Wampum

To The Autism Community

Several years ago, when I first became interested in autism, the Federal government provided about $5 million per year for autism research. This year, it will provide more than $75 million. What has caused that 1,500% increase?

There are a number of factors, of course. The increase in incidence of autism has overloaded the education system and caused alarm in the public health community. Greater organization of parents and other persons interested in autism has helped. Celebrities such as Doug Flutie have made a contribution. The Clinton administration was amenable to the arguments for increased funding. All of those factors helped increase the funding but they are not the whole story.

One factor that is often overlooked is that one member of the House of Representatives was relentless in his efforts to increase autism funding, That person, of course, is Republican Representative Dan Burton of Indiana.

Rep. Burton and I disagree about most every issue. He was a leader of the anti-Clinton forces in the House (he once called President Clinton a “scumbag” on national television. Can you imagine the reaction of the right wing and its media cohorts if Nancy Pelosi had called George Bush a “scumbag” instead of simply stating that he is incompetent as President?).

Despite my differences with Burton, I have to admire his work on autism issues. He has been a tireless advocate for the autism community. The increases in autism funding are due, in no small part, to his determination and skill.

Why has Representative Burton been so good on autism issues? Once again, I am sure there are a lot of reasons but the fact that he has an autistic grandson surely must be at the top of the list.

The lesson of Representative Burton's success at increasing funding for autism research is that having one person in a legislative body who is knowledgeable about autism and who has a deep personal interest in the subject can make a world of difference.

We have the opportunity to help Mary Beth Williams win a seat in the Maine legislature. Mary Beth will not only be a great representative for her district and for all of Maine but her election will guarantee that at least one person who understands autism issues and who cares about those issues will be in the room when decisions about autism policy are made. As the Burton example shows, having one such member in the legislature can make all the difference for the autistic kids of Maine.

Mary Beth has a little over a week until her primary. Her opponent, apparently, has her at a financial disadvantage. It is time for our community, the autism community, to close ranks, step up, and close the gap. Click the link on the right. Make a donation to Mary Beth’s campaign. Make sure that the autistic kids of Maine have a voice in the legislature. Do it now

The Blind Hog

It is hard to always be wrong. While that idea may be expressed in some parts of the country by saying “even a stopped clock is right twice a day,” here in the south we prefer to note that “even a blind hog will occasionally find an acorn or two.” The accuracy of that notion was demonstrated this week.

After the 9/11 attacks, there was an outpouring of support for America and Americans from around the world. When George W. Bush gave his speech to the Joint Session of Congress following the attacks, he promised that we would never forget that support:

And on behalf of the American people, I thank the world for its outpouring of support. America will never forget the sounds of our National Anthem playing at Buckingham Palace, on the streets of Paris, and at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. (emphasis supplied).

After the dispute between the US and France over the wisdom of invading Iraq, I thought that Mr. Bush was simply wrong, that the French support for America after 9/11 had been forgotten.

After all, the Congressional cafeteria changed over from selling french fries to selling freedom fries. “John Kerry looks French” became a substitute for political discussion and analysis. Folks were talking about boycotting French wines and other products. If I remember correctly, some warbloggers were actually discussing cutting diplomatic relations with France and were wondering if France would launch a military attack on the United States (I do not have the stomach to find the links).

In that environment, I thought that President Bush’s promise not to forget the support of the French after 9/11 had simply been flushed down the memory hole.

I was wrong. President Bush was right. He had found an acorn.

This week, a prominent political figure remembered that the French supported the US in the wake of 9/11:

How did we get from September 12th , 2001, when a leading French newspaper ran a giant headline with the words "We Are All Americans Now" and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world -- to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib…

Yes, it took Al Gore to redeem President Bush’s promise.

Is the First Amendment in Danger?

It has been said that “one is an accident, two is a coincidence, and three is a trend. “ If that is correct then there is a trend among right-wing pundits to contemplate the erosion of First Amendment protection of free speech.

Tony Blankley in the Washington Times contemplates that another terrorist attack could lead courts to uphold restrictions on free speech:

Sedition laws almost surely would be found unconstitutional, currently — although things may change after the next terrorist attack in America.">

That is one example and it might be an accident. Glenn Reynolds, however, suggests that even a minority of Americans could be sufficient to result in abrogation of First Amendment rights:

Freedom of the press, as it exists today (and didn't exist, really, until the 1960s) is unlikely to survive if a majority -- or even a large and angry minority -- of Americans comes to conclude that the press is untrustworthy and unpatriotic.

Those two examples might be a coincidence until we consider the strange case of alleged journalist Cal Thomas. Thomas forthrightly calls for censorship now. When Thomas appeared on a Fox News show, the following exchange occurred:

BURNS: As what we're saying now indicates, there's a tremendous amount of controversy in this country today about the media's role in covering the war in Iraq. And it's reflected in a new Fox News/Opinion Dynamics Poll. Look at this: where are the problems being created? More people think that the problems related to Iraq are being created in the news media than in Iraq, in Washington D.C., or in any of those combined.
Cal, is this a typical blame the messenger syndrome or is there something more at work here?

THOMAS: I think there's part of that. But I'd like to see a debate on whether we should go back to a form of censorship during the process of war itself. To be able to show all of those pictures while it's going on -- the embedding during the war coverage was fine, I thought. But in the aftermath now, with all of these questions being raised, it's a political and election year, I'm not sure that some form of censorship might not be called for.

BURNS: You were -- wait a minute, Cal, you're advocating that?

THOMAS: Yes.

That is three and if the maxim quoted above is correct, we have ourselves a trend.

In a September 20, 2001 speech to a Joint Session of Congress, President Bush said:

Americans are asking, why do they hate us? … They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.

It would be ironic if, out of a misguided desire to assist in winning the war, we lost those very freedoms.

How can the trend be stopped? That is an easy one. We elect John Kerry as President and elect Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress. In that event, how likely is that Cal Thomas would favor censoring news harmful to a Kerry administration?

Choosing To Be Rich

Money Magazine’s Armchair Millionaire, Lewis Schiff is asked how much money does it take to be rich:

Dear Armchair Millionaire: My best friend and I have a friendly disagreement about what it means to be rich. He says that a million bucks would make someone rich, but I think it would take much more than that. How much money do you think someone needs to really be rich? -- Don in D.C.

The true definition of rich is the having the ability to purchase the things you want. The first part of that definition involves having income or assets. That is the portion the definition that is the focus of question to Schiff. The other half of the equation, and equally important, is controlling what you want.

