A new Zogby poll shows President Bush's popularity continues to decline.
President Bush’s televised address to the nation produced no noticeable bounce in his approval numbers, with his job approval rating slipping a point from a week ago, to 43%, in the latest Zogby International poll. And, in a sign of continuing polarization, more than two-in-five voters (42%) say they would favor impeachment proceedings if it is found the President misled the nation about his reasons for going to war with Iraq.
The Zogby America survey of 905 likely voters, conducted from June 27 through 29, 2005, has a margin of error of +/-3.3 percentage points.
Just one week ago, President Bush’s job approval stood at a previous low of 44%—but it has now slipped another point to 43%, despite a speech to the nation intended to build support for the Administration and the ongoing Iraq War effort. The Zogby America survey includes calls made both before and after the President’s address, and the results show no discernible “bump” in his job approval, with voter approval of his job performance at 45% in the final day of polling.
If Bush pulled out of Iraq now he might be able to bounce back enough to prevent a big Republican Congressional loss in the November 2006 elections. Otherwise will the Democrats get control of the House in the next election?
Some people want to impeach Bush. But Dick "last throes" Cheney would replace him. Still, the impeachment might serve a useful purpose.
In a sign of the continuing partisan division of the nation, more than two-in-five (42%) voters say that, if it is found that President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should hold him accountable through impeachment. While half (50%) of respondents do not hold this view, supporters of impeachment outweigh opponents in some parts of the country.
Among those living in the Western states, a 52% majority favors Congress using the impeachment mechanism while just 41% are opposed; in Eastern states, 49% are in favor and 45% opposed. In the South, meanwhile, impeachment is opposed by three-in-five voters (60%) and supported by just one-in-three (34%); in the Central/Great Lakes region, 52% are opposed and 38% in favor.
Impeachment is overwhelmingly rejected in the Red States—just 36% say they agree Congress should use it if the President is found to have lied on Iraq, while 55% reject this view; in the “Blue States” that voted for Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry in 2004, meanwhile, a plurality of 48% favors such proceedings while 45% are opposed.
The audience was apparently rather small and composed largely of Bush supporters -- 50% of those who tuned in were Republicans, a much higher proportion than exists in the general population but similar to what Gallup has found in polling following other Bush speeches.
Overall, the sample of 323 speech watchers rated Bush's speech in positive terms -- with 46% describing their reaction as "very positive" and an additional 28% "somewhat positive." That is well below average when compared with other major speeches Bush has given, which have averaged a 60% very positive rating in similar flash polls. That includes a 67% very positive rating for the famous "Mission Accomplished" speech he gave aboard an aircraft carrier in May 2003, in which he declared the major fighting phase of the Iraq war to be over.
He's going to have to try a lot harder to reach more people to have any chance of turning public opinion around on the Iraq war. But I don't think he can succeed in that. Unless the Shias decide to start fighting against the Sunnis (basically join a civil war) I don't see how conditions in Iraq can improve. I do not expect the Shias to put their lives on the line in significant numbers as long as American troops will do it for them. So things are going to stay bad or get worse in Iraq.
Thanks to Greg Cochran for the link.
According to a different poll done over the weekend Bush's job performance disapproval has hit new highs.
The number of Americans disapproving of President Bush's job performance has risen to the highest level of his presidency, according to the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Monday.
According to the poll, 53 percent of respondents said they disapproved of Bush's performance, compared to 45 percent who approved.
Again, I expect the Bush ratings decline to continue as long as the Iraq war goes on. Most people now think the invasion was a mistake. The death and injury rate for American troops shows no signs of declining. The Shias obviously do not want to take up arms to defend democracy. The WMD argument was a deception.
Bush's Social Security proposal is dead as a door nail.
WASHINGTON — Americans disapprove of the way President Bush is handling Social Security by a ratio of more than 2-to-1, a new low for the White House on its top domestic policy issue, according to the latest USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll.
The poll, taken over the weekend, showed a steady erosion in the president's handling of Social Security since early February, when 43% approved. Now, 31% approve and 64% disapprove, the first time disapproval has risen above 60%.
If we are lucky Congress will get it together to pass a law to raise the retirement age for Social Security. But I fear Bush's privatization proposal has poisoned the atmosphere against any Social Security reform.
The Bush administration's guest worker plan has actually helped fuel illegal immigration because some believed President Bush is offering amnesty, according to a watchdog group's analysis of a government poll of immigrants detained by the Border Patrol.
The survey, some of the results of which were obtained, analyzed and released Tuesday by Judicial Watch, found that 63 percent of more than 800 immigrants arrested along the nation's southern border said they had heard from the Mexican government or media that Bush was offering amnesty. Forty-five percent said they attempted to cross the border based on those beliefs. Eighty percent said they wanted to apply for amnesty.
Bush boosted illegal alien entry into the United States by proposing his temporary worker program.
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch, the public interest group that fights government corruption, today released the results of a previously undisclosed Border Patrol survey of apprehended illegal immigrants demonstrating that President Bush’s “temporary worker proposal,” was broadly interpreted as an illegal immigration amnesty program by illegal immigrants from Mexico, and led to a spike in illegal immigration crossings. Judicial Watch also uncovered through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) a Border Patrol document entitled, “White House Approved Talking Points,” directing Border Patrol agents to withhold information on the impact of the Bush amnesty proposal on illegal crossings.
Judicial Watch presented the documents and a report, U.S. Border Patrol Survey Analysis, to House Immigration Reform Chairman Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) at a joint press conference. Among the conclusions of Judicial Watch’s report are:
- President Bush’s proposal lured greater numbers of illegal immigrants to violate the law. Approximately 45% of respondents crossed illegally based upon rumors of a Bush amnesty program.
- Approximately 63% of the illegal aliens surveyed received Mexican government or media information supporting the notion of a Bush administration amnesty program.
- When asked if they would seek amnesty if offered, 80% of apprehended illegal immigrants answered, “yes.”
The “talking points memo” uncovered by Judicial Watch instructs Border Patrol agents to withhold information about the negative impact of the president’s proposal. “Do not talk about amnesty, increase in apprehensions, or give comparisons of past immigration reform proposals…Do not provide statistics on apprehension spikes or past amnesty data,” Border Patrol agents were told.
The Bush Administration does not want the truth getting in the way of the lies they tell.
You can read Judicial Watch's report Border Patrol Survey Analysis (PDF) and a supporting document (PDF).
"This is a bombshell," Tancredo said. "The White House and DHS leadership must immediately address the survey and the way the information request was handled so that the American people know that their government isn't playing politics with national security data.
"I have said all along that the president's immigration plan is amnesty, regardless of what the president calls it. We now have proof that illegal aliens understand that it's amnesty as well, and that it is an enticement to cross the border."
See my previous post "Thinking About Bush's Less Than Half-Baked Worker Permit Proposal".
Islamic extremists with cells in Melbourne and Sydney carried out reconnaissance missions on the Harbour Bridge and two Sydney oil refineries.
Sources believe an attack on the Melbourne exchange would be aimed at causing major disruption to the country's financial markets.
While details of the planned stock exchange attack are being kept secret by intelligence officials, the revelation comes as ASIO officers - assisted by Victorian and Federal Police - raided at least eight properties in Victoria and NSW this week.
...
Victoria Police started watching the Melbourne cell about 18 months ago after a tip-off that an Islamic extremist was recruiting followers at a mosque in inner-suburban Melbourne.
But since they worship their god by trying to blow things up if we interfere with their bomb planning we interfere with their religious worship.
Maybe they just thought oil refineries were beautiful backdrops for pictures sent home?
Cell members used two small boats to check out the harbour and were also observed filming at the North Sydney and Kurnell oil refineries.
This is nature's way of telling us we shouldn't let in Muslim immigrants. Unless you want "being-hit-on-the-head lessons" why let in Muslim immigrants at all?
The raids were aimed to disrupt terrorism planning rather than to make arrests.
Raids in Melbourne and Sydney yesterday by ASIO and police were part of a co-ordinated strategy to deter a loose group of Muslim extremists from graduating to terrorist activities.
ASIO, along with state and federal police, raided premises in Melbourne and Sydney yesterday after individuals in the group were monitored by state and federal counter-terrorism experts for more than 12 months.
