Uncommon Sense Archives - 03/2006
One day after the Defense Department completed an internal review of its $7 billion "prime vendor" program and found it "sound," the Defense Logistics Agency (responsible for procurements at DoD) quietly mentioned to Congress that it wasn't planning on renewing contracts over $800 million worth of purchases in June, after deciding they had overpaid for items. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Friday 1:03 PM | Permalink
On Wednesday, CongressDaily (sub. req'd.) reported that Sen. James Inhofe is pledging to give liability protection to the manufacturers of the gasoline additive MTBE. All Inhofe offered by way of explanation was "it has to be done." Why do oil companies need liability protection, I wondered? Oh yeah, MTBE is a major source of drinking water contamination and likely causes cancer. Why such a priority for Inhofe? Oh yeah, his biggest campaign contributors are the oil and gas industry. If only the Unpolluted Water Drinkers of America would form a PAC.
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday 5:20 PM | Permalink
Thanks to RawStory for posting a leaked PDF copy of the Democrats' new vision for national security, which will be officially released at a press conference midday. Unfortunately, about half of it reads upside down, but a quick scan of the legible part shows Democrats deserve praise for highlighting U.S. energy dependence issues and calling for the elimination of the "economic, social, and political conditions that allow extremism to thrive." Good start. But are the Democrats offering a full-blown vision that challenges the Bush paradigm? Do they dispute the notion, shared by many, that we're in the midst of a "long war" against "terror" or "ideologies of hatred"? We'll publish a full analysis on TomPaine.com later this week examining these and other questions.
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday 10:47 AM | Permalink
The ouster of Andrew Card as Bush's chief of staff wasn't a huge surprise, points out Wonkette. And it's not like Card's replacement Josh Bolten is going to bring in a fresh perspective or help pierce Bush's bubble. The Progress Report put together a nice overview of Bolten's career at OMB as seemingly indifferent to exploding deficits and loyal to his boss.
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday 2:26 PM | Permalink
Last week, Paul Waldman made a persuasive—and, for many, counterintuitive—argument on TomPaine.com about how South Dakota's abortion ban backs Republicans, especially 2008 presidential hopefuls, into a corner on reproductive rights. A piece published over the weekend in The Philadelphia Inquirer interviewed anti-choice conservative activists who conceded that the retrograde South Dakota law is pitting the Republican pragmatists against the zealots (my word, not theirs). [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday 12:18 PM | Permalink
The prosecution of two prominent AIPAC lobbyists for sharing classified information seemed the scariest issue at yesterday’s American Constitution Society discussion. Lawyers and reporters counted it more dangerous than Judith Miller’s imprisonment after refusing to name her sources or internal crackdowns at government agencies on whistleblowers and leaks. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Friday 1:08 PM | Permalink
Diebold, dubbed an "e-voting recidivist " by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, may soon be blocked from operating their voting machines in Maryland. Two weeks ago, the Maryland House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly to require paper ballots—not electronic voting machines—be used in this year's elections. The Maryland Senate will consider the measure any day now. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday 11:04 AM | Permalink
Yesterday's conviction of Sgt. Michael Smith bears close examination because of how it differs from earlier Abu Ghraib convictions. In the details perhaps lies the future fate of command responsibility for detainee abuse and a further blow to the “few bad apples” theory. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Wednesday 12:43 PM | Permalink
Raising the minimum wage won't guarantee economic security for America's families, but it's a good place to start. Sen. Ted Kennedy's annual effort to raise the federal minimum wage has become something you can count on in Washington, like hot summers. It always fails because of Republican opposition. They argue it will hurt small businesses, which evidence shows isn't the case in communities that recently passed a higher minimum wage. But the fate of Kennedy's bill could be different this year. Public support for a higher minimum wage has been growing—demonstrated by the fact that states and cities across the country are raising the minimum wage. And this year, Kennedy is tapping into the popular support for the measure by asking for citizen cosponsors for his bill. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Tuesday 12:17 PM | Permalink
Since the Bush administration invaded Iraq three years ago, the young Iraqi blogger known as Riverbend has gained attention for her chronicle of the war's impact on daily life and ordinary people in Baghdad. In her post reflecting on the third anniversary of the war, she offers a gloomy assessment of life in Iraq, saying, "I don’t think anyone imagined three years ago that things could be quite this bad today." [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Monday 11:26 AM | Permalink
It’s March Madness, baby . And on the heels of the much celebrated—and much gambled—NCAA tournament, a new ad campaign was announced yesterday. Not by Nike, or Adidas or Wilson. But by the American Council on Education. Yes, the American Council on Education, along with hundreds of colleges, is launching a new multi-year public campaign to raise awareness of the broad social benefits provided by higher education. The goal of the effort is to make people realize that colleges provide public benefits, not just private or individual ones. [more]
--Tamara Draut | Thursday 10:55 AM | Permalink
Democrats are talking about how Democrats should be talking about abortion. And it’s looking dire. Over the past several years we have watched the erstwhile left-wing party compromise on core values and grow increasingly reluctant to check the current administration’s recklessness. Now that the war on women’s rights has come to a head, it is distressingly clear that there is no party for choice. [more]