Assuming that you have a reasonable income, you can choose to borrow the maximum for which you qualify and buy a McMansion or even the real thing. You can choose to buy or lease a new luxury car every couple of years. You can choose to frequent the most fashionable and expensive restaurants. Or you can choose to be rich. It really is a choice.

Recently, I attended a legal seminar. At lunch, I lost the lottery and was seated between two twenty-something lawyers working as associates a large firms. They were newbies (a couple of years of out law school) and were bemoaning the difficulty of making ends meet on low six figure salaries. Having been an associate in a big firm many years ago, I have heard many such conversations.

Soon, the conversation turned to cars and I was forced to listen to a discussion of the relative merits of the Lexus SUV versus the Mercedes SUV. After twenty minutes of talking across me, one of the lawyers asked my opinion of whether they should lease the $76,000 Mercedes or $64,000 Lexus.

I was in the unusual position of momentarily being at a loss for words. I finally told them that I was a fan of the 1989 Taurus, which is what I still drive. You see, I prefer being rich.

Taxing Punitive Damages

Governor Schwarzenegger of California has proposed taxing punitive damage awards by having 75% of such awards go to the state instead of the plaintiff.

The Governor has suggested that the proposal could raise $450 million per year for the state.

I have no major objection to having a portion of punitive damages go to the state. The purpose of punitive damages is to punish a wrong-doer and to deter future wrongful conduct. Punitive damages do not exist to compensate the plaintiff and, as a result, allowing all of such damages to flow to the plaintiff (and plaintiff’s counsel) does result in a windfall.

I would object to the state taking 100% of punitive damages awards as it would eliminate all incentive for the plaintiff to bring actions that deter wrongful behavior. Just as a government whistleblower gets a windfall of 10% of the amounts saved by exposing fraud, the plaintiff should have an incentive to deter wrongful conduct. Deterring wrongful behavior is a social good.

That said, I think that Schwarzenegger’s estimate of the state collecting $450 million per year from the proposal is wildly optimistic.

I have some experience with this issue as Georgia has a similar provision applicable to product liability cases. Under Georgia statute 51-12-5.1, if an award of punitive damages is made in a product liability case,

Seventy-five percent of any amounts awarded under this subsection as punitive damages, less a proportionate part of the costs of litigation, including reasonable attorney´s fees, all as determined by the trial judge, shall be paid into the treasury of the state through the Office of Treasury and Fiscal Services.

That provision has been in effect in Georgia since 1997.

I know for a fact that the amount collected by the State of Georgia under that provision from my cases has been exactly zero. Inquiry to some of my friends who try product cases in Georgia also failed to turn up a single dollar ever paid to the state under the punitive damages provision. To see if our experience was common, I called the Georgia Office of Treasury and Fiscal Services to ask how much had been paid to Georgia under that provision. After locating the right person to speak to, the official stated that he could not recall any money having ever been paid to the state under the punitive damages provision.

Georgia’s punitive damage tax in products liability cases has resulted in little or no funds being collected by the state. It is my understanding that the California proposal will apply to all awards of punitive damages and not only to products cases. Nonetheless, I suspect that little money will be collected by the State for two reasons.

First, at least in Georgia, punitive damages are very hard to get. There are a myriad of protections built into the system to make it hard to get punitive damages.

For instance, punitive damages are not recoverable in any contract case, regardless of the egregiousness of the conduct, and are not available in some types of tort cases (such as actions for conversion). Under Georgia law, in products liability cases, the defendant can only be liable for punitive damages only once per defect. If punitive damages have been awarded against that defendant for the same product defect in some other case, a claim for punitive damages is not available to the plaintiff.

Secondly, even in tort cases in which the punitive damages are nominally available, simple negligence will not support an award of such damages. Georgia allows punitive damages only in cases in which the defendant’s conduct shows:

willful misconduct, malice, fraud, wantonness, oppression, or that entire want of care which would raise the presumption of conscious indifference to consequences.

Carelessly running a red light or leaving a clamp in a person during surgery will not support an award of punitive damages. Driving or performing surgery under the influence of drugs or alcohol would.

Third, the standard of proof is higher for an award of punitive damages than for an award of compensatory damages. Compensatory damages must be proved by a preponderance of the evidence. For the non-lawyers in the audience, that means “more likely than not.” Evidence to support an award of punitive damages requires “clear and convincing evidence,” a standard that is somewhere in between a preponderance of the evidence and the “beyond reasonable doubt” standard of criminal cases.

Fourth, in Georgia, the proceeding are bifurcated so that the jury is not permitted to hear evidence on the amount of punitive damages until after it has decided that such an award is justified.

At the end of the trial, but before evidence on the amount of punitive damages is presented, the jury retires to deliberate on the issues of whether the plaintiff is entitled to recover compensatory damages and the amount of such compensatory damages. The verdict form also asks the jury whether or not an award of punitive damages is justified.

The jury gets to go home unless it checks the box saying that punitive damages are justified. If they do check that box, they get to go back to the courtroom to hear the lawyers present additional evidence.

After a long hard trial, the jury (none of whom wanted to be there in the first place) can either decide to hear lawyers talk some more or can decide to go home. It takes a very compelling case to convince a weary group of 12 to request that the trial be extended.

Finally, even if the plaintiff meets all of those hurdles, Georgia limits the amount of punitive damages to $250,000 except in product liability cases, cases in which the defendant had the specific intent to harm or cases in which the defendant was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. In any event the Supreme Court frowns (pdf) upon awards of punitive damages exceeding 10 times the amount of compensatory damages. For more on that Supreme Court decision see Like a Good Neighbor at PLA.

All in all, it is difficult to get an award of punitive damages. For folks who think that that there are a lot of large punitive damages in frivolous cases, you are mistaken. There may be a few such cases out there but especially since the rise of Daubert and its state court progeny, I haven’t seen any.

As I understand the California proposal, it applies to all punitive damage claims and not to just product liability cases. As such, it will no doubt raise more revenue than the Georgia experiment (it is hard to go below $0.00).

Nonetheless, I doubt that it will reach its projected revenue because the State will not be present in settlement negotiations.

When the state takes the bulk of any punitive damage award, settlement negotiations are held in the circumstance that a trial may result in the defendant paying an amount greater than the plaintiff will receive. It will not be hard to structure any settlement in such a way to minimize or eliminate the amounts paid to the state.

Under the Georgia statute, the state’s right to recover is triggered by the entry of a judgment. That is not the same thing as the rendering of a verdict. After the verdict and before the entry of judgment, the parties may settle on any terms they see fit.

Take as an example a Georgia products liability case in which the jury returns a verdict for $500,000 in compensatory damages and $250,000 in punitive damages. Under a typical 1/3 contingency arrangement, if that verdict goes to judgment, the position of the interesting parties will be as follows:

The defendant will pay $750,000.