Police say some of the suspects had shown the intent but lacked the expertise to carry out terrorist attacks in Australia.
If the average terrorist was smarter we'd be in a lot more trouble. On the other hand, smarter people are less likely to believe religions. It would be interesting to see how belief rates drop off as a function of IQ for different religions. Is the drop-off rate faster for Islam than for Christianity? My guess is the drop-off rate is faster for Christianity than for Judaism.
The Australians ought to start revoking residency and even citizenship against these kinds of people and then deport them.
Some cell members are friends with a known Australian Muslim terrorist Saleh Jamal.
Sources said a senior member of the cell is an associate of jailed Australian terrorist Saleh Jamal.
Jamal, 29, fled Australia after the 1998 drive-by shooting of Lakemba police station. He was convicted this year in a Lebanese military court of possessing weapons, forging an Australian passport, and planning acts that endangered security.
An intelligence source said: "The Australian group has talked about following Jamal's lead and doing the same thing here."
Melbourne cell members were heard discussing where they might find an explosives expert.
Pakistani born Sydney Australia resident Faheem Khalid Lodhi is charged with planning to commit terrorist attacks in Australia and directing a terrorist training camp in Pakistan.
Fellow Sydney man Faheem Khalid Lodhi, 35, formerly an architect, faces nine charges of planning to commit terrorist acts, including the bombing of Sydney's electricity grid and various defence sites.
In Lodhi's case, the Crown alleged that in October 2001 the accused acted "in an apparent official capacity" at a training camp in Lahore, Pakistan, operated by banned terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba.
In 2003, after returning to Australia, Lodhi allegedly helped set up French terrorist suspect Willie Brigitte in a Sydney home, with a mobile phone registered, like his own, in a false name, the Crown said.
Lodhia and Brigitte are suspected of plotting a terrorist attack.
The prosecution claims Lodhi met Brigitte at the airport, having written his flight number and physical description in his diary.
The two remained in touch for five months, according to police evidence, and by October Lodhi had allegedly obtained images of the electricity grid and inquired about ordering large quantities of chemicals that could be used in bombs.
Lebanese born former Qantas baggage handler Bilal Khazal is to stand trial in Sydney for writing a manual for terrorists.
Yesterday the bizarre and often violent text was handed over to Sydney Central Local Court, where its 35-year-old editor, Bilal Khazal, faced a charge of making documents likely to facilitate terrorist acts.
Dressed in a long navy dish-dasha dress shirt, white prayer cap, socks and sandals, the portly Khazal sat impassively as prosecutor Geoffrey Bellew told the court that almost a third of the offending book was directed to the topic of assassination, including a list of attributes needed to be part of an assassination team - "wit and a quick mind", "a terrorist psychology" and "high physical fitness".
The book concluded with praise for al-Qaeda's "impressive success of the conquest of New York" on September 11, 2001.
At least 5 Muslims in Australia have to be watched 24 hours per day and 7 days a week.
THEY call them 24/7s. In police and intelligence terms they are the kingpins, men whose every movement is watched, recorded and analysed all day, every day.
At least five Sydney residents have received this round-the-clock attention since just before the 2000 Olympics. They are thought to be pressure points in the internecine world of Australian radical Islam: devotees who can rally followers to rise up in the name of jihad or keep a lid on those at odds with the ways of the West.
Of course such surveillance for years on end is incredibly expensive. Why should Western countries inflict such costs on ourselves by letting in Muslim immigrants? The Western countries are not underpopulated. If we let in only the top 1% in intelligence we'd get the benefits of more rapid advances in science and technology and more companies founded to develop innovative new products and services. We don't need to let in dim bulb religious fanatics who hate our civilization and who hate us.
George W. Bush repeatedly and dishonestly tries to link the invason of Iraq to the 9/11 attack and the terrorist threat to the United States. With this in mind it is worth taking a look at the suicide bombers in Iraq. Those suicide bombers serve as a useful reminder of where the real terrorist threat emanates from. A few nights ago C-SPAN broadcast hearings from Washington DC by an organization that is supposed to be the successor to the 9/11 Commission. Former Senators Sam Nunn and Bob Kerrey are among the notables in this organization (whose title escapes me). Well, on one of the discussion panels Juliette Kayyam of the Harvard JFK School of Government noted in passing that 40% of the suicide bombers in Iraq are from Saudi Arabia. This is in the ballpark with other sources that place Saudi suicide bomber participation at 50% and 60%.
In a paper published in March, Reuven Paz, an Israeli expert on terrorism, analyzed the lists of jihadi dead. He found 154 Arabs killed over the previous six months in Iraq, 61 percent of them from Saudi Arabia, with Syrians, Iraqis and Kuwaitis together accounting for another 25 percent. He also found that 70 percent of the suicide bombers named by the Web sites were Saudi. In three cases, Paz found two brothers who carried out suicide attacks. Many of the bombers were married, well educated and in their late twenties, according to postings.
"While incomplete," Paz wrote, the data suggest "the intensive involvement of Saudi volunteers for jihad in Iraq."
In a telephone interview, Paz said his list -- assembled from monitoring a dozen Islamic extremist Web forums -- now had more than 200 names. "Many are students or from wealthy families -- the same sociological characteristics as the Sept. 11 hijackers," he said.
These people who are blowing up American soldiers and Iraqis never would have managed to get to the United States to blow up Americans.
"This is not al Qaeda's first team," said Hammes of the National Defense University. "These are the scrubs who could never get us in the States."
Another researcher estimates Saudis make up over 50% of suicide bombers.
Evan F. Kohlmann, a researcher who monitors Islamic extremist Web sites, has compiled a list of more than 235 names of Iraqi dead gleaned from the Internet since last summer, with more than 50 percent on his tally from Saudi Arabia as well.
Another list puts Saudis at 44% and puts Iraqis at less than 15% of suicide bombers in Iraq.
Saudis were also the leading group on this list, representing 44 percent, followed by Syrians and Iraqis at less than 15 percent each.
Think about that. The Iraqis are all already in Iraq and yet make up less than 15% of the suicide bombers while the Saudis make up about half. Iraq has a population of 26 million. Saudi Arabia also has a population of 26 million. Obviously Iraqis are far less interested in a world religious jihad against Americans than the Saudis are. Now, one could explalin this disparity by pointing out that only about 20% of Iraqis are Sunni Arabs. So only about 5 million are going to fight for Sunni Arab supremacy or join in Sunni Arab jihads. But that still means that fewer Iraqis are interested in joining Al Qaeda or similar organizations that have global aspirations to jihad.
A Saudi who wants to do a suicide bombing against American forces has to travel to Syria, get hooked up with a jihad organization, and then sneak across the border. He probably has to get a passport first. He has to get the money to pay for an airplane ticket and make the trip. Iraqis, by contrast, are right there. Why are Iraqi Sunni Arabs more likely to operate as conventional guerrillas rather than as suicide bombers? Could it be that they simply want the Americans out and don't harbor global Islamic aspirations or martrydom aspirations?
Then there are the Saudis versus all the other Arab countries. Where are the Egyptians? Or Libyans? Suicide bombers in Iraq come from many countries. But the Saudis make up about half even though Egypt at 77 million has almost 3 times the population of Saudi Arabia. Libya has 5.7 miliion. Jordan also has 5.7 million. Morocco has 32 million. Why aren't Egypt, Libya, Jordan, and Morocco together accounting for far more of the suicide bombers than Saudi Arabia? Saudi Arabia is by far the biggest source of global Islamic Jihadists.
The conditions created by the American invasion of Iraq demonstrate once again (as if we didn't already know) that Saudi Arabia poses the biggest threat of terrorism against Americans. While the necons talk about Iraq, Syria, and Iran the elephant is standing in the room. The elephant isn't seen as much of a threat to Israel. That's a shame. If it was then the neocons would shift their attention more in the direction that matters to Americans.
The Iraqi Sunni Arabs are fighting Americans for two reasons:
If we leave then the Shias might get up the cojones to put down the Sunni Arab rebellion and to hunt down and kill all the foreign Sunni jihadists. Or the Shias might be a bunch of pussies and let the Sunnis once again lord over them. But as long as we stay all we are going to see is a constant reminder that A) a lot of Saudis want to blow us up, B) the Iraqi Sunni Arabs want us out, and C) the Shias do not care enough about having their own government to put their own lives at risk. I've already learned this lesson. Have you? If not, how many more Americans have to die or become injured for life before you learn?
