Category Archives: NADA – New American Dark Ages

New American Dark Ages

Dump Duhbya

Orwellian cheeriness that has become a Bush administration specialty

A Fishy Policy
The Bush administration’s big chill on speech isn’t limited to global warming.

YOU’D THINK THE Bush administration would have learned its lesson with James Hansen and global warming. Apparently not. Mr. Hansen, you may recall, is the NASA scientist who was muzzled — by a 24-year-old résumé falsifier, no less — in his efforts to warn about the dangers of climate change. Mr. Hansen, it turned out, wasn’t alone: Other employees working on that issue at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been chastised for speaking out and answering media questions.

Now it appears that this chilling effect isn’t just for global warming. According to a report in Wednesday’s Post by Blaine Harden, NOAA has directed that questions about endangered salmon — which the agency is responsible for protecting — are to be answered only by headquarters, and then only by three officials, all political appointees. Scientists and other agency officials who actually work on the salmon studies aren’t supposed to answer reporters’ questions.

This latest crackdown came — coincidentally, officials insist — the day after a Post article quoted a NOAA spokesman in Seattle as making positive comments about decisions by a federal judge and federal scientists that ran contrary to Bush administration policies on salmon protection.

With the Orwellian cheeriness that has become a Bush administration specialty, NOAA headquarters spokesman Jeff Donald explained that the change was made because “some folks were trying to consolidate a little bit and make sure everything we were putting out was accurate and as up to date as possible.” That’s the kind of helpfulness we don’t need.

NADA - New American Dark Ages

In Praise of Extremism?

The year is only half over, but I have a nominee for the dumbest political opinion column of the year — and it’s not by John Dimdahl, but by Jonah Goldberg (editor-at-large of National Review Online). mjh

The case for extremism by Jonah Goldberg

On issue after issue, the left and right get into a tug-of-war over their preferred policy solutions. And politicians, extreme people-pleasers that they are, try to split the difference. The journalists who cover politicians are cynics and assume that true believers are by their very nature suspicious. Moreover, because politicians and mainstream journalists alike get the most grief from “partisans” of the left and the right, they both assume that the middle is the most enlightened place to be, since they think that’s where they are. But compromise is not always the smartest way to go. Leaping a canyon in one jump may or may not be stupidly extreme, but it’s a hell of lot smarter than the more moderate approach of trying to leap it in two jumps. [mjh: this is the kind of irrelevant ‘reasoning’ the Right considers “deep thinking”]

Lest I seem too bipartisan myself here, it should be noted that the bias against extremism is not a purely centrist phenomenon. It comes in large part from a sustained liberal campaign against conservatives. The most famous illustration of this is probably Barry Goldwater’s perfectly sensible declaration that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. But for a generation of liberals, extremism was something to be found only on the right, never on the left, and Goldwater’s observation was taken as code for extremism liberals don’t like. [mjh: notice another tactic of the Right to blame the Left for its unreasonable reaction to a perfectly sensible Right-winger. Yeah, uh-huh. Good to note that Saint Goldwater had his doubts about conservatism towards the end. He might be called a RINO today.]

Paladins of bipartisan moderation may not realize how responsible they are for today’s polarized climate. In America, it is impossible to gain traction on an idea unless you first assure everyone that it’s not “extreme” or “radical.” Assurances that “this is a moderate, centrist reform,” and that “this is mainstream,” proliferate whenever a policy is put forward. There’s a deep cynicism in the assumption that Americans will only agree to things that aren’t too inconvenient. But, more important, there’s a profound dishonesty to such assurances, which inevitably cause people with opposing views to get very, very angry.

Dump Duhbya

The Death Tax Nonsense

The Death Tax Nonsense says much about the Radical Right. Here is an issue that concerns a tiny minority of the richest Americans. Still, the Radical Right spins it — as they do all taxes — as something to frighten everyone with. This issue alone would show how out of touch Republicans are with the majority and how their true constituency is Wealth (though many of the super-rich see the fairness of the tax). It makes “the party of ideas” look like the vandals sacking Rome. mjh

Sioux City Journal: Grassley sees hurricane recovery costing up to $200 billion

“On the estate tax, it wouldn’t surprise me if nothing is going to happen in the year 2005,” said [Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa]. “It’s a little unseemly to be talking about eliminating the estate tax at a time when people are suffering.”

Repeal/Reform of the Estate Tax – Center for American Progress

At the core of this debate is a simple American principle: we do not believe that because of accidents of birth one group should have unrivaled economic power. Efforts to completely or virtually eliminate estate taxes on even the nation’s most wealthy estates offend basic American values that have long held that economic success should depend on hard work, entrepreneurial spirit and merit rather than one’s original station in life. In the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Such inherited economic power is as inconsistent with the ideals of this generation as inherited political power was inconsistent with the ideals of the generation which established our government.” …

Currently, less than 1 percent of estates pay any tax—with the vast majority of the population owing nothing. In 2004, this translated into an estimated 18,800 estates.[4] Under current law, this number will decline even further as the estate tax exemption rises. By 2009 (when the law will allow a couple to pass $7 million and an individual to pass $3.5 million of any estate to their heirs tax free), less than 0.3 percent of estates will owe any tax.