The plaintiff’s lawyer will receive 1/3 of the total award or $250,000 (plus litigation expenses but I will ignore those expenses for the purpose of simplicity).

The plaintiff will receive 2/3 of the compensatory damages or about $333,000 plus 2/3 of ¼ of the punitive damage award or about $42,000 for a total of about $375,000.

The state will receive ¾ of 2/3 of the punitive damage award or about $126,000.

The plaintiff and the defendant may agree to a settlement on diferent terms. Assume they agree to split the State’s $126,000. They could settle for $687,000 in compensatory damages with no punitive damages.

Under that settlment, the position of the parties would be as follows:

The defendant would pay $687,000 thereby saving itself $63,000.

The plaintiff would receive 2/3 of $687,000 or $458,000 increasing his or her take by $83,000.

The plaintiff’s attorney would lose about $21,000 in fees but is obligated to do so as part of the fiduciary relationship between attorney and client.

The state of course would get nothing.

If California thinks that plaintiffs and defendants will pay $450 million in a punitive damage tax that they could just as easily split among themselves, it has not been in many settlement negotiations.

Update:

I mentioned above that I had called the Georgia Treasury Department to determine how much money had been paid to the state pursuant to the punitive damage statute. Today I received an email from Steve Caffarelli, the Assistant Director of Georgia's Office of Treasury and Fiscal Services. Mr. Caffarelli writes:

According to our records, over the last several years we haven’t received any funds pursuant to this statute.

I suspect that $450 million per year is a bit optimistic.

Back … Kinda… Sorta, Too

I apologize for the lack of posts. While MB and Eric are quite properly engaged in the campaign, I should be posting regularly and I have not done so secently.

There are three reasons for that failure. First, there have been medical issues in my family. They appear to have now resolved. I may write about those experiences later, or not, but for now I would just like to note that both the Emory University Hospital and the Children’s Hospital (also at Emory) are superb institutions staffed by highly skilled, caring people. I just hope that my forthcoming dealings with the insurance company are equally successful.

Secondly, I have been distracted by what might be termed career related program activities.

Finally, I have had computer nightmares over the last several months. I had been getting a huge volume of spam as well as infections and decided to install a popular software product to block spam, create a firewall, and protect my computer from viruses. It blocked the spam but had the side effect of also blocking almost all non-spam. In addition, it failed to block infection. I was unable to send email as the program kept locating viruses in the outgoing mail.

A virus prevented me from scanning to clean up the system and prevented me from installing other virus protection software.

I am sure that there was a simple solution to the problem but am equally sure that the solution was beyond my competence. Finally, with some outside expertise, I ripped out the entire software package, was able to load different virus software and to partially run a scan. The new software would crash part way through the scan but by repeating the process many times, I think that I have finally removed all of the infections. Over 1000 files were infected.

Once I cleaned up the system, I received more than 40,000 emails that had been waiting. If you sent me something and I did not respond, I apologize. I probably now have your email buried among thousands of offers to buy Viagra or to make a fortune on EBay.

At any rate, I think that those problems have now resolved. Once I have an opportunity to catch up on the news, I will begin regular postings.

Back....kinda...sorta...

Life here in Maine has been a whirlwind, and Wampum, sadly, was one of the casualties. My primary race for the Maine House has heated up (understatement), and with less than three weeks to go, I truly don't know how much time I can commit. But Wampum has been a labor of love for me for over 18 months now, and with Dwight's impending move from Georgia back to NC, I don't want it to completely languish, despite my recent neglect.

As for a brief update, this weekend was the Democratic Convention here in Maine, where the Progressives rattled their swords and reminded the national party not to forget us. Kucinich not only made the 15% threshold, he pulled nearly 30%, costing Senator Kerry four of his previously caucus-earned delegates.

I've been myopic in my focus on knocking on my district's Democratic doors over the past few months, and almost passed up the convention. (I hit my 1000th door on Thursday, in fact.) The schmoozing piece is not really my cup of tea, but it was actually rather fun as I took my staff along: Access in Maine is truly remarkable - I had a 20 minute conversation with the Governor, his sister and a GLBT activist in the governor's hospitality suite (aka, hotel room), something my Minnesotan field director had never previously witnessed first-hand. In fact, as the Governor left the room, he (once again) informally endorsed me over my opponent ("Who? No, we need YOU in the Legislature.")

But what truly made my evening was the constant accolades thrown at my staff, well-deserved accolades I might add.

I have much to catch up on, from unemployment to gas prices to the CDC's latest thimerosal hijinx. I have no clue as to whether I'll be able to manage it over the next 16 days. But it might be interesting to try.

Old Faithful

Some things happen with such regularity that they seem inevitable. When William Safire hears voices in his head, you just know that it is Richard Nixon calling. When the Chicago Bulls were tied with 17 seconds left to play, you knew Michael Jordan would get the ball. The Democrats will play “Happy Days Are Here Again” at the convention this summer. It was no surprise when Columbo had “just one more thing” to ask about.

When Sixty Minutes II broke the story about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners, it was only a matter of time before someone on the right decided that it was Bill Clinton's fault.

Oh, there were some other trial balloons floated. Via Media Matters we learn that Ann Coulter and Linda Chavez blame the scandal on allowing women into the military.

George Neumayr, of The American Spectator blamed it on feminism. Cal Thomas blamed Muslins. James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal blamed academic liberals.

That someone would eventually blame Clinton of the abuse of the Iraqi prisoners was completely predictable.

Atrios points us to George Must Go, who has the transcript of an NPR interview with Joel Himmelfarb of the Washington Times discussing the cause of the prisoner abuse scandal. Himmelfarb did not disappoint:

Now, certainly one thing I will say is that I believe, as, as a lot of folks on the, on the political right believe, that our military has been undermanned for many years, and it's very, very difficult to fight a war like this with a, a military that basically is, is Bill Clinton's military and a military that basically was formed during the days when we were all talking about the "war is peace" dividend.

Until I read Himmelfarb’s remarks, I was unaware that the right thought that our military was inadequate for the challenges of the Iraq war.

How could we be so sure that the blame for the scandal would eventually be assigned to Bill Clinton? History, of course.

After 9/11, no investigation was needed to know who was a fault. On September 12, 2001, one day after the terrorist attacks, NewsMax ran an article by Christopher Ruddy entitled “CIA Officials Reveal What Went Wrong – Clinton to Blame.”

