Tapscott's Copy Desk

Tapscott's Copy Desk Has Moved to Examiner.com!

2006-12-03T14:45:00.000-05:00

Tapscott's Copy Desk bowed in the Blogosphere to somewhat less than unanimous and thundering acclaim Nov. 16, 2004. Many posts later, what might be called the "Blogger phase" of Tapscott's Copy Desk - because I've stayed with the Google program despite much frustration - ends tomorrow, Dec. 4, 2006, with a move to Examiner.com.

Go here to see the new digs.

Examiner.com is the web site of Clarity Media, which publishes The Washington Examiner where I toil happily as editorial page editor, as well as editions in Baltimore and San Francisco. More editions will be coming online in various cities across the nation in years to come.

The three hard-copy editions collectively reach more than a million readers six days a week, while Examiner.com is drawing more than a million visitors a month. Numbers like those should make it clear why I am so enthusiastic about moving from an independent blog to a publishing platform with vastly more circulation and immense potential for awesome growth.

This original incarnation of Tapscott's Copy Desk will remain here as an archive. Thank you so much to everybody who has spent time at this site, posted comments, emailed suggestions or otherwise contributed to the modest success I enjoyed with this humble site.

See ya at Examiner.com.

A Most Important and Impressive Fifth Blogiversary

2006-12-01T12:20:00.000-05:00

No, not for Tapscott's Copy Desk but for Bill Hobbs of Tennessee who has a great story because he's one of the earlier Right bloggers. And still one of the best. Here's how he describes it:

Fifth Blogiversary

It passed yesterday without me noting it here on the blog, but yesterday is the fifth anniversary of my blog's creation. I first posted these two items on Nov. 30, 2001, at my blog's original website. The blog was created as a way to provide additional material for readers of my weekly column that I was writing for the Nashville City Paper. (You can see a full list of links to all my NCP columns here.) I moved the blog to this site on January 1, 2004. Since then, according to SiteMeter, it has been visited more than 1.46 million times. According to AwStats, my blog gets about 22,000 unique visitors per month. If half of them dropped a dollar in the tip jar once a month, I could do this full time...

And now, on to year six.

ProfBainbridge.com Unveils Redesigned and Much Expanded Site as Portal to a Blog Magazine

2006-11-27T07:39:00.000-05:00

Prof. Stephen Bainbridge of UCLA is among the most widely read law profs due in no small part to the fact he covers a wide variety of topics ranging from business and law issues to politics, wine and cars. He's also a member of The Examiner Blog Board of Contributors.

Bainbridge has now unveiled a massive redesign of his blog, but the overhaul is not simply to how profbainbridge.com looks. Bainbridge has changed the underlying concept of how he uses his blog. It is now actually a portal to a blog-based online magazine divided into three distinct sections, or blogs.

ProfBainbridge.com is now "the front page of a blog magazine in three sections." His Prof Bainbridge's Journal, for example, is where he covers politics, cars, non-business law, political incorrectness, dogs or whatever else strikes his fancy. Check out this post on a new study that indicates those sky-high CEO compensation packages may also result in higher pay for the folks back down the management line.

His Prof. Bainbridge's Business Associations Blog is where you will find his scholarly work, as well as posts concerning the work of others in business law that he finds worthy of comment. Check out this post on investor activism in, of all places, China.

The third section is Prof. Bainbridge on Wine. You will find much more than the results of the UCLA prof's most recent wine-tasting tour. Betcha didn't know there were First Amendment issues involved here. Check this out.

Congratulations to the good professor and let it be noted here that I expect ProfBainbridge.com could quite possibly be followed by a bunch of smart bloggers intent on directing the highest form of flattery in his direction.

Alaska "Seafood Waste" Earmark Shows Lengths to Which Advocates Go to Conceal Their Handiwork

2006-11-22T15:00:00.000-05:00

A congressional insider provided the following account of an earmark contained in the proposed 2007 Agriculture Appropriations bill. Are not the senators and staffers who practice the following legislative concealment gulity of some form of fraud?

Here is just one example of the trickery that goes into hiding earmarks in appropriations bills and the hours of detective work necessary to find basic information about how tax dollars are being spent by Congress:

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2007 Agriculture Appropriations bill contains a $2,009,878 earmark for a "seafood waste" project in Fairbanks, Alaska. Neither the bill nor its accompanying report contains a description of the purpose of this project, its intended goals or the actual amount of the earmark.

The purpose and actual amount of this earmark is a "hide and seek" exercise that requires extensive detective work.

The earmark is contained within a list of "Program Continuations" in the bill report, which states "the Committee directs the Agricultural Research Service to continue to fund the following areas of research in fiscal year 2007 at the same funding level recommended in fiscal year 2006."

The FY 2006 Agriculture appropriations conference report states that "The conference agreement includes increased funding in fiscal year 2006 to expand" the seafood waste earmark project by $75,000. The report again does not state what the purpose of the research is or what the total amount of the earmark is.

The Joint Explanatory Statement for the FY 2005 Consolidated Appropriations Act published in the Congressional Record states a “further increase” is provided for "Seafood Waste, Fairbanks, AK (U of AK), $160,000 (of which $50,000 goes to the State of Alaska)."[1] Again, the actual amount and purpose are not provided.

Going back a year earlier, a "further increase" of $180,000 is provided for "Seafood Waste, Fairbanks, AK (U of AK)" in the FY 2004 Consolidated Omnibus Appropriations bill.[2]

The FY 2003 Consolidated appropriations bill report states,"The conferees have agreed to increased funding for… Seafood Waste, Fairbanks, AK" by $200,000.[3]

The term "seafood waste" does not appear in the FY 2002 Agriculture appropriations conference report. The conference report does, however, state:

"The statement of the managers remains silent on provisions that were in both the House and Senate bills that remain unchanged by this conference agreement, except as noted in this statement of the managers. … The House and Senate report language that is not changed by the conference is approved by the committee of conference. The statement of the managers, while repeating some report language for emphasis, does not intend to negate the language referred to above unless expressly provided herein."[4]

There is no reference to "seafood waste" in the report for the FY 2002 House-passed Agriculture appropriations bill.

The FY 2002 Senate Agriculture appropriations bill, however, states:

"Seafood waste - While seafood is attractive now as an alternate food source, the disposal of seafood waste continues to be a national and international problem. Discarded fish waste and its other uses could potentially provide an additional source of revenue for seafood processors. The Committee provides an increase of $900,000 for fiscal year 2002 for ARS to develop a program with the University of Alaska on feedstuffs generated from materials usually wasted during processing of seafoods."[5]

There is no reference to "seafood waste" in the FY 2001 Agriculture appropriations bills or reports passed by both the House and Senate.

Anyone interested in knowing the purpose of this earmark would have to search back through five years of appropriations bills. Finding the amount of the earmark is even more complicated since the base amount is never provided, only the amount that the project is to increase each year.

A clerk from the Senate Appropriations Committee disclosed that the actual amount that the Alaska "seafood waste" earmark is to receive under the FY 2007 Agriculture appropriations bill is $2,009,878.

[1] CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - HOUSE, November 19, 2004, H10413.

[2] CONGRESSIONAL RECORD - HOUSE, November 25, 2003, H12448.

[3] "MAKING FURTHER CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE FISCAL

YEAR 2003, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES CONFERENCE REPORT TO ACCOMPANY H.J. Res. 2," House Report 108-10, Page 556.

[4] "MAKING APPROPRIATIONS FOR AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES PROGRAMS FOR THE FISCAL YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 30, 2002, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES," House Report 107-275, page 47.

[5] Senate Report 107-41 to accompany S. 1191, page 35.

Would It Be Different Among U.S. Journalists?

2006-11-18T11:17:00.000-05:00

Normblog describes a recent event in Wales that captures the sorry state of affairs visavis freedom of speech in the United Kingdom. Aussie journo Andrew Bolt isn't surprised. What is significant about this occurrence for those of us in the former North American colonies, however, is that it could easily be duplicated here in America.

