Times of London ...
MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.
The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.
More here ...
--Josh Marshall
Perhaps this shouldn't surprise me; but it does. Sen. Mel Martinez (R) of Florida yesterday gave a partial endorsement of Sen. Biden's call to shutdown the prison camp (let's call it what it is) at Guantanamo Bay.
Martinez isn't a senator like Hagel or McCain. He's Bush's former HUD secretary. And he was elected, more or less, as a Bush proxy.
I'm not sure I have anything to add at the moment to the growing chorus of outrage at what we've collectively allowed to happen just off our shores. But there is some mix of grim appropriateness and shameful symmetry to the fact that we've chosen the one piece of territory in the Americas free of free elections, civil rights and civil liberties to build our own human rights free zone.
--Josh Marshall
I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I hadn't heard of this book before today. But it's one I'm certainly interested in reading and one I imagine a lot of TPM Readers would be too. Please note, I have not read the book yet. So I can't say it's a recommendation per se. But I want to bring it to your attention.
It's called The Plot Against Social Security : How the Bush Plan Is Endangering Our Financial Future. And it just came out in May.
It's by Michael Hiltzik, a business columnist for the LA Times.
Here's part of what Publishers Weekly said about it ...
A Pulitzer Prize–winning financial journalist for the Los Angeles Times, Hiltzik gathers arguments made by a plethora of economists and skeptics into a comprehensive, biting critique of the privatization agenda and what he calls the "astroturf" alliance of right-wing ideologues, Wall Street opportunists and Republican political operatives that "aims to propagate, and then exploit, public ignorance." Prophecies of the Social Security trust fund's bankruptcy, he finds, are based on dubious and politically biased forecasts; more realistic projections have the trust fund growing nicely over the next 75 years. Even if doomsayers' predictions come true, he notes, the system's solvency can be safeguarded by straightforward fixes; simply lifting the cap on Social Security taxes—thus taxing high-income workers at the same rate as everyone else—would make up Bush's projected shortfall and then some, he says.
Sounds about right to <$NoAd$> me.
Late Update: TPM Reader DE sent in this note this morning: "I just finished reading The Plot Against Social Security, and it is an excellent book. A good background on the origins of the program, some depth on the phony assumptions that go into the pessimistic forecasts, what's behind the push for privatization, and some suggestions for truly helping social security. An easy and very educational read."
Later Update: And now TPM Reader NG chimes in: "Hiltzik's columns in the LATimes are uniformly excellent--he's been a must-read for me ever since he covered the supermarket strikes here. He deals with workers with real understanding."
--Josh Marshall
This is interesting. You'll remember that a few months back three opponents of privatization went to one of the president's Bamboozlepalooza events and got tossed by someone who they were told was a Secret Service agent, even though they did nothing to disrupt the event in any way.
(It later emerged that the reason they were ejected was that they came in a car with a 'No Blood for Oil' bumper sticker.
To the best of my knowledge no one now disputes the fact that the three did nothing to merit ejection, even by the most draconian and Bush-true standards of president-fealty. And politicians of both parties in Colorado have condemned what happened.
The three involved as well as their supporters have been trying to find out since March just who the official was who ejected them, what the justification was and who he worked for.
At this point, the Secret Service has confirmed that the person in question did not work for them. And the White House has conceded that Mr. X was working as a volunteer for the White House. Both know the identity of the man. But both refuse to divulge the who he is or reveal any more about what happened.
Here's a piece in today's Rocky Mountain News on the latest. And here's more from the Denver Post.
--Josh Marshall
First they came for SpongeBob.
Then lesbian-loving cartoon bunny Buster.
Now Big Bird.
And, of course, if you're part of the under 25 crowd, don't think they aren't gunning for Elmo too!
--Josh Marshall
Here's an important new development in the Social Security story.
According to this article by David Espo of the Associated Press, a group of senate Republicans met privately on Thursday to try to come up with a Republican consensus plan on a Social Security bill they can move through the Finance Committee and presumably on to the floor.
The key point: the plan under discussion not only jettisons private accounts, it seems also to jettison the key elements of the Bush Sorta-Pozen plan released little more than a month ago.
