“Indiana’s drive for growth and reform was car bombed yesterday by the Indiana House minority.” — Mitch Daniels, 3/2/05
Breaking News: White House Backtracks on Social Security Plan
The White House may finally be bowing to the wishes of the American public and moving away from its ill-advised push for privatizing social security. According to Congressional Quarterly:
Treasury Secretary John W. Snow indicated Wednesday that the White House would accept a Social Security overhaul that does not divert the program’s payroll taxes into personal retirement accounts, a major shift in the administration’s position.
Asked if there were any possibility that the administration would support so-called “add-on” accounts, with funding coming from sources other than the payroll tax, Snow stated:
“My preference would be for the sort of proposal we’ve put forward. On the other hand, we’re prepared to engage people.”
More as this develops.
Democracy Hypocrisy: Asking the Right Questions
Though officials were “careful not to gloat,” the Washington Times reports that the White House was “heartened by the speed with which President Bush’s foreign policy of introducing liberty to the
The actual question at hand — Does the war in Iraq have anything to do with recent regional political developments? — is similar to the false “debate” about whether the world is better off with Saddam Hussein out of power. Considered in a vacuum, everyone answers yes. The actually debatable questions were A) Were our goals in Iraq achieved honestly/ethically/legally/effectively? and B) Were the costs (including opportunity costs) of our strategy as low as they could have been? Regarding Iraq, the answers to all five questions were easy — emphatically, no.
Unfortunately, the same answers likely apply to the links between Iraqand
Shotguns At Show and Tell?
Don’t like the idea of hand grenades in elementary schools? Then stay out of Arizona. Yesterday, the Arizona House of Representatives voted for a firearm free-for-all, passing a bill which will let people “carry weapons — including guns, grenades, rockets, mines and sawed-off shotguns - into schools, polling places and nuclear plants if they claim they’re only trying to protect themselves.”
The legislation was the brainchild of Rep. Doug Quelland (R-Phoenix).
The problem? Quelland never actually read the legislation before pulling together support to get it passed. In an interview, Quelland said “he had no idea the legislation, crafted by constituents he wouldn’t identify, was so broad that it would provide a catchall exemption in the state’s weapons laws.”
Democracy Hypocrisy: Pandering to Pakistan
Yesterday, the Pakistani government solidly dismissed legislation “which sought to strengthen the law against the practice of ‘honour killing.’” There is nothing that is honorable about so-called honor killings, in which “a man can kill a woman, claiming that she brought dishonour to the family, and still expect to be pardoned by her relatives.” If the pardon is granted, the murderer becomes immune to any actions by the state; the victims of these crimes against humanity are disproportionately women who want to marry of their own free will. Though the Pakistani Law Minister claims there “is no need for further amendments in the country’s penal code,” last year’s supposed amendments left gaping loopholes when it came to dealing with a law that human rights organizations state “has been grossly misused and has contributed directly to an alarming increase in the practice.”
When hobnobbing with his “friend” President Musharraf of Pakistan, President Bush praised the Pakistani leader for a “clear vision of the need for people of goodwill and hope to prevail over those who are willing to inflict death in order to achieve an ideology that is — the predominance of an ideology that is just…dark in its view.” The statement is bold and the intent is there but it would be more convincing if President Bush had an equally harsh indictment for the continued practice of “honor killings” that take the lives of more than a thousand Pakistani women every year. Though even his own State Department acknowledges the horrific human rights abuses committed in Pakistan, President Bush continues to turn a blind eye to what is going on instead of demanding decency in the countries with which we ally ourselves.
TODAY AT 4PM: Ask the White House
As President Bush visits Maryland today to pay lip service to his record on job training and higher education, the White House website is soliciting questions for a discussion on job training that will be held today at 4 p.m. by the assistant secretary for employment and training in the Department of Labor. But President Bush has a dirty secret: to help fund his expensive tax breaks for the wealthy, in his most recent budget he actually slashed money from vital job training programs, college loans, vocational education, adult education and literacy programs. Instead of getting real education opportunities, under President Bush, millions of Americans now will lose out.
Let’s make sure that they aren’t getting Jeff Gannon-style softballs in this one! Let’s get some real answers:
After three years of freezing Pell Grants despite soaring tuition costs, will President Bush’s proposed $100 increase make a significant impact in the lives of students struggling to afford college?
If President Bush is truly committed to advancing our nation’s workforce, why does his 2006 budget propose cutting half a billion dollars out of federal job training funding?
Now it’s your turn, submit a question here.
Update: Read today’s Progress Report for more inspiration.
Scalia and Thomas: No One Unqualified For Execution
Yesterday, Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas voted to allow the execution of children to continue in America’s courts. The practice has been disavowed, since 1990, in human rights bastions such as Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria, Congo and China. Scalia and Thomas felt Texas, Oklahoma and Virginia did not deserve to be held up to the same standard.
This is not the first time Scalia and Thomas have stood up for stone age tactics in America’s criminal justice system:
In 2002, Scalia and Thomas supported executing the mentally retarded,
Also in 2002, Scalia and Thomas stood up for draconian measures against inmates, dissenting from a 6-3 decision to ban the Alabama practice of chaining prisoners to outdoor ”hitching posts” and abandoning them for hours without food, water, or a chance to use the bathroom. [Hope v. Pelzer, 2002]
Ten years earlier, In 1992, Scalia and Thomas seized their first chance to team up on behalf of brutality against prisoners. The Court considered a Louisiana inmate who “was shackled and then punched and kicked by two prison guards while a supervisor looked on.” The beating left the inmate “with a swollen face, loosened teeth and a cracked dental plate.” The Court ruled the inmate’s treatment violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, but Scalia and Thomas dissented, arguing the inmate had suffered “insignificant” harm. [Hudson v. McMillan, 1992]
Check out American Progress’s, “Ten Things President Bush Doesn’t Want You To Know About Scalia and Thomas,” for more on what a future America would look like under a Scalia Thomas Supreme Court.
Democracy Hypocrisy: Blame Canada
Canada’s decision on Thursday to opt out of missile defense was met with a sharp U.S. response.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice abruptly announced she was cancelling her planned trip to Canada next month, and U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci hysterically warned that by not signing on to the continental missile shield, Canada was “in effect giving up its sovereignty and would be ‘outside the room’ when the United States made a decision on whether shoot down an incoming missile.” Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin snapped back, “This is our airspace, we’re a sovereign nation and you don’t intrude on a sovereign nation’s airspace without seeking permission.”
Clearly, heads of state have a responsibility to discuss and debate policy differences. But does Canada really deserve such a caustic response given the clear — sometimes overwhelming — Canadian opposition to involvement in the missile shield as evidenced by virtually every public opinion poll? For such vocal proponents of democracy, the White House sure can get bent out of shape when a government takes the same position as the majority of its electorate.