Sample Chapter for Graetz, M.J. and Shapiro, I.: Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight over Taxing Inherited Wealth.

Mt. Rushmore and a History of the Estate Tax by Jim Grote

It is ironic in a country as devoted to individual liberty and free enterprise as ours that the most ardent promoters of a federal estate tax have been some of our fiercest patriots and richest capitalists: Thomas Paine, Andrew Carnegie, Theodore Roosevelt and Warren Buffet to name a few. Reviewing the thinking of these four men can only add clarity to the current ideological debate over estate tax reform. One might think of these gentlemen as comprising the Mount Rushmore of the estate tax edifice.

FairEconomy.org – A History of the Estate Tax

Many Progressive Era (1900-1918) reforms resulted from this period, such as: child labor laws, voting rights for women, and the establishment of an income tax, which required the extraordinary step of amending the constitution. The estate tax was another one of these reforms. Those who made the case for the estate tax advanced arguments that are vital to the contemporary debate. …

A second belief was that society played a significant role in the creation of individual wealth and therefore had some claim upon the wealth of the very rich. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt proposed a federal inheritance tax, saying, “The man of great wealth owes a particular obligation to the State because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of government.” Roosevelt recognized that wealthy citizens benefitted particularly from government protection of wealth and property rights.

Dump Duhbya

Protecting Government from Pesky Whistle-Blowers

Supreme Court curbs protections for whistle-blowers By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press

The Supreme Court scaled back protections for government workers who blow the whistle on official misconduct Tuesday, a 5-4 decision in which new Justice Samuel Alito cast the deciding vote.

In a victory for the Bush administration, justices said the 20 million public employees do not have free-speech protections for what they say as part of their jobs.

Critics predicted the impact would be sweeping, from silencing police officers who fear retribution for reporting department corruption, to subduing federal employees who want to reveal problems with government hurricane preparedness or terrorist-related security.

Supporters said that it will protect governments from lawsuits filed by disgruntled workers pretending to be legitimate whistle-blowers. [mjh: a rampant problem, as we all know.] …

“Official communications have official consequences, creating a need for substantive consistency and clarity. Supervisors must ensure that their employees’ official communications are accurate, demonstrate sound judgment, and promote the employer’s mission,” Kennedy wrote.

Justice David Souter’s lengthy dissent sounded like it might have been the majority opinion if O’Connor were still on the court. “Private and public interests in addressing official wrongdoing and threats to health and safety can outweigh the government’s stake in the efficient implementation of policy,” he wrote. Souter was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

Dump Duhbya

Name Game

The slick marketers who run the country now call it the “American-Made Energy and Good Jobs Act.” I might call it the “Rape the Wilderness for Short-term Gains Act” or maybe the “Undo Past Compromises Act.” How about the “Head in the Sand Act”? mjh

American-Made Energy and Good Jobs Act

This House bill would open a strip of coastal land in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling.

The House passed H.R. 5429, to direct the Secretary of the Interior to establish and implement a competitive oil and gas leasing program that will result in an environmentally sound program for the exploration, development, and production of the oil and gas resources of the Coastal Plain of Alaska, by a yea-and-nay vote of 225 yeas to 201 nays, Roll No. 209 [7 Not Voting].

Nay: Tom Udall
Yea: Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce
Not Voting: Tom DeLay
—–

Arctic Journey: Slideshow

The Wilderness Society is proud to present a slideshow featuring photos from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Dump Duhbya

conservative stamp on the courts

Bush Aide Confirmed to U.S. Bench

White House aide Brett M. Kavanaugh won Senate confirmation as an appeals judge yesterday after a three-year wait, a new victory for President Bush in a drive to place a more conservative stamp on the courts. …

“Mr. Kavanaugh is a political operative,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a member of the Judiciary Committee. “I can say with confidence that Mr. Kavanaugh would be the youngest, least experienced and most partisan appointee to the court in decades.” …

Kavanaugh was an assistant to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr during the impeachment probe of President Bill Clinton and worked on behalf of the Bush campaign during the election recount in 2000.

NADA - New American Dark Ages

the cult of multiculturalism?

Right Web | Analysis | Tom Tancredo—Christian Crusader, Cultural Nationalist, and Iran Freedom Fighter

[Colorado Republican Rep. Tom] Tancredo, like many on the right — from social conservatives to neoconservatives—bases his restrictionism less on economic reasons than on cultural and racial ones.

“The threat to the United States comes from two things: the act of immigration combined with the cult of multiculturalism,” argues Tancredo. “We will never be able to win in the clash of civilizations if we don’t know who we are. If Western civilization succumbs to the siren song of multiculturalism, I believe we are finished.” …

“I believe that what we are fighting here is not just a small group of people who have hijacked a religion, but it is a civilization bent on destroying ours. Radical Islam has been the foe of Christiandom for centuries. The most serious foe of Christiandom.” [mjh: it WAS a smaller group of people until we blundered royally in Iraq.]

“This combination, massive immigration and radical multiculturalism,” warned Tancredo, “is a prescription for our own demise.”