The devil would very much be in the details on this. But according to Espo, the plan under discussion would involve a gradual increase in the retirement age and a freeze, or near-freeze, in the annual wage-linked rise in benefits at retirement for upper-income earners.
Again, Espo's description is less precise than you'd want it to be to know exactly what was discussed. But what he seems to be saying is that unlike the early-May Bush plan (Bush Phase-Out 2.0?) which said it cut benefits for upper-income earners but actually cut them for almost everyone, this plan would really only cut them for upper-income earners.
To my reading, this sounds very much like the phase-out death rattle, the phase of a legislative struggle -- grimly reminiscent for some of us of late 1994 -- in which a doomed legislative initiative rapidly de-evolves into more and more pitiful and anemic forms of its original self before finally disappearing into thin air -- perhaps with not a few of its champions going 'poof' along with it.
--Josh Marshall
Nothing more tasty on a summer day than a good mad-cow-burger. Take a look here at what we may be eating and why.
--Josh Marshall
Yesterday a number of blogs seized on an article by Ken Bazinet in the Daily News as an example that President Bush was cutting loose private accounts and refocusing his energy on achieving 'solvency' in Social Security with steep benefit cuts.
It seemed to me that they were over-interpreting what the article or Bush actually said. What Bush actually said was that "you can solve the solvency issue without personal accounts." And it seems to me he's given different versions of that statement a number of times over the last two or three months.
But my point here is not to get into an argument about what that comment meant. Atrios and others may well be right. And important political shifts are often signaled by seemingly inconsequential statements.
But regardless of whether they're right in this case, Bush probably will eventually pivot in just this direction. So it makes sense to air the issue now.
Basically, as long as everyone has an accurate understanding of the big picture, I don't see why the defenders of Social Security should be worried by such a shift in direction from the president.
The thinking is that Democrats, having invested so much political and rhetorical energy in opposing 'privatization' will now be faced with a president who says, in so many words, 'I'm not for privatization or private accounts. You've got no beef with me. I'm just for solvency.'
But this is a case where simply going back to the basic facts of the matter helps clarify the debate.
What President Bush wants is to phase out Social Security. That isn't just rhetoric or words designed to put the other side off their footing. It's really the truth of the matter. Social Security is a social insurance program with guaranteed benefits for Americans when they retire -- benefits of a level to provide a baseline of support in old age. The very concept offends the president, as it does many of his supporters. The key is guarantees, which are the essence of security.
Privatization was the first and most obvious way to phase out Social Security. If privatizing doesn't work, he may try just going at it directly -- not just by cutting benefits, per se, but by cutting the rate at which Social Security keeps up with the actual costs of living in the United States. And that distinction is key since over time it will be whittled down to nothing.
In other words, it will be phased out, perhaps not entirely, but close enough as to make it an irrelevancy. Then people will be on their own in retirement, much as they were seventy-five years ago, before there was Social Security.
Like many people who share President Bush's ideological viewpoint, Social Security was always a bad thing. It's just taken time to find a convenient way to get rid of it.
The search for 'solvency' is simply a dodge. For starters, President Bush wants to lock in steep cuts now based on pessimistic projections of Social Security's future finances. Needless to say, if the projections are wrong, the benefits won't be restored. But 'solvency' is a dodge on an even deeper level.
If I run a business and I'm not bringing in enough money to pay expenses, solvency can easily be restored by just closing down my office and ceasing to sell anything. Then my inflows and outflows will be equal because I'll be out of business. Similarly, if I'm not making enough to send my children to the best schools or give them the best medical care, I can solve that problem by pulling them out of school and just giving them aspirin. Then the shortfall is solved.
Admittedly, these are blunt examples. But they illustrate the point: any discussion of 'solvency' is meaningless outside of the context of the aim or project you are trying to make solvent.
President Bush says there's a problem, that there may not be funds to pay everyone's benefits in the 2040s. His solution: cut their benefits. That way we'll be able to pay the full benefits because they'll be smaller. Problem solved.
This is the essence of his solution.
And that doesn't even get into the fact that he doesn't want to pay back the money already borrowed from the Trust Fund to fund his tax cuts among other things.