Update: Another estimate puts the Iraqi contribution to suicide bombing at only 10%
Since 2003, less than 10 percent of more than 500 suicide attacks have been carried out by Iraqis, according to one defense official.
As much as 20% of the suicide bombers might be from Algeria.
Up to 20 percent of the bombers might be from Algeria, according to forensic investigations after attacks, senior U.S. military officials have said on condition they not be named for security reasons. Another 5 percent each might be from Morocco and Tunisia, the officials said.
The Sunnis are streaming in to Iraq to fight for their fellow Sunnis against the Shias according to former CIA officer Robert Baer.
Baer said Sunni Arabs who take carry out suicide attacks feel Shiites are attacking Sunnis in Iraq. ``They look at the war in Iraq as an attack on Sunni Islam, not Iraq, not Saddam,'' he said.
In interviews while visiting prisons, terror groups and government officials, he was told that there are so many suicide bombers coming out of the Persian Gulf states that the loose networks that deploy jihadist martyrs - many run through mosques - are turning away potential attackers.
He said the mentality is: ``They have taken what is ours and they will take more if we don't stop them.''
Think about the underlying feeling Sunni entitlement. The Sunnis are killing many more Shias than the other way around. Yet the Sunnis feel they are the ones being attacked.
When the US pulls out of Iraq will the Shias be able to make peace with the Sunnis? Will even more Sunnis flow in from other countries to fight for their Sunni brethren in Iraq?
Also, will the Sunni smuggling network scale up to take in all the Sunnis who want to go to Iraq to fight? Just how many more will volunteer if the smuggling routes expand to handle them?
What portion of soldiers returning from Iraq will suffer Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or other emotional illnesses as a result of their military service in a war zone? One estimate for expected PTSD puts it at 20%.
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — Almost half of the Vermont National Guard troops returning from combat have claimed some level of physical or psychological disability, and at least 20 percent of all Vermont troops are expected to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, officials at the Veterans Administration Hospital in White River Junction predict.
“What happens is that the vets who come back right now obviously have some readjustment because they’re coming from a hostile area back to a normal sense of life,” said Anselm Beach, a spokesman for the VA hospital. “PTSD, however, is more of a long-term diagnosis. Some of it could be chronic and some of it may not be.”
Some mental health officials say the VA’s estimate of 20 percent may be conservative because PTSD often doesn’t surface for months or even years. State officials say the figure could be as high as 30 percent.
15% of Vietnam vets suffered from PTSD 13 years after the war ended. Of course almost all of them returned well before the fall of Saigon.
The National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study calculated that, in 1988, 13 years after the conflict had ended, the prevalence of PTSD in Vietnam veterans was 15 percent, and that 30 percent had experienced the disorder at some point since returning from the war.
Dr. Charles Hoge, a researcher with Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, found that one eighth of returing soldiers from Iraq were reportiing symptoms consistent with PTSD.
Hoge was one of the authors of a study of returning troops published in June 2004 in The New England Journal of Medicine, which found that about one in eight returning soldiers reported symptoms of PTSD, but less than half of those with problems sought help, mostly out of fear of being stigmatized or hurting their careers.
In 2004 161,000 Vietnam vets were receiving compensation for PTSD.
-- 15.2 percent of all male veterans (479,000 out of 3,140,000 who served in Vietnam) and 8.1 percent of women (610 out of 7,200) were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in a 1986-1988 study by the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Survey (NVVRS).
-- Almost half of all male Vietnam veterans suffering from PTSD had been arrested or in jail at least once, 34.2 percent more than once and 11.5 percent had been convicted of a felony, according to the same survey.
-- VA statistics in 2004 showed that 161,000 veterans were still receiving disability compensation for PTSD.
Women soldiers returning from Iraq suffer PTSD at much higher rates than men.
-- According to a 2005 VA study of 168,528 Iraqi veterans, 20 percent were diagnosed with psychological disorders, including 1,641 with PTSD.
-- In an earlier VA study this year, almost 12,500 of nearly 245,000 veterans visited VA counseling centers for readjustment problems and symptoms of PTSD.
-- The Marines and Army were nearly four times more likely to report PTSD than Navy or Air Force because of their greater exposure to combat situations.
-- Enlisted men were twice as likely as officers to report PTSD.
-- 8 percent to 10 percent of active-duty women and retired military women who served in Iraq suffer from PTSD.
Veterans Administration hospitals are seeing more PTSD cases.
At Lexington's VA hospital, 316 veterans with the disorder made 4,550 visits to the outpatient clinic last year, up from 264 veterans who made 3,920 visits in 2002, the year before the war began, said spokeswoman Desti Stimes.
In an article about the suicide of a New Hampshire Air National Guardsman who committed suicide shortly after returning from Iraq some insight is provided about the horror of Iraq convoy operations.
Maj. Chris Hurley, operations officer for the 157th and Guindon's supervisor, was not in Iraq but kept in close contact with the unit. He told police officers that the rules of combat in Iraq are different from those in previous wars. The environment is unpredictable and unimaginably harsh, especially for those involved in convoy operations.
"(Hurley) was saying the Iraqis would actually send children out to blow up truck convoys, so when children were seen in the road, the soldiers were told to actually keep going and run right over them," Hurley's police interview reads, "because if they stopped for the children, as would be the norm, there was a possibility that these children could be armed or wired with explosives."
It was the first time the state's Air Guard members, who tend to specialize in defense tactics, had done anything like it, Hurley said.
One thing to note here: The US Army and Marines are sufficiently short on soldiers that US Air Force National Guardmen are doing convoy guard duties in Iraq. The unit described in this article drove 100,000 miles while in Iraq.
We have better drugs today for treating mental illness. Also, the military makes a greater effort to identify it. But about half of all soldiers avoid complaining either out of pride or in order to avoid being blocked from advancement.
How many soldiers total have served in Iraq so far? 300,000 perhaps? If anyone comes across some numbers please post them in the comments. Also, how many soldiers are being sent to Iraq each year for the first time? Some fraction of each new batch is going to add to the total who will suffer long term mental disorders as a result of their service. Based on the numbers above we could easly end up with 50,000 to 100,000 veterans with various forms of mental illness as a result of their time served in Iraq.
The costs of the mental illnesses resulting from service in Iraq will take forms such as higher rates of divorce, higher rates of abuse of spouses and children, poorer work performance and higher rates of unemployment, institutionalization of severe cases, suicide, murder, and other crimes. We will be paying for the Iraq war for decades to come.
Steve Sailer has written a very interesting article about the rise of Amerind (a.k.a. Indian or indigenous peoples) populist political movements in Latin American countries. An example of this phenomenon which has the Bush Administration upset is Hugo Chavez who as President of Venezuela is waging class warfare against middle class and upper class Spanish (i.e. white) people on behalf of the mostly Amerind lower class. Bush supported a failed coup against democratically elected Chavez, thereby demonstrating the limits to Bush's supposed trust in democracy as the panacea to solve the world's ills. The coup failed because the Amerind masses supported Chavez on the streets.
Steve points out that rising Amerind resentment toward whites in Latin American countries and could (and probably will) eventually translate into a similar resentment in the United States. A rising proportion of Mexican and other Latin American immigrants are Amerinds with bottled up resentment of white middle and upper classes.
This anti-white movement in Latin America will likely make the less white Hispanics more resentful and hostile toward non-Hispanic whites in America.
This could set off massive social change.
Many affluent white supporters of illegal immigration in the U.S. see Hispanics as genetically programmed to be their docile, cheerfully subservient maids and gardeners.
What is often forgotten is that their grandparents viewed blacks the same way. That's why corporations named famous food brands "Uncle Ben" and "Aunt Jemima"—the connotation was that by buying these products, you were virtually partaking of the rich man's luxury of having your own smiling, nodding black cook.
During the Black Pride movement of the 1960s, however, blacks came to resent servant jobs.
And how much can you blame them? There's something that's just not very American about the master-servant relationship.
The downside, of course, was that when blacks turned against their old jobs, many ended up resorting to crime to make money.