HT: Instapundit

Whither the GOP? Now the Debate Gets Serious

2006-11-17T10:42:00.000-05:00

Rep. John Boehner, R-OH, and Rep. Roy Blunt, R-MO, have been elected House Minority Leader and House Minority Whip, respectively, and both by wide margins of the House GOP caucus.

Thus, both the Senate GOP, which earlier this week elevated Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-KY, and Sen. Trent Lott, R-MS, and the House GOP have opted for familiarity and continuity instead of radical change in the wake of last Tuesday's massive election defeat.

As always happens when a majority party is thrust into the minority, a great debate is now gathering momentum within the GOP and the Right side of the Blogosphere about what to do next, especially whether or not to stay within the party or seek greener electoral pastures elsewhere.

The key issue here is whether the GOP can ever be a reliable tool for advancing the principles and programs that America's moderate conservative majority have supported for decades. I remain open to persuasion otherwise, but my view is the leadership decisions made by the Senate and House GOP provide abundant evidence that conservatives, libertarians and faith-based traditionalists should look elsewhere.

Mine is a minority view, at least for now. Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters has been especially pondering these questions since the election and is beginning to arrive at some conclusions.

Today Ed focuses on the need to find and recruit top quality conservative candidates:

"Given that our choices of leadership have become so constrained that Trent Lott represents the lesser of two evils to some, then it is incumbent on conservatives to start finding better choices for these offices.

"Over the next few weeks, I'll be dusting off my Not One Dime More domain and developing some initiatives designed to do just that. I'm tentatively calling this the First Principles Project, and I'll eventually need plenty of help from the CQ community."

Go here for more from Ed.

DO NOT MISS HAM NATION!

2006-11-16T20:58:00.000-05:00

One of the great things about the Internet is how it is giving voice to so many young conservative stars-in-the-making. Like Mary Katharine Ham. With each succeeding edition of "Ham Nation," you can see her confidence growing and an influential, entertaining, thoughtful personae emerging.

If you doubt me, just watch the latest edition and MKH will explain why Democrats are the "psycho ex-girlfriend of American politics" and the GOP is the porkrind-gorging ex in denial "sitting on the couch eating Ho-Hos."

I'll bet Chris Matthews and Tim Russert had no idea Ho-Hos could have political implications!

Go here. Enjoy.

Milton Friedman, RIP

2006-11-16T17:41:00.000-05:00

Economist and Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman has passed away today in San Francisco at age 94. Cause of death was heart failure, according to a Bloomberg report quoting his daughter.

His "Capitalism and Freedom" was one of the first handful of serious books I read as a young campus conservative way back in 1969 and from then on he has been a dependable fixture of a giant in the intellectual universe.

May he rest in peace from labors that bore fruit we will all enjoy for generations to come.

Milton Friedman
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Seven Wise Suggestions for House GOPers from Gingrich

2006-11-15T10:29:00.000-05:00

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gringrich has an excellent memo to the House GOP at Online Human Events today in which he offers seven very wise suggestions about how to regain majority status, as well as how to deal with the Bush White House, Blue Dog Democrats and incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Here are just two of Gingrich's points:

"To regain majority status, we have to focus on the country first and on Washington and the Congress second. If we are responsive to the country, they will support us and return us to power. If we are focused on action in Washington (whether White House action, legislative action or lobbyist and PAC action), we are probably entering a long period in minority status.
"Are House Republicans electing leaders to represent House Republican values and strategies to the White House or leaders to represent the White House to House Republicans? Over the next two years, House Republicans and the White House will have very different institutional interests and very different time horizons. If we want to regain majority status, we have to focus on the building of a grassroots coalition which supports real change in Washington."

Gingrich may be a presidential candidate in 2008, but his memo bears close study by all concerned. He doesn't say it explicitly, but it seems Gingrich is of the view that there is no rush to choose the new House GOP leadership.

Also, it's significant that the Gingrich piece is at OHE. Lots of good things are happening these days at America's oldest conservative journal and much of the credit goes to Rob Bluey, a very sharp young conservative journalist who understands online. Keep an eye on him and OHE.

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Did Conservatives Get Bushquacked Last Tuesday?

2006-11-14T18:20:00.000-05:00

The headline above was suggested as a caption for this cartoon by Nate Beeler, which appeared today on the editorial page of The Washington Examiner.

From the Have-They-Learned-Nothing? Department: House GOPers Return From Thumpin,' Set to Approve New Federal Programs

2006-11-13T18:31:00.000-05:00

It's probably a mistake to put much hope in the outcome of the GOP congressional leadership races. Just check out this description from the Republican Study Committee of a proposal on the House calendar tomorrow.

The bill in question concerns underage drinking. Now there is a problem the Founders clearly intended to be covered as a federal responsibility under the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution. Why else would there be no committee report accompanying the proposal concerning its constitutionality?

Note, too, that the bill is coming to the House floor as a result of a vote by the outgoing House GOP leadership - including Rep. John Boehner and Rep. Roy Blunt - to suspend House rules that prevent consideration of proposals that create at least three new federal programs without allowing debate and amendments.

In other words, the leading guys who just got booted out are suspending the rules to create a "fast track" for approving even more spending and more new federal programs. And Boehner wants to be the new House Minority Leader and Blount wants to be the Minority Whip!

If this passes ...

H.R. 864 - Sober Truth on Preventing Underage Drinking Act - as amended (Roybal-Allard, D-CA)

Order of Business: The bill is scheduled for consideration on Tuesday, November 14, 2006, under a motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill, as amended

Note: Under House Republican Conference Rules, legislation which creates at least three new programs may not be considered by the House on the Suspension Calendar. This rule may be waived by a vote of the elected Leadership. H.R. 864 received such a waiver from the elected Leadership.

Summary: H.R. 864 codifies the interagency coordinating committee focusing on underage drinking that had been operating informally since 2004 and directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to enhance the efforts of the committee. The committee's purpose is to coordinate federal policy and program development with respect to underage drinking. The committee is to report annually to Congress. Additionally, HHS is to report annually to Congress on the states efforts to prevent underage drinking. H.R. 864 authorizes $4 million over four years for the committee.

H.R. 864 directs HHS to continue the Ad Council's national media public service announcements against underage drinking, and authorizes $4 million for the campaign. The Secretary must also report annually on the Ad Council's efforts.

The bill authorizes $20 million over four years for the establishment of a new grant program, which would award grants to entities eligible to receive grants under the Drug-Free Communities Act of 1997, "to design, test, evaluate and disseminate effective strategies to maximize the effectiveness of community-wide approaches to preventing and reducing underage drinking."

H.R. 864 authorizes $20 million over four years for a new grant program, which would directs award grants to states, institutions of higher education, and nonprofit entities to prevent and reduce the rate of underage alcohol consumption and binge drinking among students at institutes of higher learning.

The bill authorizes $24 million over four years for a new research initiative and directs HHS to research and compile data on underage drinking including the scope of the phenomena, and the involvement of alcohol in unnatural deaths of persons aged 12 to 20 years. HHS would be required to collect data and surveys on the identification of alcohol use and attitudes about alcohol use during pre- and early adolescence, and the development and identification successful clinical treatments for youth with alcohol problems.

Committee Action: H.R. 864 was introduced on February 16, 2005, and referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce's Subcommittee on Health, which took no official action.

Cost to Taxpayers: A CBO score of H.R. 864 is unavailable. However, the bill authorizes appropriations of $72 million over the 2007-2010 period.

Does the Bill Expand the Size and Scope of the Federal Government?: Yes. The bill creates at least three new federal programs.

Does the Bill Contain Any New State-Government, Local-Government, or Private-Sector Mandates?: No.

Constitutional Authority: A committee report citing constitutional authority is unavailable.

RSC Staff Contact: Marcus Kelley; marcus.kelley@mail.house.gov; (202) 226-9717

UPDATE: Captain For Pence, Shadegg

Ed Morrissey says Rep. Mike Pence, R-IN, and Rep. John Shadegg, R-AZ, are his choices for House Minority Leader and House GOP Whip, respectively. He also likes either Rep. Jack Kingston, R-GA, and Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-TN, for GOP Conference Chairman.

UPDATE II: Cool video for Pence, Shadegg

The Jawa Report's Ragnar Danneskjold has created a superb video that puts the current House leadership races in the proper perspective. It's got some great music and images, too.