Privatization is a means to the president's end: phasing out Social Security. I'm sure he's willing to try any number of ways to get there. The other side wants to preserve Social Security. That's the debate. Nothing has changed that.
--Josh Marshall
I'm hearing more and more from readers on the evolving 'Coingate' scandal in Ohio. Honestly, I'm way behind on it. But I'd like to know more. To help me and other readers come up to speed on the story, I'm getting a discussion started over at the Republicans discussion table at TPMCafe. If you're interested, see this post.
--Josh Marshall
As some long-time readers know, I was born in Missouri. So I was pleased to receive a note from a reader today pointing my attention to these pictures from a big anti-privatization rally from last Thursday which greeted President Bush when he came to town for a fundraiser for Sen. Jim Talent (R).
--Josh Marshall
Turns out there are all sorts of opportunities to vote with your feet on Social Security today -- at least if you're in Washington. Right now Social Security partisans are protesting in front of the Capital Hilton where President Bush is about to arrive to give a speech in favor of phasing out Social Security and replacing it with unsecured private accounts.
--Josh Marshall
A new member of the Conscience Caucus. Actually, he says he's Loud & Proud in his opposition to phasing out Social Security: Rep. Jim Gerlach (R) of Pennsylvania.
--Josh Marshall
We hear there may be some folks planning a counter-protest to take on the 'protest' sponsored by 'Social Security for All' this afternoon outside the Rock The Vote awards dinner. If you want more information on the company behind the group -- oil and petrochemical giant, Koch Industries -- see this page at the Center for Public Integrity.
Also, apparently the Young Americans for Phase-Out (aka, Social Security for All) are going to have their protest against Rock the Vote's support for Social Security at 5:30 this afternoon in front of the National Building Museum at the corner of 4th and G in DC.
If I weren't a couple hundred miles away (give or take) I'd show up and add my pro-Social Security voice to the mix. Actually, come to think of it, at 36 I may not count as youth any more. But if I were under 35 and in DC, I'd be there!
And I lived in DC for long enough to know there are plenty of pro-Social Security folks under 35 who could easily be at 4th and G at 5:30 in the afternoon.
So why not?
The best thing to do with these bozos is not to get into back and forth chants with them, but to participate in the festivities themselves and outnumber them. Of course, maybe you could bring a can of oil just to show you know where they're comin' from. But no more than that.
So if you're interested in showing up for the pre-event festivities, drop us a line and we'll try to post more relevant information.
Late Update: We've heard from a number of you who want to show up at 5:30 PM this afternoon. My understanding is that there will be various pre-dinner festivities and probably a bunch of celebs showing up on a red carpet and possibly even some tickets left for the after-party. But the main thing is show up and show support for Social Security and opposition to the phase-out crowd yipping and hollering across the street. And, oh yeah, bring a can of oil if you can. Make the Social Security for All folks feel at home.
--Josh Marshall
I don't think the Bush adminsitration needed a lot of convincing not to sign the Kyoto global warming treaty. But this is the lede in a piece just out from The Guardian: "President's George Bush's decision not to sign the United States up to the Kyoto global warming treaty was partly a result of pressure from ExxonMobil, the world's most powerful oil company, and other industries, according to US State Department papers seen by the Guardian."
--Josh Marshall
Someone (TPM Reader NE) sent me this link to a comment at Redstate.org encouraging people to come to a protest of Rock The Vote at the group's annual awards dinner tonight. It's sponsored, of course, by the new privatization astroturf group -- Social Security for all -- the one put together by Koch Industries other DC outlet, Americans for Progress.
In the post it says that Rock The Vote is hypocritical because they're against phasing out Social Security when in fact young people are in favor of phasing out Social Security.
So they're hypocrites -- unlike the renta-activists from Social Security for All.
Now, do young people really support phasing out Social Security? I'm not so sure about that. A lot of this turns on how the questions are worded. Asking generically about investing Social Security money in the stock market, without mentioning the risks or costs involved, polls pretty respectably -- now minority support, but substantial minority support.
But for months when pollsters have asked whether voters support 'the Bush plan on Social Security' the numbers are overwhelmingly against -- even among the youngest voters, though they tend to be more supportive than older voters.