Which is why wealthy Americans discovered illegal immigrant Hispanic service workers. They came to assume that it was the natural order of things for whites to command Latinos.
I suspect that the anti-white movements in Latin America will, sooner or later, set off a revulsion among Hispanics in this country against servile jobs roughly similar to the Black Pride reaction of the 1960s.
I wouldn't be terribly surprised if, in a generation, wealthy Americans are smugly assuming that their new Indonesian immigrant servants are naturally deferential—unlike those sullen, crime-prone Latinos they had to let go.
And perhaps in two generations, the rich will tell each other that their new Indian Untouchable immigrant servants are born knowing their place, unlike those uppity Indonesians they had to fire.
Perhaps I'll be proved wrong.
But what if I’m not?
Shouldn't we at least be talking about these possibilities?
As always with American’s post 1965 Immigration Disaster: Why are we taking this risk?
I think the development of a large Hispanic servant class is a recipe for turning the political and social culture of the United States into something far more like Latin America's culture than like America's historical culture. We'd be much better off stopping and reversing the illegal alien influx and placing high skills and education requirements for legal immigrants while simultaneously decreasing the total number of legal immigrants.
Business interests in America focused on short term profits oppose attempts to prevent a demographic shift that will be deeply harmful in the long run. At the same time politicians in both parties are more interested in winning the immigrants over to their party than they are in doing what is best for the American people. While the Democratic Party's leaders are correct in seeing the lower class and less educated non-whites as easy recruits the Republicans around Bush are just plain deluded.
In Bolivia the conflict between the indigenous highlands Amerinds led to an indigenous blockade of La Paz which drove the most recent Bolivian President from office. The white Spanish reaction has taken the form of a movement for regional autonomy and even talk of outright secession among the Spaniards.
SANTA CRUZ, BOLIVIA – If Lorgio Balcazar Arroyo has his way, Bolivia will soon have a system of government like the United States.
Mr. Balcazar, from the industrial eastern part of Bolivia, is general manager of the Pro-Santa Cruz Committee, a key organizer behind a controversial referendum on regional autonomy that is scheduled for Aug. 12. Broad dissatisfaction with the central government has led to an independence movement in this industrial boomtown. Leaders here say autonomy would help buttress the area against such volatility in the west as the month-long protests in May that paralyzed the capital and led to the resignation of Bolivia's second president in less than two years.
...
But as the demands from Santa Cruz gain legitimacy, the rivalry between east and west here is increasingly delineated in racial terms. It's the eastern cambas (European-descended Bolivians) versus the western collas (a term often used to refer to western indigenous people).
At one extreme are groups like the Camba Nation, which calls for independence from the indigenous cultures, described on Camba Nation's website as "slow and miserable" and prone to "conflict and communalism."
Bolivia's current crisis was sparked by the resignation of President Carlos Mesa earlier this month. Mr Mesa's political position became untenable after he opposed a hydrocarbon law calling for a tax on foreign energy companies to be increased from 18% to 50%. Foreign investors in Bolivia, including Britain's BP and BG Group, have invested $3.5bn in the country's gas fields since 1997.
Many among Bolivia's indigenous majority, led by Evo Morales, an Aymara Indian, are now demanding the nationalisation of the country's private energy assets as a way out of poverty.
Nearly 75% of Bolivia's 3.9 million indigenous people live below the poverty level, compared to a national average of 53%. Non-indigenous Bolivians, meanwhile, earn more than twice as much as their indigenous compatriots, who collect an average monthly wage of just 513 bolivianos (£35).
Santa Cruz region white Spaniards resent Aymara Indian politician Evo Morales.
Mr. Morales, leader of Bolivia's largest opposition party, the MAS, or Movement Towards Socialism, rose to prominence as the head of Bolivia's coca-growers association, and came a close second in Bolivia's last presidential election in 2002.
In a strange turn, Mr. Morales was himself "blockaded" yesterday, and prevented from entering the city of San Julian in the Santa Cruz region by people still angry at the MAS blockades, which along with achieving their political objectives kept essential supplies from being distributed to ordinary people. The incident ended peacefully.
The United States of America too will develop even deeper splits along ethnic and racial lines if current immigration trends are not stopped. Even if the foreign influx is entirely halted eventually lower class and predominantly Amerind Latin American imimgrants are going to develop greater resentment at their class position in American society. Racial preferences under so-called "Affirmative Action" programs will not make the Amerinds do as well as whites. So America looks set to enter a stage of greater political divisions across racial lines.
As we move further into the 21st century whites may eventually become a market dominant minority ala Amy Chua's World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability. For more on this see my previous posts Identity Politics Building Ethnic Conflicts In Latin America and History Of American Interventions Bodes Poorly For Democracy.
US Defense Department procurement of better armored vehicles for Iraq is lagging.
When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visited Iraq last year to tour the Abu Ghraib prison camp, military officials did not rely on a government-issued Humvee to transport him safely on the ground. Instead, they turned to Halliburton, the oil services contractor, which lent the Pentagon a rolling fortress of steel called the Rhino Runner.
State Department officials traveling in Iraq use armored vehicles that are built with V-shaped hulls to better deflect bullets and bombs. Members of Congress favor another model, called the M1117, which can endure 12-pound explosives and .50-caliber armor-piercing rounds.
Unlike the Humvee, the Pentagon's vehicle of choice for American troops, the others were designed from scratch to withstand attacks in battlefields like Iraq with no safe zones. Last fall, for instance, a Rhino traveling the treacherous airport road in Baghdad endured a bomb that left a six-foot-wide crater. The passengers walked away unscathed. "I have no doubt should I have been in any other vehicle," wrote an Army captain, the lone military passenger, "the results would have been catastrophically different."
The article reports that in May and so far in June at least 73 US soldiers have died on Iraqi roads. Well, 80 US troops died total in May and so approximately half the troops dying in Iraq are dying on the roads. Most and perhaps all of those deaths could have been prevented with better vehicles. About half of US Army soldiers and even more Marines riding around in Humvees are driving in less than fully armored Humvees.
Just before the Iraq invasion one of the vehicles superior to the Humvee was unfunded and one of the superior V-shaped vehicles had a production stop while waiting for a contract.
Among other setbacks, the M1117 lost its Pentagon money just before the invasion, and the manufacturer is now scrambling to fill rush orders from the military. The company making one of the V-shaped vehicles, the Cougar, said it had to lay off highly skilled welders last year as it waited for the contract to be completed. Even then it was paid only enough to fill half the order.
And the Rhino could not get through the Army's testing regime because its manufacturer declined to have one of its $250,000 vehicles blown up. The company said it provided the Army with testing data that demonstrate the Rhino's viability, and is using the defense secretary's visit as a seal of approval in its contract pitches to the Defense Department.
Read the whole article. The Pentagon is too slow. Decades of layering of procurement rules onto it (to be fair much of it at the instigation of Congress) has left the military unable to shift to wartime procurement practices when a real shooting war is in progress. Plus, I suspect the DOD doesn't have enough money to buy what would save the most American lives.
Even some of the most armored Humvees are getting totally destroyed by bombs while many Humvees have yet to get up-armored. But the Humvees are obsolete for a war like Iraq where there are no clearly defined front lines. If Congress and the President were serious about protecting American soldiers they'd pass a law authorizing completely different and highly rapid procurement practices for equipment bound for Iraq.
Aside: This report indirectly might explain why the prices quoted for the ride to the Baghdad airport in news reports were very different last fall and early this year: One of the groups offering rides to the airport is using armored vehicles that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each. I thought that was what one news report I read had implied. But that seems clear now. Halliburton uses them. The US State Department uses them. Of course some private group will offer to sell rides in them. Those vehicles are much more expensive taxis.
The rumours which have been flying around for weeks or months have finally been acknowledged.
Asked to respond to a report that U.S. military representatives met with several Sunni Iraqi insurgents twice in June, Rumsfeld told Fox News "there have probably been many more than that" and described the contacts as an effort to "split people off and get some people to be supportive" of the political process in Iraq.
Other parts of the U.S. government, including the State Department and CIA, have also been holding secret meetings with Iraqi insurgent factions in an effort to stop the violence and coax them into the political process, according to U.S. government officials and others who have participated in the efforts.