UPDATE III: Spending-drunk House OKs new federal underage drinking programs

Approval came on a 373-23 vote. Here are the Members who voted no:

Barrett (SC)
Campbell (CA)
Cantor
Feeney
Flake
Foxx
Gutknecht
Hensarling

Herger
Hostettler
Inglis (SC)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
King (IA)
Kolbe
Manzullo

Myrick
Otter
Paul
Pence
Rohrabacher
Taylor (MS)
Westmoreland

There's Another Election This Week

2006-11-13T14:29:00.000-05:00

This is posted on RedState.com. I would only add that I believe Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, is the obvious choice for Senate Minority Leader.

See also this important piece in Human Events regarding the House races.

A Tapscottian View of the Elections

2006-11-08T17:16:00.000-05:00

When Republicans worry more about staying in government than about limiting government, they get thrown out of government. That's the lesson of Nov. 7, 2006.

Conservatives have been warning the Washington Republican Establishment for years that a day of reckoning would come sooner or later if they continued to talk the talk of conservative reform such as the Contract with America without walking it as well. The day of reckoning arrived Tuesday. I am not confident that the GOP will ever again wield the power it held during the past 12 years.

All evening as I watched the returns Tuesday night and throughout the day today as I've read others' comments, I've found myself going back to the debate that ensued across the Right side of the Blogosphere in May. The debate was sparked by a Bruce Kesler post at Democracy Project entitled "Conservative Battle Fatigue."

Hugh Hewitt, the Blogfather of so many of us, christened that debate "Tapscottians versus Geraghtyites," with National Review Online's Jim Geraghty being the principal voice for those opposing the miscreants, malcontents and lone rangers who lined up with yours truly.

The fulcrum of that debate, of course, was what should be the proper attitude of conservatives and libertarians towards the GOP in the 2006 campaign. Should we stay home in protest or save the GOP's bacon yet again?

As told by Hugh, the Tapscottians advocated staying home on election day to punish the GOP for deviating from the limited government gospel no matter the consequences, even to the extent of a Democratic congressional majority being elected, while the Geraghtyites took the much more pragmatic approach of holding their noses and voting for the GOP, if only to assure sufficient support for the President on the war and in appointing conservative judges.

My purpose here, however, is not to refight that battle, but rather to review one of my concluding posts in light of Tuesday's results, the May 18 number entitled "Conservative Battle Fatique? What About the SCOTUS?"

That post opened by noting a Washington Post/ABC News survey that found 55 percent of those surveyed saying they wanted an alternative to Democrats and Republicans, then moved to comments by White House political maestro Karl Rove.

I believed Rove's comments confirmed that there was little hope of the GOP maintaining its congressional majority precisely because the response of the Bush White House and the GOP Establishment to the steadily worsening outlook would assure an election day disaster:

"Today it is doubtful the GOP can credibly offer another [Contract with America] unless it prefaces that offer with significant and concrete action toward enactment of long-promised conservative policies accomplished in a dramatic manner - 'emergency session' - that nationalizes the election on our terms rather than the Democrats' terms. Do Bill Frist and Dennis Hastert have the political acumen and courage to do this?"

The answer, of course, was no, they didn't, which meant the essential framing of the GOP congressional campaign would be left to Rove. Rove's strategy was built on the tried-and-true GOP Establishment axiom that "conservatives have no place to go," and therefore the biggest challenge was getting them to turnout on election day in sufficient numbers to overcome the Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media.

It was essential for the Rove strategy to create the appearance of sufficient progress on key issues in order to "get the GOP base stirred up." But the "progress" was little more than smoke and mirrors and everybody in Washington knew it, as did millions of conservative voters who had heard the same broken record over and over again in the past.

Thus, the Rove strategy was doomed months before it was implemented:

"Karl Rove's idea that conservatives can be lured back in sufficient numbers to protect the GOP majority by focusing on four critical issues to create the appearance of such genuine progress reminds me of the last desperate effort of the Bush I re-election campaign to portray W's father as a conservative advocate. It wasn't credible then thanks to the broken 'read my lips' promise and it isn't credible now because Bush hasn't vetoed irresponsible spending and seems determined to grant amnesty to most of the 11 million illegal immigrants."

As predicted in May, the Rove strategy fell apart by election day. As the prospect of Speaker Pelosi loomed larger, there was a small surge in GOP support, but it started far too late to change the outcome and in any case couldn't achieve the needed intensity, thanks to the years of broken promises from the GOP Establishment.

But I wasn't completely pessimistic in May:

"The good news is the opportunity thereby created for conservatives to provide the credible alternative being sought by that 55 percent who are looking around for somebody else to support in November.

"So in my view the most likely scenario is this: The GOP Establishment won't/can't seize this opportunity and so will lose in November, but the Moonbat extremism that afflicts the Democrats will quickly squander their gains.

"With Bush finally using the veto, the period leading to the 2008 presidential race will be stalemate in Congress and continued opportunity for the creation and articulation of a credible new conservative alternative. The Democrats only hope will be a triangulating Hillary, but even that won't work if her negatives remain at their typical level."

What happens in the GOP in the next 90 days will determine whether the party ever again has a realistic chance of regaining majority status in Congress and the White House. If there is not a top-to-bottom housecleaning in the congressional leadership and the national and state party structures, nothing much will change.

Frankly, I doubt that the GOP can change enough to avoid a long slide into a political oblivion not unlike that suffered by the Whigs for their inability to confront the issue of slavery.

The GOP has talked about Big Government for decades, but, with the exception of the Reagan years, has done little to change Washington. Indeed, during Bush II, the GOP has expanded Big Government even faster than the Democrats.

So what about the presidential aspirants for 2008? That's a topic for another time and frankly right now, I don't see much reason to be hopeful there either. As Scarlet said, I'll think about that tomorrow.

UPDATE: The Bums Give Us the Rush

Hugh Hewitt is surprised and angry that the House GOP leadership is calling the caucus back to D.C. next week to elect a Minority leader and other new leadership, noting that "the rush to engineer a succession communicates an unwillingness to recognize the significance of the set-back yesterday."

Oh, it communicates that and so much more, Hugh.

UPDATE II: Voters Didn't Leave Conservatism, the GOP Did - Coburn

Here's the heart of Sen. Tom Coburn's statement on the election:

"Many factors contributed to these election results. The American people obviously are concerned about the conduct of the war in

Iraq

. Members of both parties have an obligation to work together to offer creative and constructive solutions that will help our troops accomplish their mission.

"The overriding theme of this election, however, is that voters are more interested in changing the culture in Washington than changing course in Washington, D.C. This election was not a rejection of conservative principles per se, but a rejection of corrupt, complacent and incompetent government.

"A recent CNN poll found that 54 percent of Americans believe government is doing too much while only 37 percent want government to do more. The results of this election reflect that attitude. Among the Republicans who lost their re-election bids a surprising number were political moderates who advocated a more activist government.

"Several Republican members of the appropriations committees, which have been on a spending binge, also were not re-elected. On the other hand, the two Republican senators who pulled off the most impressive victories were unapologetic conservatives, Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and John Ensign (R-NV). It is also notable that the Democrats who won or who ran competitive races sounded more like Ronald Reagan than Lyndon Johnson.

"This election does not show that voters have abandoned their belief in limited government; it shows that the Republican Party has abandoned them. In fact, these results represent the total failure of big government Republicanism."

UPDATE III: Conservatives voted for Democrats

That may seem like a shocking headline, but Mike Franc of The Heritage Foundation has an excellent column in today's edition of The Baltimore Sun in which he lays it out in stark numbers:

"In every competitive Senate election save Rhode Island's, the Democrat won the votes of substantially more self-identified conservatives than the Republican did of liberals. One-fifth of all conservative voters in Pennsylvania, for example, voted for Democrat Bob Casey.

"Ohio's senator-elect, Sherrod Brown, who voted the conservative position only 8 percent of the time during his 14 years in the House (according to the American Conservative Union's scorecard), nevertheless won the votes of 23 percent of Ohio's conservatives.