There's a similar difference when the question is asked in context. Again, privitization polls terribly.
Point being, it's really not at all clear that young voters support privatization.
But what interested me more about the logic behind Social Security for All is that by their reasoning none of the pro-phase-out groups should exist at all. The public overwhelmingly opposes the Bush plan -- the old, the middle-aged, the young, probably even the young-at-heart, though they're harder to sample for.
So I guess that means that all the pro-phase-out groups should cease to exist for being such hypocrites.
Which phoney-baloney privatization astroturf group will be the first to drink the hemlock?
--Josh Marshall
Okay, we're still working through all the information from readers about Americans for Prosperity and their astroturf offshoot, Social Security for All.
They've been assigned the task of mauling Rock the Vote because RTV has been an effective part of the coalition of groups trying to prevent the White House from phasing out Social Security.
To that end, AforP created yet another group called 'Rock The Hypocrisy' to attack Rock The Vote for being too partisan.
Now, when it comes to AforP, 'partisan' is quite a word of derogation.
Like I said, we'll have more information for you tomorrow on this. But the best we can tell Americans for Prosperty is the political arm of Koch Industries (i.e., a front) which the Koch family uses to aid conservative causes in general and stuff the Bush White House wants done in particular. (Koch Industries is a big oil, chemical and mining mega-corporation.) Folks seem to go from Koch Industries Washington lobby shop to Americans for Prosperity or back and forth from the White House on a pretty regular basis. And when you look even closer you'll see that they're all also tied in with Citizens for a Sound Economy, another spawn of the Koch family, which was essentially the predecessor of AforP.
Take Wayne Gable, for instance. He is a member of the board of directors of Americans for Prosperity. He's currently the managing director of Federal Affairs -- i.e., the lobby shop -- of Koch Industries, Inc.
Before that he was president of Citizens for a Sound Economy.
Nancy Mitchell Pfotenhauer is now the president of Americans for Prosperity. Before that she was the head of the lobby shop for Koch Industries. Before that she was executive vice president or Citizens for a Sound Economy.
Running AforP today must not take too much time because she's also president of the Independent Women's Forum. But it probably helps that both organizations are run out of the same office.
Look into the inner-workings of Citizens for a Sound Economy, Americans for Prosperity, the Independent Women's Forum and you'll see it's pretty hard to see where one group starts and another stops. They just all seem to lead back to Koch Industries, run by the Koch brothers.
(Bonus Koch Trivia: The father of the Koch borthers, Fred Koch, was a founder of the John Birch Society.)
As you might have expected with this new phoney-baloney Social Security group, it's one more astroturf group set up by a major corporation with close ties to the White House, spinning off more and more bogus groups to game overworked reporters into thinking they represent actual constituencies.
That, and to keep Dick Armey on the payroll for his 'consulting' services.
(ed.note: Research by Kate Cambor.)
--Josh Marshall
NYTimes: "A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents. In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved."
--Josh Marshall
You may remember that John Edwards got pulled into the recent flap over Howard Dean's remarks about Republicans and their ... well, work habits. Edwards has a follow-up on the whole situation in a post on the blog at his One America Committe website.
--Josh Marshall
Can she tell us where she stands on phasing out Social Security?
Today Katherine Harris (R), in her continuing and remarkably rapid climb up the greasy pole of public office, announced she was running next year for the senate seat currently held by Sen. Bill Nelson (D).
Nelson has turned out to be an adamant supporter of Social Security. And you'd imagine that in Florida of all places phasing out Social Security is a salient issue.
But Harris has never given a clear answer on whether she supports phase-out or not. We have her listed in our Conscience Caucus with the FIW (Finger in the Wind) designation for her shifting positions.
I would think she'll have to stake out some clear position on phase-out now.
--Josh Marshall
Over at TPMCafe today I discussed some of the implications of the so-called Downing Street Memo. And Thinkprogress gives their run-down here.
--Josh Marshall
As per the previous post we're getting all sorts of information coming in about Americans for Prosperity and their new orders to take down groups that oppose phasing out Social Security.
We'll try to put a lot of it together for later today.