The military plan, approved in August 2004, seeks to make a distinction between Iraqi insurgents who are attacking U.S. troops because they are hostile to their presence, and foreign insurgents responsible for most of the suicide bombings -- which have killed more than 1,200 people in the last couple of months -- and whose larger political aims are unclear.
Hey, maybe they could shift the site of the negotiations to Paris and bring Henry Kissinger back from retirement to conduct them. Just a thought.
Rumsfeld also acknowledged that the United States is not going to beat the insurgency and that the insurgency could even last another 10 years.
Rumsfeld acknowledged there was no military solution to ending the insurgency and that the talks with Iraqi insurgents were part of a search for a political solution to the war. "I mean, foreign troops are not going to beat the insurgency," he said. "It's going to be the Iraqi people that are going to beat the insurgency and Iraqi security forces. That's just the nature of an insurgency."
He also pointed out, on Fox News, that "insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years."
The US will not stick around that long. Will the Sunnis manage to overthrow the government once US forces leave?
Bryan Bender of the Boston Globe (who writes many great reports on Iraq btw) says the inspector general of the US Marine Corps wrote a report claiming that Marines in Iraq are short of a number of types of equipment.
The report, obtained by the Globe, says the estimated 30,000 Marines in Iraq need twice as many heavy machine guns, more fully protected armored vehicles, and more communications equipment to operate in a region the size of Utah.
The Marine Corps leadership has ''understated" the amount and types of ground equipment it needs, according to the investigation, concluding that all of its fighting units in Iraq ''require ground equipment that exceeds" their current supplies, ''particularly in mobility, engineering, communications, and heavy weapons."
Their equipment is worn out.
The report also found that Abrams tanks and other combat vehicles are being so overused that replacements are needed quickly. It found that all of the Marines' battle tanks in Iraq have passed the normal criteria for replacing them.
The Marine Corps says their shortages extend well beyond Iraq.
Marine Corps spokesman Major Douglas Powell said the problems are affecting the entire Marine Corps, not just the 30,000 deployed to Iraq.
''We just don't have enough equipment to provide troops with what we need," he said. But Powell stressed that the Marines in Iraq have been provided more equipment from other units so they can meet their mission.
General Vines in Iraq expect a US troop withdrawal to begin early next year.
Army Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, the 18th Airborne Corps commander who oversees day-to-day military operations in Iraq...
..."I think General Casey's assumption probably is still valid," he said. "I suspect we will probably draw down capability after the elections, because Iraqi security forces are more capable."
Asked whether the reductions could involve as many as four or five brigades, from the 17 currently in Iraq, Vines said: "It would probably be somewhere in that range. That would be my guess."
The elections he is referring to are in December. Some news stories put the withdrawal in March 2006. But I can't find an exact quote from Vines to that effect. Vines also doesn't entirely discount a surge in violence that would require more troops. Actually, we already need more troops in Iraq but the official party line of the Bush Administration is that we have troops there to do the job. What exactly is the job? Hang out waiting for the Iraqi military and police to staff up while we lose about 70 or 80 soldiers dead and hundreds injured per month while burning several billion dollars per month (which is not enough since the equipment is in short supply and wearing out).
Meanwhile the war is no longer popular.
A June 8 Gallup poll indicated dwindling support among Americans for the war. Sixty percent of those polled supported either a partial or total withdrawal of troops, and 52 percent said they don't feel any safer after Iraq's invasion. The poll interviewed 1,003 adults and had a margin of error of 3 percent.
Some have drawn comparisons to Vietnam, where President Nixon decided -- after the deaths of 58,000 Americans and some 3 million Vietnamese -- to slowly withdraw U.S. forces. Just as the Gallup poll suggests there is a growing critical mass of Americans who want to see the U.S. withdraw from Iraq, there was also, at the time of the Vietnam war, popular civilian support for a withdrawal.
''I can tell you that when my soldiers ask me the question whether or not they've got support from the American people . . . that worries me," Abizaid told senators. ''And they're starting to do that. And when the people that we're training, Iraqis and Afghans, start asking me whether or not we have the staying power to stick with them, that worries me, too."
He warned lawmakers that ''American soldiers can't win the war without your support, and without the support of our people."
Well, the American people don't support the war in Iraq. But I'm guessing most Americans wish the troops had better and more equipment so that fewer Americans would get wounded and killed.
Bush is trying to convince more Americans to support the war.
Recognizing the flagging support for his Iraq policy, the president will travel to Ft. Bragg, N.C., on Tuesday to deliver a prime-time speech outlining his strategy on the conflict.
This month, in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, a majority for the first time disapproved of Bush's job performance. On his handing of Iraq, 41% approved and 58% disapproved.
How many readers are old enough to remember when LBJ started giving speeches in front of troops because too many people in public audiences were hostile?
Update Steve Sailer opines that the lack of a centralized leadership in the insurgency Iraq makes negotiations with them hard to do.
The Shining Path rebellion in Peru and the Kurdish rebellion in Turkey both ended abruptly with the capture of their respective numero unos. The Afrikaaners could negotiate a deal with Mandela and know that his rebels would abide by it.
We don't know for sure that nobody will eventually emerge from the insurgency as a charismatic leader -- Bonaparte didn't emerge until about six years into the French Revolution -- but we're probably worse off without a centralized command. Lack of centralization means the insurgency could go on irrationally long, with the worst hot-heads keeping it going with more atrocities setting off more reprisals, etc etc.
One of Steve's readers responds more generally that when it comes to Iraq that much like Los Angeles about which maybe Woody Allen once remarked "there's no there there" the same can be said of Middle Eastern governments in general. This reader further claims that the US military presence in Iraq is just stirring up a hornet's nest of clan members angry that our smart bombs killed someone's cousin Ahmed.
In fact Arab states seem more and more like Potemkin polities, just a bunch of soldiers controlling some oil wells who have set up shop to impress international visitors but are not really in control of their people.
Arab societies are much more swarm-like – organized from the bottom-up by clans, rather than top-down by states. That’s why they seem ineffective in mobilizing their populi for war or economic development but good for stuff like weddings, mafias and guerilla war.
So regime change does not really change much, apart from the name on the shingle hanging on the street-front of the Potemkin state.
This brings to mind Charles Glass, a reporter who who famously escaped from his captors in Beirut, who once wrote a book on the Middle East entitled Tribes With Flags.
General John Abizaid, commander of US forces in the Middle East, says the insurgency is not getting weaker
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.: "General Abizaid, can you give us your assessment of the strength of the insurgency? Is it less strong, more strong, about the same strength as it was six months ago?"
Gen. John Abizaid, top U.S. commander in the Persian Gulf: "In terms of comparison from six months ago, in terms of foreign fighters, I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago.
"In terms of the overall strength of the insurgency, I'd say it's about the same as it was."
Levin: "So you wouldn't agree with the statement that it's in its last throes?"
Abizaid: "I don't know that I would make any comment about that other than to say there's a lot of work to be done against the insurgency."
Levin: "Well, the vice president has said it's in its last throes, that's the statement the vice president — it doesn't sound to me from your testimony or any other testimony here this morning that it is in its last throes."
Abizaid: "I'm sure you'll forgive me from criticizing the vice president."
Levin: "I just want an honest assessment from you as to whether you agree with a particular statement of his — it's not personal. ...
Abizaid: "I gave you my opinion of where we are."
That is pretty clear.
Vice President Richard Cheney is telling a more optimistic tale.
In a CNN interview last month, Cheney said: “The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.”
Who you going to believe?
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsefld told the Senate that setting a timeline for withdrawal would result in another bad regime coming to power in Iraq.
"Let there be no doubt. If the coalition were to leave before the Iraqi security forces are able to assume responsibility, we would one day have to confront another Iraqi regime perhaps even more dangerous than the last in a region plunged into darkness rather than liberated and free,"
Implicit in the phrase "before the Iraqi security forces are able to assume responsibility" is the idea that at some point in the future the Iraqi security forces will become strong enough to handle the insurgency. Well, what if that never happens? How long should the US stay waiting for this to happen?