"But even the support of all self-identified conservatives in those states would not have been enough to pull Sens. Rick Santorum and Mike DeWine over the finish line. Significantly, in at least three of the closest races - in Missouri, Montana and Virginia - the net cost of losing these conservatives was greater than the Republican margin of defeat."

GOP Establishment-types will argue that such voting is like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face, but Franc's data is yet another indication of just how hollow was the argument that "conservatives have no place to go" except to vote for the party of Ted Stevens, Trent Lott and Jerry Lewis.

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Here's the News Photo Your Local Newspaper Hasn't Published

2006-11-03T14:41:00.000-05:00

It's all over the Internet, but few daily newspapers are publishing it. And then they wonder why they are losing circulation?

Hugh Hewitt and Dean Barnett have much, much more starting here.

Coburn, Obama Show Freshmen Lone Rangers Can Impact Senate Big-Time

2006-11-01T13:41:00.000-05:00

Remember the old saw that freshmen senators and representatives are best advised to sit quiety on the back benches of Congress and wait years for their turn to have any genuine say or influence?

It was true back in the day of Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun, but not now and certainly not for Oklahoma's Republican Sen. Tom Coburn and Illinois' Democrat Sen. Barack Obama, at least if the latest rankings of senatorial influence and power compiled by Knowlegis for Congress.org are to be believed.

The duo rank first and second in Senate influence among the senators elected in 2004, with the Illinois Democrat first with a score of 32.56 and the Oklahoma GOPer second at 25.06. The two rank 51st and 70th respectively overall in the Senate.

Ridenour Takes Apart Bloomberg's Carlson, Demonstrates Need for Footnoted Journalism

2006-10-31T07:58:00.000-05:00

Bloomberg.com columnist Margaret Carlson wrote a column this week in which she bewailed the passing of a kindler, gentler politics and lamented the descent of the American public debate to the new low of Rush Limbaugh accusing Michael J. Fox of being a fraud.

It's a typical Carlson column, long on assertion but short on documented facts. And it serves as exactly the kind of column Amy Ridenour thinks demonstrates the need for footnotes in contemporary journalism. In the course of systematically taking apart Carlson's column, Amy also responds to my assessment of her suggestion regarding footnotes.

Here's just one point on which Amy uses Carlson to make her case for footnotes:

"Carlson says: 'One ad ran in Missouri, where Republican Senator Jim Talent is locked in an unexpectedly close race with challenger Claire McCaskill...' Unexpectedly close? The St. Louis Post-Dispatch on January 22, 2006, said: 'With the election 10 months away, state Auditor Claire McCaskill is in a statistical dead heat with the man she hopes to replace in the U.S. Senate, incumbent Jim Talent.'"

Sort of reminds me of a cat toying with its prey.

Obviously, I do think Amy's footnote suggestion is a good one, but applying the idea to an opinion column is one thing, doing it with a news story is a different sort of challenge.

Blogs Are Reviving Entrepreneurial Journalism, So Where are the News Tycoons of the Right?

2006-10-30T06:56:00.000-05:00

Excellent interview today in the Online Journalism Review with Debbie Galant, the former reporter for The New York Times who is the chief force behind Barista of Bloomfield Avenue, one of the more successful illustrations of how blogs can be platforms for what is often called "hyperlocal journalism."

Galant has gone from a one-woman operation two years ago to now having a couple of paid staffers, as well as a growing readership, regular advertisers and an increasing need for band-width. During the OJR interview, she provides a bunch of interesting insights into how to build a mere blog into a genuine news site.

Along the way, I think Galant points to one of the key aspects of the Blogosphere as it develops New Media forms and processes. Essentially, the blog encourages a revival of an independent, entrepreneurial form of journalism to rival the dominant corporate model of the old media.

And that raises a question of particular relevance to the Right side of the Blogosphere: Where are the news tycoons of the Right who recognize that "hyperlocal" can mean covering a neighborhood, or it can just as easily mean covering Congress, the White House, the political scene, or carefully defined parts thereof?

That the independence is especially evident on the editorial side comes as no surprise to veteran bloggers. Even so, it's interesting to see a former MSMer like Galant so positively acknowledge the independence in the OJR interview:

"I'd say I'm also much more courageous now. I remember one of the first posts I wrote was about a fundraiser in 2004 for Kerry in the backyard of some very wealthy liberal. I wrote a teasing post and I remember really struggling over it, afraid people would be mad at me.

"And they were but that's the kind of thing I can do now in an instant. I'm much more likely to just press the button and be decisive and not worry about who's going to like this and who isn't going to like this."

The entrepreneurial spirit is seen in the recognition that it's not enough just to be able to write well and stir up controversy. To grow a viable economic tool, Galant notes, the people with a blog-based publication have to learn some business skills as well:

"It was like claiming the territory of being almost like a newspaper single-handedly. It's not very glamorous from the viewpoint of new media as a business and nobody talks about that. But it's absolutely important for Liz and I to rationalize it as a business and to make it work as an organism, so that we have procedures, we are allowed to have vacations and go out of town.

"So that when somebody has agreed to be an advertiser, somebody is making sure that the bill is sent, and the money is collected and all those things. Writing is natural since that's what we have done professionally, but it's a whole different set of skills that has to be learned to run a business."

Now, here's question I want to pose for those on the Right side of the Blogosphere: Why aren't more of us moving to develop economically viable blog-based news sites? Yes, some of our blogs are generating sufficient advertising income to become attractive economic propositions, but the editorial model remains essentially opinion-based. And there are efforts among us - notably Wizbang, Powerline and a few others - to incorporate news functions into established opinion blogs.

But why is nobody on the Right side of the Blogosphere building news-focused blogs? We've complained for decades about how the Left-dominated MSM slants the news, but now we have the ideal tool for creating and growing a whole new crop of news sites to replace the MSM, yet how many such sites are there?

Robert Cox, president and founder of the Media Bloggers Association, published an oped in The Washington Examiner earlier this month that comes at these issues from a related perspective. I strongly encourage you to read the Cox piece and the OJR interview, then come back here and let the rest of us know your thoughts via the comments.

UPDATE: Latest daily circ figures show more declines

Only the moderately populist/conservative New York Post shows significant circulation gains, while rest of the nation's top dozen dailies continue to lose readers. Go here for Editor & Publisher's story.

Would Footnoting Improve MSM Reporting?

2006-10-28T07:29:00.002-04:00

Amy Ridenour thinks so. It would depend upon what was footnoted, of course, which means reporting assertions of the "most right-thinking people are liberals on this issue" sort would likely continue unless the regimen included all assertions subject to verification.

Footnoting would also present a problem when sources insist on anonymity. Yes, there has been vastly too much anonymous sourcing in the MSM for decades, but the fact is there are some stories that cannot be done without such sources.

Possible alternative - Instead of an identifying footnote, the reporter could describe the grounds for granting the source anonymity, as a means of reassuring readers of the veracity of the information provided.

Another alternative: Require that the email address of the reporter be published at the end of every story posted on the media organization's web site and reporters be required to respond credibly to all inquiries seeking regarding the grounds upon which a story is based.

To be sure, the Internet removes entirely the argument that there isn't sufficient room to footnote a daily news story. And the movement to make some newsrooms and the news-gathering process itself more transparent with measures like live web-casting news meetings and editorial board meetings indicates at least some recognition of the problem.

But while I'm not holding my breath, it would be a worthwhile exercise for bloggers to begin campaigning for MSM footnoting - and practicing it themselves as well.

What do you think?

Journalism
Media
News Media
blogging

Google Announces New Custom Search Engine and It's 1984 All Over Again

2006-10-25T08:13:00.000-04:00

Google's stock price hit another new high earlier this week and the digital giant also announced a new custom search tool that can be easily placed on a web site. The tool allows the host to tailor the results that will appear and the priorities assigned to each.

The good news here is that the new Google search tool allows the host to control the results of searches. The bad news here is that the new Google search tool allows the host to control the results of searches.

Dale "Okie on the Lam" Baker explains everything here.

Why Accommodating Terrorism Encourages a New Holocaust

2006-10-20T08:17:00.000-04:00

Do you understand the "war within the war on terror?" Ruth King of Americans for a Safe Israel does, as does Democracy Project's Bruce Kesler. This is a must-read. If only every journalist in the MSM understood these facts.