It is not just public policy problems the right blames on Bill Clinton. For instance, when a Little League team used an overage player in order to gain an advantage, who should be blamed? Rush Limbaugh had no trouble deciding. SpinSanity reports that Limbaugh placed the responsibility squarely on Bill Clinton:

On his show Friday, the host said the fact that Danny Almonte, the Little League World Series pitching phenom from the Bronx, lied about his age was indicative of "[t]he era of Clinton ... illustrating itself in fine form."

When Gary Condit had an affair, who did Sean Hannity blame? SpinSanity quotes Hannity as asking Bob Barr the following “question”:

Look -- you know, Bob, look -- Congressman Barr, I was making the case last night this -- this is a natural consequence for having not thrown Bill Clinton out of office. We're getting the same thing -- sex with an intern, suborning -- charges of subornation of perjury and obstruction, parsing of words.

Now we don't -- not only do we not know what "is" means, "alone" means, now we don't know what "relationship" means. If you have sex with a woman for 10 months, that's not a relationship, by the way. This is a consequence of Clinton, isn't it, Congressman Barr?

Bill O’Reilly very much wanted Howard Dean to win the Democratic nomination for President because O’Reilly thought that Bush would clobber Dean in the fall. Since Dean failed garner the prize, someone has to bear the blame. Who does O’Reilly think is responsible for the Dean loss? Howard Dean? Joe Trippi? The media or the voters? Of course not, Dean’s loss was engineered by Bill Clinton.

When executives from Enron, WorldCom and other companies broke the rules and lost billions, who was at fault? Steve Forbes knows:

FORBES: Well, I think if you want to look at the tone of the '90s, it started right at the top, at the White House, where the attitude was anything goes. If you get caught, spin your way out of it. The only thing they didn't resist -- they could resist everything except temptation. So it started at the top.

You just knew that the right would eventually get around to blaming the abuse of Iraqi prisoners on Bill Clinton. It is as reliable as Old Faithful.

The Politics Of Funding The War

President Bush included no amounts for the Iraq war in budget requests for FY 2005 which begins October 1. The administration originally intended to seek funding for the war through a supplemental appropriation after the November election but escalating costs in Iraq have forced the President to seek additional funds now. The Washington Post reports:

Driven by unanticipated combat, higher-than-expected troop levels and rising political pressure, the White House reversed course today and asked Congress for an additional $25 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the fiscal year that begins in October. While we do not know the precise costs for operations next year, recent developments on the ground and increased demands on our troops indicate the need to plan for contingencies," President Bush said in a statement on the request this afternoon. "We must make sure there is no disruption in funding and resources for our troops."

Kevin Drum thinks that the request for additional funding now is good politics for the President:

Bush and his advisors know perfectly well how this script plays out: in the short term Bush has to put up with a public debate about how things are going in Iraq, but once the dust settles the impression left in everyone's mind is that Bush and the Republicans are resolute while Democrats are squabbly and indecisive when it comes to national security. Far from "fearing a divisive, campaign-year debate," this is exactly what Bush wants. Keeping the war front and center is pretty much his entire campaign strategy.

We've seen this Kabuki show before. Don't fall for it.

POSTSCRIPT: Of course, there's another question lurking here too: which group of Democrats will John Kerry find himself in? Or will he be able to turn this to his advantage somehow?

Kevin’s question is a good one. Can John Kerry avoid the trap laid by the administration and turn it to his advantage?

Bill Scher of Liberal Oasis thinks that Kerry can do so by voting against the measure:

The knock on Kerry is that he's a flip-flopper, and says what people want to hear instead of his true beliefs.

And the Bushies have used Kerry's vote against the earlier $87B, after voting for the war resolution, to foster that impression.

Not to mention hit Kerry for being weak on defense.

But if Kerry votes against the $25B, he can turn all that on its head.

He can say:

1. "I voted against the last funding proposal because I felt to best support the troops, we shouldn't fund a failing strategy, and because it was fiscally irresponsible to spend so much without scaling back the tax cut for the wealthy.
"And the situation is the same today as it was then."

2. "I knew that vote would be twisted and distorted by the Bush-Cheney attack machine, but I did it anyway because it was the right thing to do.
"And I'm just as sure this vote will be featured in their next round of smear ads. But I wouldn't be supporting the troops if I let politics dictate my actions."

3. "One of the ads they ran said my previous vote meant I was against body armor for our troops.

"But as we heard recently from Iraq veteran Paul Rieckhoff, even though they got the money they asked for, 'our troops are still waiting for more body armor.'

"I believe the troops should get everything they need.

"But I have no reason to believe that cutting the Bush Administration another check with no questions asked, is going to get them what they need.

"Because it certainly hasn't yet.

"We don’t need to stay the course. We need to correct the course. Congress should deny this funding request and demand a new plan."

What is Kerry's other option? Vote for it?

Aziz Poonawalla of Unmedia thinks Kerry does have another option. Aziz first notes that the money really is needed for body armor and other items in both Afghanistan and Iraq. He then notes that a vote against the funding might harm Kerry with swing voters. Aziz thinks that Kerry should neither fold nor call. He should raise.

What Kerry has to do is demand more money - about $40b. Make the discrepancy large enough that it becomes a wedge between Bush and the fiscal conservatives. Kerry needs to emphasize that this war has been fought on the cheap with poor planning, and that the troops still don't have the body armor they need. Given that the Senate will grill Rumsfeld on the failures of training and discipline, Kerry's message that the troops are not being supported by the Administration will resonate.

I don't see a flaw in asking for more money - either Bush refuses, and erodes his own credibility, or concedes in which case Kerry gets the credit and Bush inherits the consequences from within the GOP.

The Bush request is, at its core, a fraud. Bush wants to put Kerry in a difficult position without having to level with the American people about the true cost of the war. I think Aziz is on the right track but that he errs on the low side when he suggests that Kerry request $40 billion.

The Post reports:

Republican aides conceded today that the $25 billion Bush will seek is likely to be only the first installment. In February, Bolten said the president would seek as much as $50 billion next year. But that was when the Defense Department had expected U.S. troop levels in Iraq to be about 115,000 by now and to fall to about half that by the summer of 2005. Now, the Pentagon is preparing to maintain a force of 138,000 for at least the next 18 months.

House and Senate budget negotiators have already agreed to include $50 billion in the budget blueprint they are trying to complete for 2005, but defense experts say even that will fall short. One House appropriations committee aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the full cost of war in 2005 will be around $65 billion, more than two and a half times the president's request.

Kerry should request the entire $65 billion that is estimated to be needed. He should argue that the issue is both one of providing all essential support for the troops as well as being candid with the American people about the costs of the administration's desert adventure.