For now, they also seem to be the ones who were behind this apparently-now-abandoned anti-AARP site from earlier this year.
And just how does former House Majority Leader and arch-phase-out man Dick Armey fit in to the picture?
In 2003, the last year for which records are available, AfP paid Armey $429,583 for 'consulting' services.
Some consulting ...
--Josh Marshall
Here's an intersting project.
Rock The Vote has been a real thorn in the side of the pro-phase-out crowd in Washington, DC -- the Bushes, the Roves, the Santorums, the sundry Norquists, et al.
So they seem to have set up one of their standard brass-knuckle operations to bloody the RTV folks up to get rid of an obstacle in the way of their phasing out Social Security.
The chop-shop du jour is an outfit called Social Security for All. SSA is "run" by Americans for Prosperity. And Americans for Prosperity also has a new project called Rock the Hypocrisy, which actually sounds a bit more like a project of SSA, seeing as it's run as a subdirectory off the SSA website.
But I digress.
Back to our aforementioned project: Who or what is Americans for Prosperity?
According to this page at the Center for Media and Democracy's Source Watch website, it was essentially set up as a pet 501c3 of Koch Industries and then 'colocated' with the Independent Women's Forum, with which it also seems to share a rather substantial number of staffers. (They share a president and a COO, for starters.)
In any case, this is the long march phase of the battle to end Social Security. They'll dig in and tear away at the defenders of the program, figuring they can outlast them.
Now, politics is a contact sport, as they say. So I don't think anyone's complaining. But, to my eyes, this group has all the earmarks of a classic 'astroturf' outfit. And I suspect we'd find all the usual suspects involved -- of course, along with a gaggle of twenty-something ne'er-do-wells ready to make a couple bucks in rent-a-crowds and probably more than a few operatives looking to get their ticket stamped in the DC machine so they can move up a couple rungs on the ladder.
So let's find out.
A few thousand eyes are a whole lot better for finding out what these folks are up to than just these two. So, if you're game, take a few moments and try to find out more about these groups. What they're up to? Who's behind them? What have they been planning and so forth? And let us know what you find out. Send emails to socsecturfers@talkingpointsmemo.com. We'll be giving out TPM Privatize This! T-Shirts for folks who come up with particularly choice details.
The phase-out crowd didn't get knocked on its heels out of the blue. A lot of folks worked awfully hard to do it. So let's find out who's trying to get revenge and recover lost ground.
--Josh Marshall
Our friend Noah Shachtman has a bizarre and unsettling story up on his DefenseTech blog about a Los Alamos whistleblower who was beaten senseless over the weekend by a group of thugs who apparently told him he'd better keep his mouth shut as they were knocking him around. I'm not quite sure what to make of this and I don't know much of the backstory. But I do know Noah. He follows this stuff pretty closely and he knows his stuff. So I pass it on on that basis.
--Josh Marshall
Contrary to almost everyone else who's ever reported on the matter, Rep. Tom DeLay claimed that he saw no evidence of sweatshops, forced labor or forced abortions when he went on a junket to Saipan in the mid '90s. Now a filipino woman who worked there at the time has come forward to say that she can attest to it all first-hand and that DeLay must not have been looking very hard.
Just to provide a little backstory on this, back in the day (that is, the day(s) when DeLay was there) garment factories could import cloth and workers to Saipan to work in the island's garment factories free of US labor laws, minimum wage laws and tariffs. Then they could ship the stuff off with "Made in the USA" labels.
DeLay was there courtesy of Jack Abramoff to fight the good fight against efforts to make the garment industry on the island come into line with US labor laws.
--Josh Marshall
Steve Clemons has some new details about what was contained in one of those John Bolton NSA intercepts. Apparently the intercept was of Asst. Secretary of State William Burns and turned on US dealing with Libya -- after Bolton himself had been dropped from the team dealing with the matter.
This looks interesting.
--Josh Marshall
So following up on the post below, is it really true, as Thomas Beaumont of the Des Moines Register says, that public support for private accounts has been gradually increasing?
The short answer is, no. Not even close. But there's a bit more to the story.