We're All Part of Ham Nation Now

2006-10-18T22:29:00.000-04:00

Mary Katharine Ham is the next media sensation from the Right. How do I know this? Because I have seen her debut "Ham Nation" videoblog. This woman's informed, understated, cool, bemused attitude could add mountains of credibility and hipness to any mainstream media organization's presentation.

Am I biased in this assessment of Ham's talent? Possibly. She is, after all, a member of The Washington Examiner's Blog Board of Contributors and a former colleague at The Heritage Foundation.

Regardless, you heard it here first - Ham is headed for stardom in front of the camera!

Coburn, Dutcher Call for Oklahoma Legislature to Approve State-Level Internet Spending Database

2006-10-18T21:42:00.000-04:00

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, and Brandon Dutcher, Vice-President for Policy at the Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs, have an excellent piece in The Daily Oklahoman calling for the state legislature in the Sooner State to create a google-like Internet database of state spending.

Sound familiar? It should because Coburn and Dutcher are talking about the same kind of database for Oklahomans as federal taxpayers will have in a few years as a result of Coburn-Obama, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006.

Said Coburn and Dutcher:

"In applauding the bill's passage, The Oklahoman editorialized that 'Sunshine and accountability are wonderful things in the hands of voters.' Indeed, as Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., observed, 'It was a bill that just made so much intuitive sense that no one could understand how Congress could not pass it.' And thanks to an army of bloggers, editorial writers and concerned citizens, Congress did pass it.

"Now it's time to take the idea to NE 23 and Lincoln. Oklahoma taxpayers should be empowered to Google their state tax dollars.

"Many taxpayers are frustrated that the state budget is now $7.1 billion, an all-time high. They may be aware that their tax dollars have paid for things like rooster shows and ghost employees and $100 car washes, but these things are just the tip of the iceberg.

"The Legislature should pass a law requiring the Office of State Finance to set up a searchable Web site modeled after the federal version. Taxpayers deserve to know the name of every recipient of state dollars, as well as the amount received in each of the past 10 years, and an itemized breakdown of each transaction, including the state agency dispensing the money and a description of the purpose of the funding."

I think this qualifies as the beginning of a prairie fire.

Armey Letter on Dobson Draws Line in the Sand

2006-10-13T12:43:00.000-04:00

Ryan Sager at Miscellaneous Objections reprints a public letter from former House Majority Leader Dick Armey that focuses on the growing rift between social conservatives and libertarians. The boldfaced section was highlighted by Ryan.
This may well be the first volley in the post-November debacle debate within the GOP on who is responsible for the disaster and which direction the party should take for the future.
Christians and Big Government
Why faith requires freedom

There was a day when social conservatives were united with economic conservatives in the belief that small, limited government was not only good for our economy and the prosperity of American families, but essential to protect traditional family values. We all fought for a limited federal government - a government that had the decency to respect the American people by staying out of their lives. Small government meant that all Christians could practice their faith as they saw fit. Big government violates those rights by meddling in our lives, misusing our hard-earned money, and dictating cultural norms to us. We were and are rightly outraged when government imposes wrong-headed values through its monopoly of schools, government-funded "art," and taxpayer funded "family planning."

As a united conservative movement, we win when we defend traditional values against big government pretensions to impose its brand of "morality" on the American people. We lose when we attempt to use government power to impose our values on others.

I am a devout Christian. I am a so-called "values voter." As a member of Congress and as Majority Leader, I believe I faithfully served our values. One of my proudest moments in Congress was beating the Democrats' attempts to meddle in the affairs of families that had chosen to opt out of secular government education by home-schooling their children. I took on the entire political establishment, but we only won because thousands of Christian home-schoolers demanded that Congress keep its nose out of their decision to raise and educate their children as they saw fit.

I am also a free market economist by training, and I believe that economic freedom is vitally important in the defense of the American family. Big issues like retirement security, tax reform, school choice and spending restraint will determine whether or not families will be dependent and subservient to government. Who owns your retirement? Who decides how you provide for your family's future. Can you leave your estate to your grandchildren, or is it the government's? Will the government socially engineer your life through the tax code? Will liberal education bureaucrats determine your child's education? These are all issues that used to matter to the political leadership of Christian conservative voters.

And while for most in the Christian conservative movement these issues still resonate, the same cannot be said for some of our Washington, D.C.-based religious leaders. Right after I had left Congress and joined FreedomWorks, we found ourselves embroiled in a major tax fight in Alabama. Oddly, an old friend, Bob Riley, had been elected governor only to immediately reverse course, cut a deal with the teachers union, and advocate a massive tax increase to prop up the failing government school system. It was "what Jesus would do," he said. I took personal offense to that, as did many of the voters who had just worked so hard to elect him Governor. Our activists had joined forces with local Christian conservatives, including the Alabama Christian Coalition, to fight both bad policy and a sense of personal betrayal.

We were blindsided when the national leadership of the Christian Coalition endorsed the Governor's proposed tax increase, joining forces with liberal interests in the state that had actively worked against our values for a generation. In the end we won, thanks in no small part to the fact that members of the local Christian Coalition chapter parted ways with the national organization and stood with Alabama FreedomWorks, the Alabama Policy Institute, local taxpayer organizations, and a host of other small government advocates all united in the effort to stop a big government tax-hike scheme.

Today, the national Christian Coalition has joined forces with MoveOn.org in another government grab of private property dealing specifically with ownership of the Internet. They are wrong on the specifics of the issue, and they are wrong to associate with and comfort radical liberals who have demonstrated nothing but disdain for conservative values. Armey's Axiom: Make a deal with the Devil, and you are the junior partner.

Another Armey's Axiom says that if it is about power, you lose. And unfortunately when it comes to James Dobson, my personal experience has been that the man is most interested in political power.

As Majority Leader, I remember vividly a meeting with the House leadership where Dobson scolded us for having failed to "deliver" for Christian conservatives, that we owed our majority to him, and that he had the power to take our jobs back. This offended me, and I told him so.

In a later meeting Dobson and a colleague came into my office to lobby against a trade bill, asking me to stop the legislation from going to the House floor. They were wrong on the issue, and I told them no. Would you at least postpone the vote, they asked? We have a direct mail fundraising letter about to go out to our membership, they said.

I wondered then if their opposition to the bill was driven less by their moral compass and more by the need to rile their membership and increase revenue. I wondered then, if these self-appointed Christian leaders, like many politicians, had come to Washington to do good, but had instead done well for themselves.

Dobson later ran an orchestrated campaign against me in my race to retain the Majority Leader post, telling my colleagues that I was not a good Christian. I prefer to leave that decision to Lord God Almighty on Judgment Day.

Maybe you can understand why I have recently been quoted referring to this person as a "bully."

And it continues today, as Focus on the Family deliberately perpetuates the lie that I am a consultant to the ACLU. I have never had any relationship with the ACLU and oppose most of that organization’s work. The ACLU has twisted "civil liberty" to mean something quite the opposite.

Nowhere was it more wrong, with more disastrous policy ends, than in the Terri Schiavo intervention. While her case was heartbreaking, our Founders created a government built on checks and balances, not a nation run by an arbitrary and imperial Congress. Congress cannot simply override our entire state and federal legal system to intervene in one person's situation. It was truly a chilling act.

Imagine the precedent-setting nature of such an action when a different House of Representatives, one with "Speaker Nancy Pelosi" wielding the gavel, holds power.

Freedom works. Freedom is a gift from God Almighty, and we have a responsibility to protect it. Christians face a temptation to power when we are fortunate enough to have a majority of support in Congress. But government can never advance a faith that is freely given, and it is corrosive to even try. Just look at Europe, where decades of nanny-state activism - including taxpayer support for churches and for religious political parties - have severely eroded the faith. In America today, too many of our Christian leaders fail to recognize the temptation to power and the danger it holds for our society and our faith.

And so America's Christian conservative movement is confronted with this divide: small government advocates who want to practice their faith independent of heavy-handed government versus big government sympathizers who want to impose their version of "righteousness" on others through the hammer of law.