--Sandi Burtseva | Wednesday 12:24 PM | Permalink
There's a realization going around Washington these days. It goes something like this: If an administration gets elected by saying government is bad, it follows that they will appoint people who don't care about governing. Hurricane Katrina demostrated this in spades last year. But two stories this week illustrate just how endemic, and costly, this anti-government problem is at a strategic level. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Tuesday 1:24 PM | Permalink
If you carry a credit card and have a balance, you’ve probably learned first-hand that credit card companies are raising the monthly minimum payment required. The change stems from guidelines issued last year by the Office of the Currency of the Comptroller, one of the regulators of national banks and credit card companies. The new guidelines require credit card issuers to ensure the minimum monthly payment is high enough that it pays off some principal, not just finance charges and fees. [more]
--Tamara Draut | Monday 11:12 AM | Permalink
The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday about a shift underway in academia: making the tenure track more family-friendly. It may seem like a small development, but it’s actually quite seismic. [more]
--Tamara Draut | Friday 9:59 AM | Permalink
Jimmy Carter has, of late, been breaking the unwritten rule that former presidents shall not contradict sitting presidents on major issues of policy. He did it yesterday, when he called the Iraq War unjust, unnecessary and based on false pretenses. Today, the 2002 Nobel peace prize winner did it again, right here on TomPaine.com. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Thursday 12:38 PM | Permalink
In yesterday’s New York Times, an article pronounced “Whites to Be Minority in New York Area Soon.” While whites have been the minority in New York City for over two decades, the suburbs are now becoming more diverse, mirroring the demographic face of the city. This change has already occurred in Los Angeles, Miami and Houston. And by 2050, one-half of the US population will be Latino or non-white. [more]
--Tamara Draut | Wednesday 10:14 AM | Permalink
Two articles on TomPaine.com today make me wonder just how long the White House communications office can continue to convince Americans that terrorism, an asymetric political tactic, is the main threat facing the country. In our marquee slot, "The Coming Resource Wars," we have an analysis about U.K. Defense Secretary John Reid's admission last week that global warming is going to destabilize the international political order. Meanwhile in our News Worthy section, we have Reid's opposite number in the Pentagon, Don Rumsfeld, pushing a recent strategy paper by Newt Gingrich in which the arch-conservative assumes that it is ideology that is driving threats. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Tuesday 1:52 PM | Permalink
In dramatic letter carefully sent to Harry Reid at the end of the newscycle on Friday, ensuring that it has yet to be reported in a single major newspaper, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist threatened to re-write the rules of the Senate Intelligence Committee. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Monday 11:17 AM | Permalink
Editor's Note: While TomPaine.com editor Alexandra Walker is on vacation, we are delighted to have Tamara Draut as a guest blogger. Draut is director of the Economic Opportunity Program at Demos, where she oversees the research, policy and advocacy work on economic security issues. She is the author of STRAPPED: Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead. [more]
--Tamara Draut | Monday 9:13 AM | Permalink
Like the melting Antarctic ice sheets, the ground on which George W. Bush has to stand just receded even more. [more]
--Ethan Heitner | Friday 12:21 PM | Permalink
Good news from the Senate. Byron Dorgan and 25 others introduced a bill Thursday to clean up the business of government contracting. It takes its inspiration from the problems with Iraq and Katrina contractors, but applies to all contracting. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday 6:24 PM | Permalink
Over here at TomPaine.com we keep waiting for the ports "scandal" to die down. Not to die completely—there are some legit concerns—but to stop dominating the news as if it's the biggest threat facing our national security. Yet it's been a week and leading Dems—egged on by our liberal media friends like Buzzflash and ThinkProgress —are still hammering away at the story. If the topline message from Democrats were that this deal is another example of the White House ignoring its duty to consult Congress, or of Bush's rampant cronyism, or of the dangers of outsourcing vital government fuctions, or of outsourcing to quasi-dictatorships, then great. But as a national security concern, the Dems' alarm over ownership has been shown to be misplaced. As a political issue, it's revealing them to be hypocrites. All the while, hidden in plain sight, there's a real scandal that the port story is pushing off the front pages: the NSA warrantless wiretaps. [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Thursday 12:28 PM | Permalink
Just as the energy debate in Washington is focusing in on the question of our addiction and dependence, the world's scientific community is making sure we don't forget what some, like Tony Blair's science advisor, consider to be a bigger threat than terrorism: global warming. [more]
--Patrick Doherty | Wednesday 10:39 AM | Permalink
Today, the Supreme Court looks at the constitutionality of the Texas redistricting plan, pushed through in 2003. The coverage of the case gets right many important facts: it resulted in a gain of six Republican seats in the U.S. House of Representatives; it was opposed by career lawyers at DOJ, whose objections were overruled by Alberto Gonzales. But the media neglects to mention how the Bush White House was intimately involved in pushing the plan back in 2003 beyond Gonzales' support. Or that, now, the White House is one of the parties defending the plan to the Court. Recently, The Texas Observer's Lou Dubose sketched out on TomPaine.com what he calls the "campaign" to net the GOP more seats in the House: [more]
--Alexandra Walker | Wednesday 10:04 AM | Permalink