Also, suppose the US withdraws and the central government falls apart and the civil war scales up. Will the government that results from that civil war necessarily be any worse than the government which the Bush Administration hopes will result from US military efforts? Suppse the US sticks around for the supposed point in time when the central government's security forces become strong enough to keep the central government in power. Will that produce a better government? Or just a different government?
Iraq is one of those cases where we have to wait for various Panglossians to learn the hard way. Though the bulk of the costs do not fall on the Panglossians and so they don't suffer enough to have an incentive to learn quickly. Servicemen and their families pay and the damaged soldiers will pay the rest of their lives.. So do the taxpayers who also will be paying for the war decades after it is over.
As prices of oil price keep rising...
It was not the first time the August crude contract traded above $60 a barrel _ that happened back in April and again on Monday, when prices hit $60.02. But Thursday's milestone is significant because August is now the front month contract, meaning it is the next to expire and is generally the most actively traded. The July contract expired Tuesday.
Oil prices are 58 percent higher than a year ago, though still below the inflation-adjusted high above $90 a barrel set in 1980.
...so does demand:
These fears have been exacerbated by rising demand for gasoline and diesel fuel in spite of soaring prices. In the U.S., unleaded gasoline averages $2.16 a gallon at the pump, more than 40 percent above year ago levels, yet consumption has been up by 2.5 percent over the past month, compared with a year ago.
Where is this going? Is the decrease in demand just delayed? Is the demand for gasoline that inelastic? I'd love to see gasoline consumption by income. Are upper class people just buying even bigger vehicles while lower class people retrench? Or is the price of used SUVs dropping so that lower class people can compensate for higher gasoline prices by buying cheaper yet fuel inefficient vehicles?
I came across a post on another blog (Walter's Brain on Sustainable Mobility by car industry economist Walter McManus) with numbers on rebates offered by big car makers on SUVs. McManus argues that the car companies have been compensating buyers for higher gasoline prices by lowering prices enough to pay for a few years of higher gasoline prices.
The surprisingly rapid decline in SUV sales appears to be a real portent of more concern about fuel economy in the future. I have tracked average new vehicle fuel economy versus the price of fuel for several years. I saw very little movement over the last three years and I concluded that the people who buy new vehicles were not affected.
It turns out that what should be called the SUV Price War (that GM initiated in October 2001 and that lasted until about September of last year) more than offset the effects of rising fuel prices. During this period, the Detroit-based manufacturers lowered prices (through cash and cut rate financing to consumers) disproportionately on SUVs.
My examination of the sales and pricing data reveal that SUV sales would have fallen in 2002, 2003, and 2004 had prices not been reduced by the Price War.
In the graph the blue bars show the switch from SUVs (down 0.8 pp.) to passenger cars (up 0.9 pp.) that would have occurred between 2002 and 2004 had the increase in the price of gasoline from $1.54 to $1.96 not been offset by the Price War. The yellow bars show the Price War offset.
Did Detroit win the SUV Price War?
See his May 9, 2005 and May 11, 2005 posts at that link for the details.
The car companies can drop prices only so far to compensate for higher gasoline prices.
Demand for gasoline can be reduced in a number of ways. Why aren't people slowing down to raise their fuel efficiency? McManus also argues that lowering fuel economy by driving fast is cost effective for most people.
Driving 55 miles per hour means that each mile takes 1 minute and 6 seconds. If gasoline costs $2.00 per gallon, and I get the average 1997 fuel economy in the linked table(32.4 mpg), then I will burn just over 6 cents of gas in that 1 minute and 6 seconds. At 55 miles per hour, I would burn about $3.40 worth of fuel per hour.
Now, suppose I speed up to 70 miles per hour. How much more per hour does it cost me in fuel? A paltry $2.65 per hour. I earned $2.65 per hour (which was below the then minimum wage) in the summer of 1974 as a highway construction laborer. So, as long as an hour in a stationary state (at home or work, but NOT A TRAFFIC JAM, at least not until I get my in-car computer installed) is worth more to me than $2.65, it pays to speed.
Note: As someone pointed out in the comments the correct calculation is how much dollars in extra fuel do you have to spend per hour reduced from driving time. But even with that adjustment the cost per hour saved is still less than what a large fraction of the population earns per hour worked. Plus, for someone who is speeding while working the likely benefit is even larger to the employer.
The higher incomes rise and the more fuel efficients cars become the more inelastic demand becomes to price rises.
McManus writes some great posts. McManus also argues that the hybrid Prius is mostly a marketing and public relations gimmick.
Question: Toyota started advertising the Prius recently. Why advertise a car when many shoppers are going to be disappointed to discover they will have to wait for delivery? The wait was the number one complaint about the new Prius in its first year, so why advertise and give more shoppers a reason to complain?
Answer: The Prius has increased showroom traffic. With supply constrained, many Prius shoppers end up buying a Corolla, Camry, or other Toyota model. Some could even end up with a Tundra Pickup that is cheaper than the Prius but gets 16 mpg in the city and 18 on the highway. The equivalent Chevrolet Silverado gets 16/21, so you had better hope the frustrated Prius buyer goes to the Chevrolet store if he decides to go with a pickup. And if you are thinking, "Prius shoppers would never consider a Tundra," I feel your pain. The contra-positive is "Tundra shoppers would never consider a Prius," or, to generalize, "PICKUP shoppers would never consider SMALL CARS." Welcome to my world. People have different needs and wants they are trying to satisfy when they buy vehicles. And not everyone who shops at Toyota, not even everyone who visits the store because of the ads for the Prius, shares your values. Watch out when the Highlander is in the showroom drawing in SUV shoppers. They might just buy a 15 city/18 hwy Sequoia. Pray that they don’t but the 13/17 Land Cruiser. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to find the GM, Ford, and Chrysler equivalents with higher MPG that should make environmentalists wish they had never elevated Toyota to infallibility.
Question: If hybrids were not a good idea then why would the world’s most profitable automobile producer want to be the hybrid leader? Profit is a clear sign that they are smarter than the other companies, so anything they do has to be smart, doesn’t it?
Answer: By selling hybrids, Toyota is given a pass by environmentalists to reduce the fuel economy of their new vehicle fleet relative to GM, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler without protest. I posted data comparing Toyota and GM last week. Have the environmentalists become apologists for Toyota, overlooking their move into gas-hungry SUVs and pickups? Toyota sold twice as many Tundras as Priuses in 2004 and has been building pickups in America for years. Toyota will build hybrid Camrys in Kentucky soon, and some environmentalist should find out whether American taxpayers are being asked to subsidize investment by the world’s most profitable automobile producer to do what is supposed to be a smart thing. Are there grounds for concluding that environmentalists are acting toward Toyota like the mainstream media act toward the Democrat party?
Now, you might be thinking that McManus is too cynical. Well, hear it from the horse's mouth: Kazuo Okamoto, who is taking over as head of Toyota research and development, says that hybrids are just cost justifiable in the US car market.
“When you just use the argument of fuel efficiency, the purchase of a hybrid car is not justified. But this car has other interests, for instance environmental protection.”
Another Toyota executive was more blunt in his analysis: “Buying a hybrid is about political correctness, it is not about the money,” he said.
Hybrids are projected to be about 2% of all the cars on the road in the United States in the year 2011. So don't look to hybrids to have a big impact on total gasoline fuel demand any time soon.
Will a continued rise in oil prices eventually bring on a global recession? How is the rise in oil prices going to play out on the macroeconomic level?
In the matter of Susette Kelo, et al. v. City of New London, Connecticut, et al. the US Supreme Court has decided to reduce property rights even further.
A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights.
The 5-4 ruling — assailed by dissenting Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled in America — was a defeat for Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They had argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.
This property rights violation is being carried out for the benefit of Pfizer.
In 1997, Pfizer, the giant pharmaceutical firm that makes such drugs as Zoloft, Viagra and Celebrex, began discussions with state and local officials about a $300 million research plant that would bring 2,000 jobs. It was the first time a major manufacturer had expressed interest in moving to New London in more than 100 years.
In a March 1999 letter, George Milne, president of Pfizer's Central Research Division, wrote that the company's New London expansion "requires the world-class redevelopment planned for the adjacent 90 acres," which included Kelo's neighborhood, encompassing about 115 properties. Milne said Pfizer needed a 200-room waterfront hotel, a conference center, a physical-fitness area, extended-stay residential units and 80 units of housing.