He should propose a way to pay for the entire $65 billion (preferably out of other spending but perhaps also from repealing the Bush tax cuts on the $300,000 a year crowd) and thereby achieve the consistency that Bill Scher wants.

By asking for the full amount needed now, before the election, he forces Bush to discuss the true costs of the war, demonstrates that Bush wants to be less than candid with the American people, shows supports for the troops and demonstrates that he is fiscally responsible.

If John Kerry insists on a bill that reflects the true costs, it will be George Bush who is struggling to find some way to turn the issue to his advantage.

The Meaning of “Remain”

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has acknowledged and accepted responsibility for the torture of Iraqi prisoners by Americans. Mr. Rumsfeld says that he will not resign his position as long as he remains effective. Let’s briefly review the bidding.

First, what has Rumsfeld accepted responsibility for? He has acknowledged his responsibility for acts that he describes as “blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman.”

Second, what are the consequences of the acts for which Mr. Rumsfeld is responsible?

Rumsfeld’s boss, George W. Bush has said that they have placed a “stain on our country's honor and reputation.”

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham says that they have caused America “a world of hurt.”

Terrence Hunt quotes "analysts" who say that the acts for which Secretary Rumsfeld has accepted responsibility are “great recruiting tools for al-Qaida and other extremist groups.”

Republican Senator John Warner says that the incidents may undermine "the substantial gains toward the goal of peace and freedom in various operation areas of the world, most particularly Iraq,"

A “worried defense official” says that they are “a time bomb.”

Karl Rove says that “it will take a generation for the United States to live this scandal down in the Arab world.”

Republican Representative Tom Cole says “this was a political and public relations Pearl Harbor."

So, Secretary Rumsfeld bears responsibility for “barbaric, sadistic and inhuman” acts that are the public relations equivalent of Pearl Harbor. He has placed a stain on the honor of the nation. He is responsible for having aided Al Qaeda and has thereby harmed the War on Terror. He is responsible for undermining the goal of peace and freedom in Iraq thereby harming the war effort there. In general, he has caused America “a world of hurt.” The damage for which Secretary Rumsfeld is responsible will take a generation to undo.

Still, Rumsfeld will not resign as long as he remains effective. In essence, he wants us to ask, “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

In this case, even other than that, the play was lousy. As Fareed Zakaria has written:

The basic attitude taken by Rumsfeld, Cheney and their top aides has been "We're at war; all these niceties will have to wait." As a result, we have waged pre-emptive war unilaterally, spurned international cooperation, rejected United Nations participation, humiliated allies, discounted the need for local support in Iraq and incurred massive costs in blood and treasure. If the world is not to be trusted in these dangerous times, key agencies of the American government, like the State Department, are to be trusted even less. Congress is barely informed, even on issues on which its "advise and consent" are constitutionally mandated.

Leave process aside: the results are plain. On almost every issue involving postwar Iraq—troop strength, international support, the credibility of exiles, de-Baathification, handling Ayatollah Ali Sistani—Washington's assumptions and policies have been wrong. By now most have been reversed, often too late to have much effect. This strange combination of arrogance and incompetence has not only destroyed the hopes for a new Iraq. It has had the much broader effect of turning the United States into an international outlaw in the eyes of much of the world.

For Secretary Rumsfeld to “remain effective” he would have had to have been effective in the first place.

Work Ethic

Americans are known for their work ethic. Some Americans even stay on their job after winning the lottery. Sometimes that is not a good thing. Take Carlos Sola of Georgia for example. In April of 2002, he won $1,000 per week for life in the Georgia lottery. He took some time off from his job but soon returned. That was a mistake. His occupation was burglar. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution reports:

Carlos Sola decided to keep his job after he won a Georgia Lottery jackpot — $1,000 a week for life.

His occupation? Burglar.

In April 2002, Sola was awaiting trial for stealing $40,000 in coins and jewelry from an Austell home when he hit it big in the Win For Life scratch-off game.
Cobb County Superior Court Judge S. Lark Ingram took note of his good fortune and allowed a plea deal that included three years in prison, provided the first $40,000 of his winnings went to repay his victims.

So when Sola's first annual payment came last May — $34,840 after taxes — he was behind bars and didn't get a dime.

He got out on probation in August but returned to his old line of work. He was arrested in December for the burglary of a Smyrna home.

Back in prison until at least 2005, Sola is due his second annual lottery check this month: $34,840, less $5,160 for restitution from his earlier conviction. He can keep the rest.

That is taking one's work ethic a bit too far.

The Art Of Blame Avoidance

I have also been interested in watching the masters of the Art of Blame Avoidance. For the true masters of the art, blame always settles somewhere else. The requisite skills of a master Blame Avoider are good press relations, a very sensitive political antennae, and an evolved survival instinct that results in putting Blame Avoidance at the top of the to-do list.

The reigning champion of the art of deflecting blame is Colin Powell. As the President’s Iraq adventure began to go sour, stories began to appear that put distance between Powell and the policy. A number of stories made clear that Powell’s State Department was not responsible for including the yellow cake fiction in the State of the Union speech. News reports have made clear that Powell pushed back hard to make sure that the claim was not included in his U.N. presentation.

When the issue of the administration’s pre-9/11 anti terrorism policies arose, one of Richard Clarke’s allegations was that he could not get meetings with top administration officials. Colin Powell made sure it was known that he had met with Clarke.

Bob Woodward reports that Powell was the least gung ho of the inner circle when it came to the invasion of Iraq. "If you break it, you buy it" he warned the President. The Woodward book also notes that the President did not directly ask Powell for a recommendation on whther or not to launch the invasion. If Powell wasn’t asked for his opinion, the decision to invade can’t be his fault.

The policy may go south but, putting first things first, Powell makes sure that as little blame as possible falls his way.

The most recent example of Powell’s expertise in the art of Blame Avoidance comes from the scandal surrounding the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Not even a week after the disclosure of the abuse, we find out that Colin Powell had tried to raise the issue but was ridiculed for his efforts. Josh Marshall quotes the Nelson Report:

We can contribute a second hand anecdote to newspaper stories on rising concern, last year, from Secretary of State Powell and Deputy Secretary Armitage about Administration attitudes and the risks they might entail: according to eye witnesses to debate at the highest levels of the Administration...the highest levels...whenever Powell or Armitage sought to question prisoner treatment issues, they were forced to endure what our source characterizes as "around the table, coarse, vulgar, frat-boy bully remarks about what these tough guys would do if THEY ever got their hands on prisoners...."