We must avoid the temptation to use the power of government to perfect our society and its citizens. That is the same urge that drives the Left and the socialists, and I can assure you that every program or power we give government today in the name of our values can be turned against us when the day comes where a majority of Congress is hostile to us.

Instead, we need to limit the sphere of government and create civil space where private institutions, individual responsibility and religious faith can flourish. By reducing the size of the welfare state, we increase the importance of the works of Christian charities and our church communities. By reducing the tax burden on families, we make it easier for Christian households to tithe or for young mothers to stay home to raise their children. The same is true for retirement security based on ownership. Reducing the ever-growing reach of the federal government means local communities, and more important, parents, are free to establish the standards and values for the education of their children.

Consider the welfare reform we passed in 1996. By reducing bureaucracy and dependency and emphasizing work and responsibility, we changed conditions for an entire segment of our society. Since welfare reform passed, teen pregnancy, welfare caseloads, and the number of abortions in America have all declined. That is the kind of policy change that values voters need to support, and it is the result of limiting government's power over our lives.

Our movement must avoid the temptations of power and those who would twist the good intentions of Christian voters to support policies that undermine freedom and grow government. Freedom is what gives America its unique place in the world, and protecting and expanding our freedom is what creates the space necessary to keep our faith strong and growing.

Sincerely,
Dick Armey
Chairman
FreedomWorks
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Proud Powerline Papa Touts Daughter's Journalism Debut

2006-10-05T17:50:00.000-04:00

Powerline's Paul Mirengoff is one proud father, thanks to his daughter Emily's first published story in the Dartmouth Review. It's an excellent piece focusing on the controversy surrounding the Dartmouth administration's attempt to insulate itself from even the most rudimentary of accountability.

Coburn-Obama Inside Story Told at Heritage Panel

2006-10-04T17:03:00.000-04:00

"This is a big deal," said Tim Chapman, blogger and Director of The Heritage Foundation's Center for Media and Public Policy, in hosting a panel earlier today at the Washington think tank that focused on how a bipartisan coalition of bloggers won passage of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act.

"This is a big deal for the Blogosphere. The Blogosphere in the past has had victories in a lot of high profile confrontations, but they've never enacted a law. And they've never coalesced around an issue like this with leftie bloggers and rightie bloggers," Chapman added.

The whole story has yet to be written on the role played by bloggers in this campaign but the panel at Heritage today marked a milestone in the public discussion of those events. You can view the entire panel here on the Heritage web site.

Panelists included Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation, N.Z. Bear of Porkbusters. org, Rebecca Carr of Cox Newspapers Washington Bureau, Justin Rood of TPM Muckrakers and yours truly.

Every person on the panel - well, at least the other four - had lots of insightful and useful comments, but pay particular attention to Carr's initial remarks, beginning at the 9:27 mark. Here's one of her most interesting statements:

"As a traditional print journalist, I have to say I was amazed at the power of the bloggers. I couldn‘t get over how effective they were at holding this government accountable. And what you see oftentimes in Washington is this caste system. And if it’s not in The New York Times or The Washington Post, it doesn’t matter.

"But suddenly I was seeing that it didn’t matter that I wasn’t in the Times or the Post, my stories were being posted on their [Porkbusters.org and TPM Muckrakers] web sites or being mentioned on their web sites and they were actually carrying the ball further. I think in tandem we exposed a questionable practice of holding up legislation at the 11^th hour for reasons I still don’t know. "

This is the definitive discussion by some of the major players on the role of bloggers in gaining passage of the measure co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, and Barack Obama, D-IL, which requires the U.S. Office of Management and Budget to create a Google-like Internet database of most federal spending.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE
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Happy Birthday, Capn'!

2006-10-03T15:15:00.000-04:00

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters is celebrating his blog's third birthday and in the process explaining something I had been meaning to ask him about for a long time, namely the origin of that delightful quote about those coming from behind.

Congratulations to Ed and First Mate and all the great sources who have helped make Captain's Quarters an absolute must-read-first for thousands of smart people across the country. Go here for the celebratory post.

The Glenn and Helen Show Interviews John Fund on Election Fraud

2006-10-03T14:15:00.000-04:00

You want to know about election fraud and how it can eat up the heart of a democracy? John Fund of The Wall Street Journal may be the best informed expert on that topic in America and he's got a book on it called "Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy."

Fund is the expert, so of course Glenn and Helen Reynolds have him on their outstanding show and ask him all the right questions. To which he has the right answers. Go here for the whole interview.

By the way, Glenn is really good on these Pajamas Media Politics Central podcasts, but Helen (who I have never met) has real presence!

I'm Playing Hooky Today by Guest-Blogging at MediaShift on PBS.org; Talking Transparency

2006-10-03T12:07:00.000-04:00

Mark Glaser writes the MediaShift blog for PBS and decided this week would be a great time to take some vacation. It was at the point when he made the decision to take off that he also evidently took leave of his senses because he invited yours truly to guest-blog in his absence.

I had to think that request over - for about two-tenths of a nanosecond - before saying yes. Today is day one and you can read my first post here. You can also see a screen shot of it here:

Understand the New ("Broadcast") Media Revolution in One Easy Read

2006-09-30T12:47:00.000-04:00

Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine has lately been doing segments for CBS and ABC. In the process, he spotlights one of the factors driving the explosion of New Media and the decline of old broadcast news media - simple logistics.

Nearly two dozen people were required to produce a Jarvis segment for CBS News that may never be aired. Jarvis went home and produced the same script by himself with equipment he operates:

"At home, I took the exact same script and with some photos to illustrate my points and produced the segment alone, in my den, on two programs: iMovie and VideoCue, a Mac competitor to Visual Communicator, which gives you a teleprompter and the ability to drag-and-drop graphics, lower thirds, photos, audio, or video onto your script so the’re all recorded along with you (no need for editing)."

Video picture and sound quality from such equipment is bound to improve and quickly. It is only a matter of time before the Blogosphere evolves video and text-based news and opinion sites that put broadcast news in a news niche analogous to that of the big American family sedan in the automotive world.

Does Oberstar Read the Newspaper?

2006-09-29T12:28:00.000-04:00

Anybody who doubts that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty need look no further than the U.S. House of Representatives and Rep. James Oberstar, D-MN, who cleverly took advantage of a House rule to slip an anonymous earmark worth $11.5 million into the Coast Guard appropriation bill.

But wait a minute, didn't the House just adopt a new rule requiring the names of earmark sponsors be made public? True and Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters explains how Oberstar got around that new rule. It's why he's earned the Porkbusters Shame Frame you see with this post.

A fervent discussion ensued on the House floor last night between Oberstar and Rep. Jeff Flake, R-AZ. Flake was understandably ticked that the ink was barely dry on that new House rule mandating identification of earmarks sponsors before Members were looking for ways to get around it. Andy Roth at Club for Growth has the video here of a hemming and hawing Oberstar trying to explain why black is not black, it's actually white.

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Corruption

O Happy Day! Bush Signs Coburn-Obama; Lauds Government Transparency in Signing

2006-09-26T08:40:00.000-04:00

Photo by Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit. Tim Chapman has more photos here. White House video of the signing can be viewed here. Americans for Prosperity's Ed Frank has a great shot here. Rob Bluey of Human Events has more here, including a photo of the group that met with OMB Deputy Director Clay Johnson after the signing to discuss how the spending datbase will actually be created in the next two years. N.Z. Bear at Porkbusters.org has more here and Ace of Spades does a stream of (sort of) consciousness account of his role in the day's events, beginning with a breakfast at the White House mess.

Do not miss Danny Glover's extensive analysis at Beltway Blogroll. He notes some of the backstory elements to some of the congressional statements about the Bush signing. And Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist justifiably singles out Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, N.Z. Bear of Porkbusters, Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters and other bloggers for their role in mobilizing public support. And Mary Katharine Ham points to the one surprising oversight by the White House.

Here's the text of President Bush's signing statement for the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act this morning in the Old Executive Office Building beside the White House:

"Every April, Americans sit down and fill out their tax returns, and they find out how much of their hard-earned money is coming here to Washington. Once the tax dollars arrive here, most Americans have little idea of where the money goes. And today, our government is taking steps to change that. We believe that the more we inform our American citizens, the better our government will be.

