“The situation on the ground is worse than the images we project on television“

Sixty percent of Americans believe that the media is reporting things in Iraq either accurately or better than they really are. Just 29% approve of Bush’s handling of the Iraq war. But if you watched today’s “townhall” event with President Bush you’d never know it.

Towards the end of the event – which lasted over an hour and was extensively covered by all three cable networks — a woman launched into tirade against the media’s coverage of the Iraq war. She concluded that, if people knew the truth, they’d “never say another negative thing about this conflict again.” She recieved a standing ovation. Watch it:

The effect of these staged events is to give people a false impression of people’s attitudes about the President’s policies. The media seems happy to play along.

Transcript: Read more

“One doesn’t want to be accused of inhuman callousness; but I am willing to confess, and believe I speak for a lot of [Americans] that the spectacle of Middle Eastern Muslims slaughtering each other is one that I find I can contemplate with calm composure.” — National Review’s John Derbyshire. (Via AS)

Eleven of the men’s college basketball teams that have advanced to the Sweet Sixteen fail to meet the NCAA’s minimum academic standards. Eight of those teams are sponsored by Nike, who will profit as players sport their logo on national television.

Through our Graduation Madness campaign, ThinkProgress readers have sent thousands of emails to Nike demanding they take action to help ensure more college basketball players graduate. Thanks to your efforts, Nike has responded. Here’s an excerpt:

Thank you for correspondence regarding teams participating in NCAA’s basketball tournament failing to meet minimum academic standards…

[W]e are also aware of the diligent efforts made by all the NCAA-governed institutions to raise the graduation rate among student-athletes at their schools. We believe that school administrators and team coaches have made this issue a priority within their ranks, and are actively implementing programs that address this concern. Nike fully supports those efforts and the long-term goals of the NCAA. (Full response here)

Translation: everything is going fine and we don’t plan on doing anything. It’s easy to understand why Nike is satisfied with the status quo. This morning, the company announced it raked in $325.8 million in profit last quarter, up 19% from a year ago. Meanwhile, basketball players who don’t graduate from college can expect to earn just $27,915 a year.

If you haven’t already done so, act now and tell Nike to get off the academic sidelines. (If you’ve already acted, tell a friend.)

April 15th is less than a month away, and millions of Americans are breaking out their calculators and 1040s to slog through another year’s tax return (or hiring someone else to do it for them). H&R Block revenues from US tax operations in 2004 were $2 billion, and over 60 percent of returns were completed by a paid preparer.

Despite promises to tackle the issue, the administration has done nothing to improve the code, but has instead opted to bull forward with the same old policies that have done little to help the economy. The President’s tax reform panel released reform recommendations last year, but the panel’s co-chair, ex-Senator John Breaux, speculated that the recommendations “got put in a closet and they closed the door and they don’t know where it is.”

And despite years of being in control, congressional leaders have not pursued real reform – opting instead to cut rates primarily for the richest Americans. (Those with incomes over $1 million got an average tax cut of over $100,000 last year alone. How much did you get?).

To fill the tax reform void, the Center for American Progress is hosting a public conference to discuss tax reform — both comprehensive reform options as well as smaller changes to the tax code that would improve the system. Full details can be found here.

– John Irons

UPDATE: The IRS is quietly moving to let accountants “sell information from individual returns – or even entire returns – to marketers and data brokers.” Register your complaints with the IRS soon.

McCain talks tough on lobbying reform. From Fox News Sunday, 1/22/06:

[L]obbying is out of control. But the reason why the lobbying is out of control is because of the process, the system that prevails here on Capitol Hill”¦ We need to have the lobbying reform. We need to close those loopholes.

Behind the scenes, however, he is undermining efforts for meaningful lobbying reform in the Senate:

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., quietly submitted an amendment to the lobbying reform bill on the Senate floor March 9 that would cap donations to 527 groups… McCain’s move was a surprise, given that several senators had explicitly agreed to keep controversial 527 provisions out of the lobbying debate…Even pro-reform activists, who endorse tough new restrictions on 527 organizations, have testified that the 527 debate should be handled separately. They argue that dragging in 527-related provisions would complicate and undermine the lobbying reform effort.

McCain’s efforts to sideline lobbying reform by adding the “poison pill” of 527 regulation coincide with a aggressive push to raise money from lobbyists on K Street. Just a coincidence, I’m sure.