-- let's be clear: our source is not alleging "orders" from the White House. Our source is pointing out that, as we said in the Summary, a fish rots from its head. The atmosphere created by Rumsfeld's controversial decisions was apparently aided and abetted by his colleagues in their callous disregard for the implications of the then-developing situation, and by their ridicule of the only combat veterans at the top of this Administration.

No matter where the blame for the scandal ultimately settles, the finger will not be pointing Powell’s way. That is a particularly good example of the art because no one was even suggesting that Powell was to blame. All eyes were focused on Rumsfeld, the military and the White House. It was a form of preemptive Blame Avoidance. Being ahead of the curve is the hallmark of a master of the art.

None of the above is meant to suggest that Powell deserves any of the blame in any of the examples. I am simply admiring the skill by which Powell makes sure that none of the blame, deserved or otherwise, comes his way.

Karl Rove recently showed some skill at the art of Blame Avoidance. The New York Times carried the following:

Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, has told one Bush adviser that he believes that it will take a generation for the United States to live this scandal down in the Arab world, and that one of the dangers of basing a campaign on national security and foreign policy is that events can be beyond the president's control.

What Rove means, of course, is that one of the dangers of basing a campaign on national security and foreign policy is that events beyond Rove’s control may cause the President’s reelection effort to fail. In other words, should the President lose in November, it will not be Rove’s fault.

That is a pretty good effort at preemptive Blame Avoidance. It is ahead of the curve. It does not depend on unknowable future outcomes to put Rove in a good light. If Bush wins reelection, it will be because Rove was able to overcome external events. If Bush loses, it will be because of events outside of Rove’s control. Very pretty.

Powell may have competition in the race for the administration’s Best Blame Avoider.

Chastised For What?

The New York Times has an Elizabeth Bumiller and Richard W. Stevenson story about President Bush chastising Defense Secretary Rumsfeld:

President Bush on Wednesday chastised his defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld, for Mr. Rumsfeld's handling of a scandal over the American abuse of Iraqis held at a notorious prison in Baghdad, White House officials said.

The disclosures by the White House officials (were made) under authorization from Mr. Bush… The officials said the president had expressed his displeasure to Mr. Rumsfeld in an Oval Office meeting because of Mr. Rumsfeld's failure to tell Mr. Bush about photographs of the abuse, which have enraged the Arab world…

In his interviews on Wednesday with Arab television networks, Mr. Bush said that he learned the graphic details of the abuse case only when they were broadcast last Wednesday… It was then, one White House official said, that Mr. Bush also saw the photographs documenting the abuse. "When you see the pictures," the official said, "it takes on a proportion of gravity that would require a much more extreme response than the way it was being handled."

Another White House official said, "The president was not satisfied or happy about the way he was informed about the pictures, and he did talk to Secretary Rumsfeld about it."…

Pentagon officials said that Mr. Rumsfeld was first notified about the pictures in mid-January, after a soldier turned them over to Army officials, prompting the opening of an investigation. A senior Pentagon official said that Mr. Rumsfeld was told of the allegations of abuse and given a general description of the photographs.

Within weeks, the Pentagon official said, Mr. Rumsfeld told the president about the case. But it is not clear, the official said, whether Mr. Rumsfeld mentioned the photographs or their basic content to Mr. Bush at that point.

Mr. Bush first mentioned the abuse scandal publicly last Friday in the Rose Garden, when he said he shared "deep disgust" about the photographs. That evening, he went to a party at Mr. Rumsfeld's house in the Kalorama section of Washington, where it is not known whether he and his defense secretary talked about the pictures.

There are two interesting aspects to that story. First, it is now clear that President Bush was told about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners “within weeks” of mid-January. I know of no action taken by Mr. Bush upon his being informed that American soldiers were abusing Iraqi prisoners.

Secondly, the story suggests that President Bush chastised Rumsfeld only because of the failure to tell the President that there were pictures of the abuse and not because of the fact of the abuse itself.

The implication of that suggestion is that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners is not, in and of itself, a big deal. It is only if the abuse can be indisputably documented and made public that Mr. Bush and the administration give a flip about abused Iraqis. As long as the prisoners were abused in private and no one knew, who cares?

I deeply hope that implication is false. It is the fact of the abuse, not simply that the abuse was photographed and made public, that is the outrage.

There seem to be four possibilities to explain the Times story. First, Bumiller and Stevenson could have just gotten the story wrong. Perhaps Mr. Bush was upset with Rumsfeld not only because he was not shown the pictures. Perhaps Mr. Bush was upset because the department run by Mr. Rumsfeld had treated human beings in a disgraceful manner. Perhaps he was upset that the military had compromised the interests and safety of the United States and its citizens.

Perhaps the reporters just got it wrong. The involvement of Bumiller as one of the authors makes a reporting error not at all far fetched although my general impression of Stevenson as a reporter is far more favorable.

Secondly, Bumiller and Stevenson’s sources could have provided incomplete information. They might have mentioned only the failure to provide the President with the pictures when, in fact the President chastised Rumsfeld not only for that failure but also for the reasons listed above. That seems an unlikely possibility given the importance of the story and the fact that the White House authorized the release of the information.

Third, Rumsfeld might have briefed the President about the case in terms that did not suggest the extent, severity and nature of the abuse. The President and the White House sources may be using the failure to show the President the pictures as a shorthand way of saying that Rumsfeld misled the President (either by act or omission) about what actually happened. The White House may be trying to say that if the President had known the truth, he would have promptly taken action to correct the situation when Rumsfeld briefed the President in early February. If Rumsfeld knew the details of the abuse and failed to fully inform the President, then Rumsfeld must be fired immediately. As an aside, if that is what happened, how much would you have paid to be with the two of them at the party at Rumsfeld’ house the night Sixty Minutes II ran the pictures?

The final possibility is by far the most troubling. Perhaps Rumsfeld informed the President of the abuse in terms that made clear that Americans had subjected Iraqis to vile torture but the President was not concerned and took no action because he was not told that pictures existed that would make the abuse both public and indisputable.

That is a very unflattering portrait of President Bush. It does, however, fit with the George W. Bush depicted by Tucker Carlson in a 2000 profile in Talk magazine. National Review quotes the Carlson piece:

In the week before [Karla Faye Tucker's] execution, Bush says, Bianca Jagger and a number of other protesters came to Austin to demand clemency for Tucker. "Did you meet with any of them?" I ask.

Bush whips around and stares at me. "No, I didn't meet with any of them," he snaps, as though I've just asked the dumbest, most offensive question ever posed. "I didn't meet with Larry King either when he came down for it. I watched his interview with [Tucker], though. He asked her real difficult questions, like 'What would you say to Governor Bush?' "

"What was her answer?" I wonder.

"Please," Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "don't kill me."