"And so in a few moments, I'll sign the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. This bill is going to create a website that will list the federal government's grants and contracts. It's going to be a website that the average citizen can access and use. It will allow Americans to log onto the Internet just to see how your money is being spent. This bill will increase accountability and reduce incentives for wasteful spending. I am proud to sign it into law and I am proud to be with members of both political parties who worked hard to get this bill to my desk.

"This has been a good effort by concerned members of the House and the Senate to say to the American people, we want to earn your trust; when we spend your money, we want you to be able to watch us.

"I want to thank Rob Portman, who is in my Cabinet, he's the Director of the OMB, and my good friend, Clay Johnson, is the Deputy Director, for insisting on accountability when it comes to taxpayers' money. I know this has been a particular project -- a fond project of Clay, and I'm glad that members of Congress got it here.

"I want to thank Susan Collins, who is the Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. I want to thank the bill sponsors, Tom Coburn from Oklahoma, Tom Carper from Delaware, and Barack Obama from Illinois.

"I appreciate Roy Blunt, who is the Majority Whip. He's a sponsor of the House companion bill. I also want to thank Tom Davis, who is the Chairman of the Government Reform Committee, as well as cosponsors of the bill, Jeb Hensarling and Randy Kuhl.

"You know, we spend a lot of time and a lot of effort collecting your money, and we should show the same amount of effort in reporting how we spend it. Every year, the federal government issues more than $400 billion in grants, and more than $300 billion in contracts to corporations, associations, and state and local governments. Taxpayers have a right to know where that money is going, and you have a right to know whether or not you're getting value for your money.

"Under Clay's leadership, we launched a new system for measuring how federal programs are doing. In other words, federal programs say, we want to achieve this result, we're trying to figure out whether or not they're meeting the results. In other words, it makes sense for all of us in Washington, D.C. to say, we're a results-oriented government.

"I know Henry Waxman believes that. (Laughter.) Thank you for coming. Proud you're here, sir. I was just praising the bipartisan support that this bill has received, and you’re confirmation of that bipartisan support. (Laughter.) Thank you, appreciate you coming.

"And so we've got -- we're measuring, and we put a -- we put a website out called ExpectMore.gov. In other words, people can go on to that website and determine whether or not the results are being met for programs.

"And now Congress has come forth with an additional sense of accountability here in Washington, additional way for taxpayers to figure out whether or not we're being wise with your money. And the Federal Funding Accountability Act -- Accountability and Transparency Act will create a new website that will list government grants and contracts greater than $25,000. We'll list all grants except for those above $25,000, except for those that must remain classified for national security reasons.

"The website will allow our citizens to go online, type in the name of any company, association, or state or locality and find out exactly what grants and contracts they've been awarded. It will allow citizens to call up the name and location of entities receiving federal funds, and will provide them with the purpose of the funding, the amount of money provided, the agency providing the funding and other relevant information.

"By allowing Americans to Google their tax dollars, this new law will help taxpayers demand greater fiscal discipline. In other words, we're arming our fellow citizens with the information that will enable them to demand we do a better job -- a better job in the executive branch and better job in the legislative branch.

"Information on earmarks will no longer be hidden deep in the pages of a federal budget bill, but just a few clicks away. This legislation will give the American people a new tool to hold their government accountable for spending decisions. When those decisions are made in broad daylight, they will be wiser and they will be more restrained. This is a good piece of legislation, and I congratulate the members here.

"Recently the House made an important rule change that will also improve transparency in the legislative process. Under the rule change, the sponsor of each project will now be disclosed before the bills come to a vote. This is a wise change. It will shine the light on earmarks. It's going to help the American taxpayers know whether or not they're getting their money's worth here in Washington.

"Rule change, along with the bill I'll sign today, are important steps, but there's more to be done. The President needs a line-item veto. Here's the problem: I get a big bill, an important bill to my desk, and in that bill there may be some bad spending items, some kind of last minute cram-ins, or items that may not have seen the full light of day during the legislative process. I then either have to accept those, or veto a good bill. And there's a better way forward, at least the House thought there was a better way forward in the legislative process, and that's the line-item veto.

"Under the proposal, the President can approve spending that is necessary, red-line spending that is not, and send the wasteful and unnecessary spending back to the Congress for an up or down vote. I think this is an important part of making sure we have accountability here in Washington, D. C.

"I want to thank the House for passing the bill. I would hope the Senate would take it up. We can work together to inspire confidence in the appropriations process here in Washington. And it's in the interest of both political parties to do so, and it's in the interest of both branches of government to do so.

"Right now, however, I have the honor of signing this new bill. It’s a bill that empowers the American taxpayer, the American citizen. And we believe that the more transparency there is in the system, the better the system functions on behalf of the American people.

"Again, I thank the members. It’s my honor now to sign the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006."

UPDATE: White House talking points on FFATA

We hear the term "talking points" frequently in the media and the Blogosphere. Here's the White House talking points for today's signing of Coburn-Obama.

Today's Presidential Action

Today, President Bush Signed The Federal Funding Accountability And Transparency Act Of 2006 To Improve The Quality And Accessibility Of Information About Federal Spending. This legislation calls on the Office of Management and Budget to oversee a new website through which the public can readily access information about grants and contracts provided by Federal government agencies, except for those classified for national security reasons.

Ø The Act Is Part Of President Bush's Ongoing Commitment To Improve Transparency, Accountability, And Management Across The Federal Government. The Administration has implemented a number of initiatives allowing American taxpayers to see how their tax dollars are spent and what they are getting for their money. Greater transparency has made programs more accountable for their performance and more responsive to the American public. Two of these initiatives include:

· ExpectMore.gov: This website was established earlier this year to allow the American people to see how well Federal programs are performing. To date, the Administration has evaluated the effectiveness of nearly 800 Federal programs, representing over 80 percent of the Federal budget. Agencies and OMB post these candid assessments of Federal programs in jargon-free language on ExpectMore.gov, so taxpayers will know which programs work, which ones do not, and what programs are doing to improve.

· Results.gov: Since 2002, this website has provided detailed information on the President's agenda for improving Federal agency management. It also tracks agencies' progress in meeting their goals. Federal agencies are held accountable for developing and adopting better management disciplines under the President's Management Agenda. The status of agencies' management reform efforts is made public through scorecards updated on Results.gov every quarter.

Transparency Produces Quantifiable Results

The President's Push To Publicly Provide Federal Program Performance Information Has Helped Make Agencies Accountable For Producing Results. Agency management improvement efforts are measured based on clear, transparent, quantifiable goals. For example:

Ø With The Support Of Congress, And After Publicly Disclosing Clear Justification, The President Was Successful In Reducing Or Ending Spending On 89 Programs That Weren't Getting Results Or Serving Essential Priorities. This year, the President proposes to end or reduce 141 programs that are not achieving results or serving essential priorities, saving nearly $15 billion.

Ø By Making Agencies Verify Payment Eligibility And Publicly Measure Accuracy, Improper Payments Have Been Reduced By $7.8 Billion, Lowering The Government-Wide Improper Payment Rate By 17 Percent.

Ø By Subjecting Federal Government Activities To Competition From The Private Sector, The Federal Government Is Now Operating More Efficiently And Saving Taxpayers $900 Million Per Year.

Ø By Creating An Inventory Of Property Held By The Federal Government, The President Has Been Able To Dispose Of More Than $3.5 Billion In Unneeded Federal Assets.

Transparency And Accountability For Spending Taxpayer Dollars – The Line Item Veto

In Order To Turn Information About Wasteful Spending Into Concrete Action, The President Needs The Line Item Veto. The House of Representatives approved Line Item Veto legislation earlier this year by a strong bipartisan majority, and the President calls on the Senate to do the same. The Line Item Veto would be a tool to further improve government transparency and accountability and ensure wise financial stewardship of taxpayer resources.

Here's my original post from this morning before the signing:

President Bush will sign into law the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, co-sponsored by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-MD, and Sen. Barack Obama, D-IL, this morning in a White House ceremony that will include a bunch of us bloggers as guests.

