight politician makes complicated decisions.

The argument against military attack on Iran

Anyone considering a military attack on Iran needs to read this essay by Steve Clemons.

Social Security annual report is late

The Social Security Administration is required to publish its annual report each year not later than April 1. It is now April 4th, no report and there is no idea when one will be published. (Matt Yglesias at TPM Cafe.) This is extremely suspicious.

The Social Security Act requires the publication of the Social Security Trustees Report to Congress by April 1 of each year. (The relevant provision can be found here.) Here is what it says:

SEC. 201. [42 U.S.C. 401] (c)(2)
(2)[11] Report to the Congress not later than the first day of April of each year on the operation and status of the Trust Funds during the preceding fiscal year and on their expected operation and status during the next ensuing five fiscal years;

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(Atrios reported the legal deadline here and provided the link I reported above.)

[Cross-posted from Social Scurity & Medicare Notes]

Poetry, anyone?

Here' a little poetry about Hillary Clinton:

Unelectable
That's what you are
Unelectable
As Roseanne Barr (/William Maher/Jamie Farr/Darren Starr)

Men who fear their wives
Would run from you
Wives who loathe their lives
Make fun of you

Click through to The Huffington Post for the rest.

For all the reasons Ellis Weiner describes, I will NOT take the action he says in the last stanza that he will.

The end [of America as Superpower] is coming

I find Kevin Phillip's final paragraph in his Washington Post article especially chilling. The U.S. is rapidly heading towards a set of problems which history shows are the end of international superpowers.

Unfortunately, three of the preeminent weaknesses displayed in these past declines have been religious excess, a declining energy and industrial base, and debt often linked to foreign and military overstretch. Politics in the United States -- and especially the evolution of the governing Republican coalition -- deserves much of the blame for the fatal convergence of these forces in America today.

Kevin Phillips has a good record as a modern American political historian, and his analysis extends trends which I have previously discussed in this magazine.

I strongly recommend
Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000

as well as
American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century

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Kennedy's book describes the broad historical trend, and Phillip's book shows how the trend is more and more being demonstrated in detail by America.

Billmon does it again.

In a very short post, Billmon quotes from Kevin Phillips new book and compares it to what was written in the past that said much the same thing.

You can order "American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century." by clicking through the link on the right side of this web magazing.

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From Kevin Phillips in The Washington Post

Now that the GOP has been transformed by the rise of the South, the trauma of terrorism and George W. Bush's conviction that God wanted him to be president, a deeper conclusion can be drawn: The Republican Party has become the first religious party in U.S. history.

Dr. Who to show in U.S. again

Great News, Americans

The new Dr. Who episodes will be shown on U.S. TV. The SciFi Channel has picked up the revived Dr. Who and is expected show them at 9:00 PM Friday nights.

Obviously the American showings will be of last years' British shows.

From The Register.

If you don't know why this is Great News, then you simply do not understand good TV Science Fiction. You have my symnpathies.