If the last, unflattering possibility is true, then it would be hard for Bush to fire Rumsfeld as Rumsfeld could go public with the fact that Bush was informed about the abuse in detail but did nothing about it for months. Rumsfeld does not strike me as the kind of guy to volunteer to fall on his sword for a mistake he did not make.

Which is the more likely scenario? I do not know but I think that we will find out relatively soon.

If either of the first two possibilities (reporter error or source error), we will know very soon because the White House will issue a correction today. If the third possibility (Rumsfeld failed to brief Bush in a meaningful way) is true, it seems inconceivable that Rumsfeld will not soon decide that he would prefer to spend more time with his family.

The Times story notes:

Mr. Bush insisted that the defense secretary still had his full support. "Of course I've got confidence in the secretary of defense," Mr. Bush said in an interview with Al Hurra, an Arab television network…

On Monday, Mr. Bush is scheduled to make a rare visit to the Pentagon, where he will meet with Mr. Rumsfeld on the defense secretary's turf, receive a briefing on Iraq and make a public statement.

White House officials said that the visit had been planned before the abuse scandal erupted, but they acknowledged that its timing was opportune for Mr. Bush to make a public show of support for Mr. Rumsfeld after the messy events of Wednesday.

That does not sound like Mr. Bush is about to fire Secretary Rumsfeld.

I really, really hope that the last possibility is not the truth. If Mr. Bush knew about the torture, in detail, and did not care about it so long as it was not made public, he has shamed the office he occupies and the people of the nation he serves.

Restating The Obvious

In the unlikely event that any of you remain unaware of one of the central facts of the world of blogs, please allow me to restate the obvious. Teresa Nielsen Hayden of Making Light is a TREASURE (be sure to read all the comments; link via Patrick’s sidelights).

A Harsh Sentence

The administration wants the whole world to know that it takes the abuse of the Iraqi prisoner’s seriously.

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld promised to hold those responsible accountable:

We're taking and will continue to take whatever steps are necessary to hold accountable those that may have violated the code of military conduct and betrayed the trust placed in them by the American people," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

National Security Advisor Condaleezza Rice also noted that accountability would be forthcoming:

President Bush, campaigning in Ohio, did not mention the abuse but his National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice again said the president was disgusted and outraged and had demanded those responsible be held accountable.

"The president has told the secretary of defense that he expects people to be held accountable, and that he wants, too, to know that this is not a systemic problem," Rice said.

Secretary of State Colin Powell made some promises as well:

But he added that he hoped that Arabs and others would realize that the United States would punish the perpetrators of these abuses "in a way that the world can observe and watch" and thus set a different kind of example, of criminal actions being punished.

"The one thing you can be sure of is that justice will be done," Mr. Powell said.

I wonder if the rest of the world will see our actions as "justice." For instance, Reuters reports on one punishment that has already been meted out:

Army officials said the military had investigated the deaths of 25 prisoners held by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and determined that an Army soldier and a CIA contractor murdered two prisoners. Most of the deaths occurred in Iraq.

An official said a soldier was convicted in the U.S. military justice system of killing a prisoner by hitting him with a rock, and was reduced in rank to private and thrown out of the service but did not serve any jail time.

A demotion and dismissal from the military with no jail time for a murder?

Does the administration really think that moderate Iraqis, other Muslims and the rest of the world will see that as justice?

Ever Vigilant

Paul Krugman, writing in the Times, notes that an employee of CACI International may be at the center of the abuse of Iraqi detainees:

According to reports in a number of newspapers, employees from two private contractors, CACI International and Titan, act as interrogators at the Abu Ghraib prison. According to Sewell Chan of The Washington Post, these contractors are "at the center of the probe" into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

And that abuse, according to the senior defense analyst at Jane's, has "almost certainly destroyed much of what support the coalition had among the more moderate section of the Iraqi population."

We don't yet know for sure that private contractors were at fault. But why put civilians, who cannot be court-martialed and hence aren't fully accountable, in that role?

CACI International has its U.S. headquarters in Arlington, Virginia.

A look at CACI's 2003 annual report (pdf) shows that CACI’s motto is “Ever Vigilant.”

At CACI, being Ever Vigilant means something to us and to those we serve:

To our customers… it means we are committed to their success.

To our employees… it means we are never complacent.

To our stockholders… it means we deliver performance and accountability.

To our culture .. it is who we are …

Ever Vigilant means the relentless pursuit of innovation and excellence. It means listening carefully and understanding our customer’s missions and objectives. It means exceeding their expectations. Year and year after year.

Given that CACI’s customer is the United States of America and given that our goal is to bring stability and democracy to Iraq and given that those goals can not be accomplished without winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, the participation in torture of Iraqis by CACI employees is hard to square with “listening carefully and understanding our customer’s missions and objectives” and being “committed to their success.”

The annual report also contains some other interesting information. For instance, with regard to performance standards and ethics, CACI claims:

CACI International consistently strives for the highest standards of performance and brings to bear a powerful legacy of straightforward business ethics in everything we do.

With regard to it employees, CACI claims:

Our employees turn the promise of vigilance into reality. These world-class professionals not only have excellent credentials, they have excellent attitudes as well. You won’t find a team that is more client focused. Or one that pays closer attention to detail.

CACI also claims that it acts “with unequaled integrity.”

Krugman notes that as a private contractor, neither CACI nor its employees are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and therefore can not be court-martialed. That does not mean that CACI can not be held accountable for the actions of its employees taken with the scope of their employment.

CACI is a publicly traded company. It is accountable to its shareholders. One thing that shareholder’s despise is having the company pay out large amounts of money as a result of the conduct of company employees. CACI is subject to American tort law in the courts of Virginia as well as in the Federal Courts.

I envision the cross examination of the CEO of CACI. The lawyer, while putting the photographs of Iraqi’s being tortured up on a large screen might ask the CEO whether that was what he had in mind when he stated that you won’t find a team “that pays closer attention to detail.”

The CEO could be asked whether or not torture constitutes “excellent attitudes,” the “highest standards of performance” and “a powerful legacy of straightforward business ethics in everything we do.”

Considering the damage done to the United States mission in Iraq by the torture of the Iraqi detainees and considering the revolting conduct shown by the photographs and reports, if it could be shown that CACI employees participated in such conduct, I suspect that any American jury would be Ever Vigilant in punishing CACI. That is a form of accountability that CACI will understand.

The Doctor Is In

I have long struggled with the fact that the medical establishment has been unable to develop any pharmacological or other medical treatment for autism.