While Chief Justice William Rehnquist along with Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented the surprise here is that on this case Sandra Day O'Connor opted not to go over to the Dark Side. But Anthony Kennedy decided to spend some time on the Dark Side so he along with John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer voted for another reduction in property rights. The Supreme Court Legislature thinks governments know better what should be done with our property.
Jusice O'Connor's dissent even shows clarity of reasoning. She says the Court has deleted "for public use" from the Takings Clause. (and that link has the full decision)
Over two centuries ago, just after the Bill of Rights was ratified, Justice Chase wrote:
"An act of the Legislature (for I cannot call it a law) contrary to the great first principles of the social compact, cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority ... . A few instances will suffice to explain what I mean... . [A] law that takes property from A. and gives it to B: It is against all reason and justice, for a people to entrust a Legislature with such powers; and, therefore, it cannot be presumed that they have done it." Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 388 (1798) (emphasis deleted).
Today the Court abandons this long-held, basic limitation on government power. Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded--i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public--in the process. To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings "for public use" is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property--and thereby effectively to delete the words "for public use" from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Accordingly I respectfully dissent.
Okay kids, that's clear enough isn't it?
O'Connor knows how this ruling is going to be used: "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process". She thinks the ruling makes a mockery of the intent of the Founding Fathers.
Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms. As for the victims, the government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result. "[T]hat alone is a just government," wrote James Madison, "which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own." For the National Gazette, Property, (Mar. 29, 1792), reprinted in 14 Papers of James Madison 266 (R. Rutland et al. eds. 1983).
Obviously James Madison and company made a mistake and the Supreme Legislature has taken the needed steps to correct their error. Here we have the uncorrected original 5th Amendment to the US Constitution.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Note that I've italicized the offending phrase. Now, if you have a printed copy of the US constitution, perhaps in some book, get some white-out or dark ink and just cover over the words "for public use". Your new, corrected, and in the minds of the majority of the Supreme Legislature, greatly improved version of the 5th Amendment should read as follows:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken, without just compensation.
That's the 5th Amendment Americans (and legal and illegal aliens in US territory) will henceforth live under.
Another part of the Constitution has been made optional by this and other decisions like it: The Constitutional amendment process. Article V needs to be rewritten to include mention of the ability of a majority of the US Supreme Court to rewrite the US Constitution at will.
Article. V.
The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.
Though I can think of another alternative: Start impeaching Supreme Court judges. Make them defend their actions in trials in the US Senate.
"With today's decision, no one's property is safe," said Roger Pilon, director of the Center for Constitutional Studies, at the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank. "Any time a government official thinks someone else can make better use of your property than you're doing, he can order it condemned and transferred," Pilon said in a statement.
Note that all the Supreme Court justices appointed by Democrats are firmly on the Dark Side on this decision while the justices chosen by Republican Presidents split on this with only some of them (Souter and Kennedy) going over to the Dark Side. This mirrors the larger role the Democratic and Republican Parties play in contemporary America. On some subjects the Republicans are just as bad as the Democrats.
You can read all the original court papers filed for this case.
A new report from The Tax Foundation shows that the portion of the population who are income taxpayers is a shrinking percentage of the total US population.
One of the biggest obstacles facing President Bush’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform is the fact that America has become divided between a growing class of people who pay no income taxes and a shrinking class of people who are bearing the lion’s share of the burden.
Despite the charges of critics that the tax cuts enacted in 2001, 2003 and 2004 favored the “rich,” these cuts actually reduced the tax burden of low- and middle-income taxpayers and shifted the tax burden onto wealthier taxpayers. Tax Foundation economists estimate that for tax year 2004, a record 42.5 million Americans who filed a tax return (one-third of the 131 million returns filed last year) had no tax liability after they took advantage of their credits and deductions. Millions more paid next to nothing.
As Figure 1 and Table 1 show, the number of Americans who paid no income taxes because of the preferences in the tax code has varied greatly since 1950. While the number of these “non-payers” has averaged about 22 percent of all filers over the past five decades, it has spiked to record levels in recent years and the trend line does not appear to be slowing.
In addition to these non-payers, roughly 15 million individuals and families earned some income last year but not enough to be required to file a tax return. When these non-filers are added to the non-payers, they add up to 57.5 million income-earning people who will be paying no income taxes.
Even 57.5 million is not the actual number of people because one tax return often represents several people. When all of the dependents of these income-producing people are counted, roughly 120 million Americans – 40 percent of the U.S. population – are outside of the federal income tax system.
A lot of people are eligible for credits that effectively give them negative tax rates. So they get a "refund" check far greater than any tax paid.
In 1997, Congress enacted a new $500 per-child tax credit and expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) for low-income workers. The 2003 tax cuts increased the value of the child credit to $1,000. These two tax credits – especially the child credit – have had a powerful effect on reducing, and many cases eliminating, the income tax liability for millions of Americans.
These two credits are unique in that a taxpayer can receive the full value of the credit even if they have no tax liability. To see how this works, consider, for example, a family that has three children (and thus should receive $3,000 in tax credits), but only has a tax liability of $1,505. Under the rules of most tax credits, this family would only be allowed $1,505 in tax relief – an amount equal to their tax liability. But a “refundable” tax credit gives this family the full amount they are eligible for -- $1,505 toward their tax liability, and the remaining $1,495 in the form of a refund check. (See Table 2.)
The percentage of non-payers who are white is exaggerated by the inclusion of Hispanics with whites. If I understand this data correctly the 79% of the total non-payers who are listed as white include the 15% who are Hispanic. So really only 64% of the non-payers are white and that is a much lower percentage than they are of the population as a whole.
The racial or ethnic composition of the 42.5 million non-payers roughly mirrors the demographics of American tax filers as a whole. For example, white Americans are 83 percent of total taxpayers, and the percentage of zero-tax filers who are white is 79 percent. African Americans are roughly 13 percent of total taxpayers and 16 percent of zero-tax filers. Asian Americans comprise 3.6 percent of total taxpayers and 3.2 percent of zero-tax filers.
That said, the percentage of non-payers within each ethnic or racial group does vary: 28.6 percent of Asian Americans tax filers get back every dollar withheld, 31.1 percent of white American tax filers will owe nothing, and 41.7 percent of African Americans will file a tax return with no liability.
Absent from these categories are Hispanic Americans. Within Census data, race and ethnic Hispanic origin are not comparable concepts because a Hispanic individual can be of any race. As a result, Hispanics Americans must be considered separately from racial characteristics. Hispanics make up 15 percent of the 42.5 million individuals or households that paid no income taxes in 2004. In contrast, they made up roughly 10 percent of all 131 million taxable American households.
Are they saying that 131 million taxpaying households or 131 million households that in theory could pay taxes? 6.375 million Hispanic households pay no income taxes. What percentage are they of the total number of Hispanic households? Are there 13.1 million total or 13.1 million plus 6.375 million?
These figures understate the size of the problem. Even many of those who pay some taxes pay far less than they cost the government and do not pay enough to fund basic government functions like basic research and defense. Check out a table on the Recipient Class to get an idea of how much money is shifted from higher income earning groups to lower income groups.
The fraction of the US population that does not pay income tax is growing rapidly.
In 2004, a record 42.5 million tax returns – one-third of all returns filed – had no income tax liability because of the available credits and deductions in the tax code. This is a 42 percent increase in the number of zero-tax filers in just four years. In addition to these zero-tax filers are the 15 million individuals or households who do not earn enough to file a tax return. Overall, nearly 58 million taxable households are outside of the income tax system.
A shrinking portion of the population supports the rest of the population. A combination of immigration and aging strongly contribute to this trend. We should stop the flow of low-skilled immigrants both legal and illegal and we should deport all the illegal aliens along with legal aliens who have low skills and low incomes. Also, we should raise the retirement age.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a speech in Cairo Egypt pressed for greater democracy in Egypt but ignored Egypt's ban on the Muslim Brotherhood.
Her silence on the Muslim Brotherhood's lack of free choices reflected the strong official Egyptian resistance to legalising the organisation. But it also illustrated Washington's larger dilemma in calling for greater Arab democracy while opposing Islamic groups such as Hamas in Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon with proven electoral appeal.