PollingReport.com has most of the relevant data available here. And as you can see pretty clearly, across the board support for private accounts is lower now than it was when President Bush got started on this last December. In fact, in most cases, back then private accounts had at least plurality support when the question was asked, just private accounts, yes or no, without noting the loss of guaranteed benefits that inevitably go with them.
A couple of the polls, however, do show either a very small or even statistically insignificant bounce back for private accounts in the late spring.
For instance, here are the numbers over the last six months for the CBS poll's generic, private accounts question.
May For 47 Against 47 N/O 6
April For 45 Against 49 N/O 6
February For 43 Against 51 N/O 6
January For 45 Against 50 N/O 5
November For 49 Against 45 N/O 6
That is the most pronounced example <$Ad$> of this pattern, while most of the others show continued deterioration. A few show entirely different patterns.
The ABC/WaPo poll, for instance, started 53% for and 44% against in December. It actually showed them even more popular (56% to 41%) in March. In late April, however, support was at 45% and opposition had bumped up to 51%.
It's also worth pointing out that these numbers are always much lower when pollsters add any information about the benefit cuts that go along with private accounts or the debt necessary to incurr to finance them. And general questions about "the Bush plan" continue to poll worse and worse.
My own hunch is that the decreased prominence of the debate may have buoyed the numbers for private accounts because a quick look at all the numbers seems to show that the numbers were the worst when the topic was garnering the most attention.
But even this slight uptick showing up in some polls bears watching.
--Josh Marshall
Saturday's Des Moines Register ran a piece on Sen. Grassley's first comments suggesting that he may not be able to get any Social Security phase-out bill through his committee this year.
What jumped out at me, though, was this passage ...
Bush says allowing workers younger than 55 to invest a portion of their tax in private accounts would provide a better return and allow them to pass the account on to heirs.And while public opinion polls have shown that a minority of Americans support Bush's handling of the issue, support for the concept of personal accounts has gradually increased, although no polls have shown a majority in favor of the idea.
"We are pleased with the progress Senator Grassley is making on Social Security," White House spokesman Allen Abney said. "The president is fully committed to <$Ad$>personal accounts."
What polls is he looking at?
I haven't watched the numbers as closely recently as I was earlier this year. But it's hard for me to believe this can be true if for no other reason than that the first polls in December and January actually showed narrow majority support for private accounts. Since the author of the piece, Thomas Beaumont, seems to agree that they don't show majority support now, I don't see how that can be a gradual increase.
Can any poll-watchers provide some guidance on this one?
--Josh Marshall
Martin Shram has an Oped in Newsday today ("Nixon's Henchman Lecture Us on Ethics"), which pulls together in one nice bundle the festival of self-inflicted media bamboozlement that was last Tuesday, when the various Watergate crooks got together to give us all a lesson on ethics and tell us why Mark Felt was the lowest of the low.
Here's one delicious <$NoAd$> graf ...
"I was shocked because I worked with him closely," Colson said on MSNBC. "And you would think the deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, you could talk to with the same confidence you could talk to a priest." Then on CNN: "I was shocked, because ... I talked to him often and trusted him with very sensitive materials. So did the president. To think that he was out going around in back alleys at night looking for flowerpots, passing information to someone, it's . . . not the image of the professional FBI that you would expect."
This is a good one. Take a look.
--Josh Marshall
Over at Early Returns, Kenny Baer's blog at TPMCafe, Kenny notes a poll just put out by the new group Third Way, which claims to show that the Democrats have lost the support of the American middle class, notwithstanding the fact that the Dems claim to be the party of the middle class.
But this sounding strikes me as telling us much less than it claims to say.
For instance, given the expansive terms by which we in the US define "the middle class", any party that loses a national election pretty much by definition loses the middle class simply because it's close to impossible to win a national election if you don't win the middle class.
The study goes on to say that the Dems' weakness with the middle class is obscured by their disproportionate strength among African Americans. But, as I've said before, aren't blacks voters too? I've never quite understood this sort of formulation.
The simple fact is that Democrats haven't been able to win a majority in either house of Congress for more than a decade. So clearly they've got to wring more voters from somewhere in order to become the majority party again. But this way of slicing and dicing the numbers seems inherently misleading.
--Josh Marshall