Bobby was diagnosed as autistic about six years ago. At the time, everything I knew about autism I had learned from Rainman. Upon receiving the diagnosis, I immediately began to gather information about autism. I was lucky. I had access to a superb medical library at the Emory University Medical School. I had access to on-line databases of medical research. I had advice and support from family members trained in medicine and medical research.

I began with high hopes that the marvels of modern medicine would show us a way to cure our son. Those hopes were soon dashed as my research revealed that there were no approved medical treatments for autism. I learned that the state of the art therapy for autistic kids was Applied Behavioral Analysis. ABA involves intensive application of social science methods to alter the behavior of autistics.

We followed the ABA methodology with decidedly mixed results. At some point, the hope that our son would be “cured” faded into a reluctant acceptance that Bobby’s autism would forever remain the central organizing fact of his life and ours.

You can imagine my chagrin when I discovered that I had been mistaken to confine my research to the New England Journal Of Medicine, research funded by NIMH and other scholarly sources. The whole time I spent in the Emory University Medical School library should have been devoted to listening to right wing radio. Rush Limbaugh, Neal Boortz and Michael Savage know more about neurological disorders than all of the medical experts and researchers combined. Or at least they think they do.

Last week the New York Times ran a long article on Asperger’s syndrome. Asperger’s is a form of autism. As the Times reports:

autism is now believed to encompass a wide spectrum of impairment and intelligence, from the classically unreachable child to people with Asperger's and a similar condition called high-functioning autism, who have normal intelligence and often superior skills in a given area. But they all share a defining trait: They are what autism researchers call "mind blind." Lacking the ability to read cues like body language to intuit what other people are thinking, they have profound difficulty navigating basic social interactions.

For a description of what it is like to grow up and live as an Aspie, I highly recommend Natasha’s three part series on the subject.

After the Times article appeared, the subject of Asperger’s arose on the Rush Limbaugh radio program. The proprietor of BLOGGG, as the parent of an Asperger's child, has been all over this issue, see here, here, here, and here for the details.

Now although Dr. Limbaugh does not have much formal education (he is a college drop out), he is the head of the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies. In that role, Limbaugh has heretofore confined his pharmacological research to issues involving the effects of certain opiates known as blue babies. Now, however, he has revealed a cure for the social interaction issues experienced by sufferers of Asperger’s syndrome:

I would assume that copious quantities of adult beverages might lessen the strain of Asperger's syndrome…

That’s right, according to Dr. Limbaugh, people with Asperger’s syndrome no longer must strive to deal with a neurological issue or with a set of social norms and cues that make little sense to them. They can simply get drunk.

Is being ignorant about neurological conditions and insensitive to the challenges presented by such conditions some sort of prerequisite to being a right wing radio host? First, Michael Savage, acting like a school yard bully, mocked autistic kids and their families.

Then Neal Boortz and other conservatives argued, incorrectly, that ADD and ADHD were just some phony conditions created to allow parents and teachers to drug our kids thereby covering their own inadequacies.

Now Limbaugh recommends that people with Asperger’s syndrome should just get drunk.

I suspect that if a way could be found for Savage, Boortz, Limbaugh and others to spend a little time in my shoes, in Natasha’s shoes or in the shoes of any parent with an ADHD child, the total amount of stupid, cruel and insensitive remarks about neurological conditions and the people who suffer from them could be reduced substantially. I will not be holding my breath.

Find the Common Element

Remember those tests in which you were given a list of several things and were asked to find the common element among them? Let’s try a version of that test. Below are three items. What is the common element?

Item 1

Bev Harris is the proprietor of Black Box Voting. She has done yeoman’s work in exposing the faults in Diebold electronic voting systems.

Diebold’s chief executive, Walden O’Dell wrote a fundraising letter on behalf of President Bush stating that he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

Bev Harris writes (no permanent links available; it is the April 29 entry) that the Secret Service, under the auspices of the Patriot Act, is hassling her. The Secret Service is threatening to haul her before a Grand Jury and seize her computer in order to gather information about people opposed to electronic voting.

Item 2

According to this Associated Press report (link via Tom Tomorrow) the Treasury Department seems more concerned about Fidel Castro than Osama bin Laden:

The Treasury Department agency (the Office of Foreign Asset Control) entrusted with blocking the financial resources of terrorists has assigned five times as many agents to investigate Cuban embargo violations as it has to track Osama bin Laden)'s and Saddam Hussein's money, documents show…

Sen. Max Baucus, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, requested the figures, which showed that at the end of 2003, OFAC had 21 full-time agents working Cuba violations and just four full-time workers hunting bin Laden's and Saddam's riches…

"This is really astounding," (Senator Byron) Dorgan said. "I hope somebody in the administration will soon come to his or her senses and start directing our resources where they are needed. Politics is clearly diverting precious time, money and manpower away from the war on terrorism here."

The virulently anti-Castro Cuban-American vote in Florida is crucial to the President’s electoral chances in Florida. Florida, in turn, is crucial to the President’s efforts to win reelection.

On a recent trip to Florida, Treasury Secretary John Snow touted the work of the Office of Foreign Asset Control that has been devoting resources to policing the Cuban embargo instead of looking for terrorists’ financial assets. As the Miami Herald reported:

Treasury Secretary John Snow proudly trotted out the latest statistics on the crackdown during a visit to Miami in February. He said that 264 cases had been opened by Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control, the agency that licenses travel to Cuba.

Item 3
The law has long prohibited the provision of material support to terrorist organizations. President Bush has remarked as follows:

if you harbored a terrorist, if you fed a terrorist, if you hid a terrorist, you're just as guilty as a terrorist…

Among the groups listed by the State Department as terrorist organizations are two from the Philippines, Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Echo Bay Mines, until it morphed into Kindross Gold, was a gold mining company with interests in the Philippines. The Sierra Club’s Marilyn Berlin Snell has carefully documented that Echo Bay provided in excess of $1.7 million in material support (mostly cash) to terrorist groups in the Philippines.

According to Snell, the information and documentation of Echo Bay’s payments to terrorist groups have been offered or provided to the authorities. Snell also reports:

According to Jeffrey Breinholt, coordinator of the Terrorism Financing Task Force at the Department of Justice, as of the end of February 2004, 57 individuals had been charged with crimes involving material support for terrorist organizations. ("Material support," or "providing something of value" to terrorists has been a crime since 1994, but its definition was broadened in 1996 and again under the PATRIOT Act.)

No prosecution of Echo Bay or its officers and employees for providing material support to terrorists organizations has been instituted.

An Open Secrets search reveals that mining companies have given almost $12 million to Republicans from the 2000 election cycle to the present and that about 85% of its contributions have been to Republicans.

What is the common element among those three items?