Muhammad Mursi, the brotherhood's spokesman, said conditions imposed by Mr Mubarak on the poll meant it would be neither inclusive nor fair. The president is widely expected to win a fifth consecutive term.
Mr Mursi said the organisation would decide soon whether to call for a boycott, and was meanwhile focusing on the parliamentary elections this autumn. The brotherhood currently has 15 MPs, who are officially described as independents.
"In a free election we would have 20% to 25% of the parliament," Mr Mursi told the Guardian last week. "Many more independents would support us. We are known in this society. We are active in the villages, in the universities, in the parliament, in the mosques ... We're organising, building strength."
George W. Bush and Condi Rice want democracy in the Middle East. I think they should be more careful about what they wish for. The fact that they fear the Islamic political parties and groups demonstrates they understand on some level that open elections won't bring automatic Western style liberal democracy. But I suspect they don't understand just how intractable the obstacles are to liberal democracy in the Middle East. They aren't, for example, going to consider low average IQs as an obstacle. Nor are they likely to consider consanguineous marriage or the original texts of the Koran as obstacles. After all, part of the official ideology on the ideological Right (as distinct from the empirical Right) is that the stronger the families the better and that anyone embracing a faith in God has got to be better than people who don't believe. So they are ideologically blinded from forming realistic views of the Arabs, Islam, and chances for liberal democracy to take hold.
Rice dispensed the standard pablum about democracy.
"We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people," Rice said. "As President Bush said in his second inaugural address: 'America will not impose our style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, to attain their own freedom, make their own way.' "
"The people of Egypt should be at the forefront of this great journey, just as you have led this region through the great journeys of the past," she said.
I'm so glad I'm not a Secretary of State who has to make those sorts of speeches. Gag me. Gag me with a spoon.
Irshad Manji has an Op/Ed entitled "Egypt's democracy charade" where she reports that the most liberal political activists get imprisoned in Egypt under laws originally enacted to crack down on Islamists.
But why should the rest of the world care? At this, El Sawaf gets animated. He quotes a fellow Egyptian, the renowned sociologist and democracy champion Saad Eddin Ibrahim: ''Societies that restrict the space for citizens to participate and express dissent will eventually spawn a twisted, angry, and lethal response."
Translation: Wake up, Westerners. Radical Islam gains bloodthirsty adherents when mosques take over for legislatures because fair political representation no longer exists.
And the fact is, it doesn't exist. Egypt's 24-year-old Emergency Law, introduced to crack down on Muslim militants, has been exploited to zap political modernizers too. While letting President Hosni Mubarak hang onto power longer than he promised, the law puts honest-to-goodness democrats behind bars.
At a small party to mark the 60th birthday of Egyptian novelist Gamal Ghaitani on 9 May, Naguib Mahfouz was asked what he expected to happen in Egypt, in view of the rapidly developing events there. "It looks like Egypt wants to try the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood," Mahfouz responded.
The greatest Arab writer was not just expressing a passing fancy, but wanted to warn about what might happen if slow democratic reform leads to a political crisis and radical change. Mahfouz is not alone in imagining "Brotherhood rule" in Egypt; he is joined by many politicians and intellectuals who believe the scenario to be plausible, if the reform process is not handled well in the coming months.
Either reform will expand and embrace change that is already underway in the country politically, guaranteeing a safe and smooth transition to a clearly democratic regime, or it will fail to do so, with the resulting impact taking place outside the political system, which could open the door to the unknown.
The danger appears to be that partial liberalization would provide an opening for the Brotherhood. The populace as a whole (Coptic Christians excepted) probably has little interest in liberal secular politics.
Nina Shea claims the Muslim Brotherhood would sweep to power if open elections were held in Egypt.
Mubarak’s policies have created a situation in which pro-Western democrats like Ramy Lakah are silenced or driven abroad, leaving the Muslim Brotherhood as the only organized opposition within Egypt. If an open election were held this year, few doubt that the Muslim Brotherhood would win. An Islamist group, the Brotherhood has won hearts and minds through charitable work and exploited religion to thrive despite ruthless repression against it. It purportedly renounced violence in the 1970s, but its motto continues to be: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Koran is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” Though some of its members disclaim the group’s agenda and promise moderation, its institutional goal is to rule through a form of sharia (Islamic law) that would suppress women, give second-class dhimmi status to Coptic Christians and other minorities, and impose restrictions on Muslims’ rights to freedom of speech, association, and religion.
The liberal democrats are living in exile or in jail or too afraid to speak. If the Islamists come to power then the upper level administrators for the jails will change but the guards will probably remain the same.
Tim Hanrahan and Jason Fry argue that the proliferation of news and entertainment delivery mechanisms are not making people more ignorant.
Moreover, while it's certainly true that the Internet fits perfectly with an age in which our attention is divided into more and more multitasking slivers, the Net also rewards some more-positive traits. Curiosity, for instance: If you need or just want to know something right now and have a Net connection, you can – no need to wait for the evening news or tomorrow's paper. And your hunger for more information is limited only by the amount of time you have – Cronkite was great, but he didn't have time to explain the history of Vietnam or what China, the Soviet Union, France and the U.S. wanted out of the region. And if you were interested then, too bad: The library was closed.
But people by and large aren't curious, you object. True – but then most people never have been; at least today those who are have the tools to have their curiosity rewarded. But what about all the junk that passes for news these days? Also nothing new – today's runaway brides and rumored celebrity pairings are on the same one-way trip down the memory hole, to be remembered by virtually no one a generation hence. (It is possible that Google results from, say, 2045 will be littered with badly designed Omigod-Tom-and-Katie sites and abandoned blogs whose last entry is about same, but it's hard to see this crumbling the republic.)
I agree with the general thrust of the argument. Ignorant, dumb, and uncurious people have ever been such. The dumbing down of the public due to changes in the press is exaggerated.
I do see one problem though: A lot of people find it increasingly easy to follow only celebrity gossip or duck hunting news or other news which does not exactly enhance a person's ability to make wise voting decisions or otherwise good public citizens. Cocooning into subcultural niches is enabled by media streams that are increasingly tunable to the interests of each citizen (or of each illegal alien who can't speak Englsh for that matter).
Back in the days of Walter Cronkite if one had the desire to watch news one had to find out something about the big political news stories of the day. Today one can avoid that stuff and still sate a desire for information. The problem is that some people want to sate their desire for information with junk information the way they sate their desire for food with junk food. The decline in consumption of milk and the increase in consumption of sugary high acid soda drinks surely has a media parallel with at least a portion of the population watching Entertainment Tonight rather than reading a newspaper or watching a news show. Even a lot of people watching news channels pig out on stuff like celebrity trials and scandals.
Still, the internet seems a huge net plus. Got an interest in, say, the demographics and economics of aging? You can find a blog that has a category archive entitled "Economics Demographic" or some Ph.D. economist who links to all the major reports on the subject (and I don't happen to know which econ blog is best at this or I'd tell you). Want to go back to before the Iraq invasion and find out what was known and what has come out since then about the Bush Administration's decision making process to decide whether to invade? (which, parentheticaly can be summed up as "We want to invade Iraq and now 9/11 has given us the conditions to cook up an excuse for doing so")? Well, again, you can find out. Tons of news articles and blogs linking to groups of news articles can be found on this subject if you want to spend some hours doing searches on Google.
I get calls from family and friends who know I'm adept at web searches asking me to find out some fact or other. Sometimes the questions are like "Who played such and such part in the XYZ movie in the late 1940s". But other times the questions are about issues which matter for the good health of the commonwealth. C-SPAN founder Brian Lamb says the level of knowledge of viewers who call in on C-SPAN political talk shows has improved greatly since 10 or 15 years ago. While this is just one indicator my guess is that people who follow political issues have, on average, better quality information on those issues than they did 10 or 20 years ago.
My question is this: Does the increase in the quality and quantity of information consumed by the smarter and more politically informed yield a net benefit in terms of quality of governance that cancels out the ability of less well informed people to shift their attention toward even less politically relevant junk news? I think the net result is positive in part because I find it a lot easier personally to figure out when I'm being lied to by politicians. Also, I find it much easier to find the best minds on any given issue and read what they have to say about it. But I'm open to contrary arguments.