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, N.Z. Bear of Porkbusters.org, yours truly and a bunch of others will be there to witness an historic event. John Hart, Coburn's communications director, notes in a Washington Times news article of Coburn-Obama that:

"It really does represent a revival of basic democratic values: that active citizens using tools of technology really can steer the political process. And what happened was profoundly subversive to the established political order."

That last line is exactly the point. The mainstream media has not devoted much attention to Coburn-Obama, but I believe it will prove in the near-future to be among the most important legislation of the early 21st Century.

Bush

Politics

Congress

Senate Panel Approves Cornyn-Leahy FOIA Reform

2006-09-26T08:24:00.000-04:00

It received virtually no notice in the major outlets of the mainstream media and I have to confess I didn't even know it was on the panel's calendar but the Senate Judiciary Committee last week approved on a voice vote the Open Government Act sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn, R-TX, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT.

Cornyn-Leahy was first introduced in 2002 and provides the most comprehensive reforms ever of the 1966 Freedom of Information Act. Among other things, Cornyn-Leahy provides concrete penalties for individual federal employees and agencies that violate the FOIA and establishes an independent panel to monitor agency compliance and moderate disputes between requestors and agencies.

The measure also grants bloggers the same public interest fee waiver rights as are now enjoyed by mainstream media requestors and strengthens oversight of a Department of Homeland Security program that exempts information voluntarily provided to the government by corporations involved in security activities.

A companion bill has been introduced in the House by Rep. Todd Platts, R-PA and is now in the House Government Reform Committee chaired by Rep. Tom Davis, R-VA. I have testified before both the Senate and House in favor of Cornyn-Leahy. You can read that testimony here and here.

Government Executive magazine reports here on last week's Senate vote.

FOIA
Politics
Media
Public Data Online
Congress

Looks Like Drudge Has Been Hacked

2006-09-26T08:02:00.000-04:00

Yet another illustration of how the PC forces demonstrate their commitment to free speech.

LaShawn Barber Live-Blogging from Traditional Values Conference

2006-09-23T14:38:00.000-04:00

It was just a decade ago that President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act - bet you didn't remember that he signed that one, did you! - and this weekend is the Values Voter Summit hosted by the Family Research Council at the Omni Shoreham in Washington, D.C. LaShawn Barber is live-blogging the event.

Considering the key role of values voter in the GOP's prospects for retaining control of the House and Senate - to say nothing of the White House in two years - it is not surprising that among the speakers has been Tony Snow. LaShawn has also reported on speeches by Gary Bauer and Ann Coulter. Lots going on here and LaShawn is a meticulous observer of the important details.

She says she is the only blogger attending who is actually live-blogging the summit. Very curious. I understand from LaShawn that Joe Carter of Evangelical Outpost is FRC's new communications director, so I assume he didn't have sufficient time to promote the event to the Christian and conservative communities of the Blogosphere. You can be sure that will change with Joe on board!

A Prescient 2003 Column on CRS Access

2006-09-22T17:48:00.000-04:00

Sylvia Smith has covered the nation's capitol for the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette for a lot of years and she has seen a lot of politicians and promises come and go. She wrote the following column Aug. 8, 2003, on the lack of public access to Congressional Research Service reports.

Smith's column makes clear both why taxpayers should have access to at least most CRS reports and the fact one Member of Congress can unilaterally make a difference for the public's right to know how its business is being conducted:

WASHINGTON -- Not long after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Sen. Richard Lugar was working on a document that eventually became known as the Lugar Doctrine, which outlined his view on the tack U.S. foreign policy should take in our heightened awareness of weapons of mass destruction.

One of the things he wanted to know, as he worked on the paper, was which countries have both terrorists cells and weapons of mass destruction.

It's not the sort of thing you can look up in the World Book Encyclopedia, and the Pentagon was reluctant to commit itself.

But when Lugar's staff asked the Congressional Research Service, its researchers were able to develop the lists.

"It was maybe the most scholarly overlay ever done," said Lugar's press secretary, Andy Fisher.

Over the years, Lugar's office has relied on the Congressional Research Service countless times, as have all members of Congress, their staffs and the congressional committees.

The Congressional Research Service provides the best, most clearly written, least slanted information about public policy issues to be had in Washington - which is to say, in the world.

But if you call the CRS, you won't get a single word of a single report.

The Congressional Research Service was created almost a century ago by and for Congress for its own edification. Until Congress says it can share its myriad reports (from abortion to the World Trade Organization), CRS is a closed shop.

The fact that you and I and our taxpaying neighbors pony up to the tune of about $75 million a year for these top-notch researchers is irrelevant. It is not a publicly available resource.

That's a ridiculous situation. Like most ridiculous situations, it can be gotten around.

The first way is to pay $299 a year to subscribe to a for-profit organization that then sells individual CRS reports for $7.95 a pop. (It's $29.95 for non-subscribers.) Penny Hill Press's Web site doesn't happen to mention how it gets the reports.

The drawback to this approach is the cost and the absurdity of paying twice for something.

The second is to ask a member of Congress for a report. Most people don't know the Congressional Research Service exists, let alone that a call to a House or Senate office will yield results.

But it will. Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, for instance, gets a couple of constituent requests each year for CRS reports. Lugar gets a few each month.

The flaws in this approach are that you have to know the report exists (although most public policy topics are covered), there's a time element involved, and maybe you don't want a member of the government knowing what you're interested in.

The third way to scale the CRS castle wall is to take advantage of the offer made by a Wisconsin Republican who thinks taxpayers ought to be able to use what they pay for.

So Rep. Mark Green's Web page has a link to the Congressional Research Service's various reports.

A click or two, and you can learn all you'd ever want to know about daylight-saving time, Ecstasy (the drug), countercyclical assistance for farmers, Internet gambling, the labor issues involved in the U.S.-Jordan free trade agreement, state laws on human cloning, Plan Colombia or the next excuse for a party. (It's National Airborne Day, Aug. 16. I know that from the report called "Commemorative Observances: A Chronological List.")

A link Green has on his Web page (www. house.gov/markgreen ) goes directly to the list of CRS reports.

It's the intragovernment link available to anyone hooked in to a congressional computer system, but that excludes the taxpaying public.

Green's Web page is essentially a conduit between the treasure trove of information and the people who paid for it.

There are no down sides to this approach except to politicians.

Say you want the background on the African Development Bank and Fund and ask your member of Congress to help. Some staffer will get the CRS report, put it in the mail to you (or e-mail it if you've e-mailed your query) and include a letter from said member of Congress saying it was a pleasure to assist, and write any time.

You, of course, will be most grateful and perhaps will keep this in mind when Election Day rolls around.

"If you're that hard up to get constituent appreciation, you have deeper problems than whether or not a CRS report is on your Web site," Green said.

None of the Hoosier congressional delegation has followed Green's leadership. If we're lucky, perhaps they will.

A 30-year veteran of The Journal Gazette, Sylvia Smith has covered Washington for 14 years. She is the only Washington-based reporter who exclusively covers northeast Indiana.

Thanks to Sylvia for pointing this column out to me earlier today. See, I have friends in high places!

Politics
Media
Republicans
GOP
Congress
Citizens Media
citizen journalism
Open Source Politics

Bill Hobbs: Why Not Make Congressional Research Service Reports Public?

2006-09-22T13:37:00.000-04:00

Bill Hobbs notes that taxpayers spend more than $100 million annually for research produced for Members of Congress by the Congressional Research Service and wonders why that research is not made available to the public.

Good question. A significant amount of CRS's work is done on defense and intelligence issues, but most of it is routine analyses of domestic and foreign policy issues and programs. Only Members of Congress can request the services of CRS, which is a congressional branch agency.

Hobbs notes a campaign is being mounted by the Center for Democracy and Technology to make CRS material public. Go here to read Hobbs' complete post and to find out more about the campaign.

Edsall of The Washington Post Says Mainstream Media Bias is Deeply Liberal

2006-09-22T12:52:00.000-04:00

Thomas Edsall is retiring later this year as The Washington Post's senior political correspondent. When he sat down with Hugh Hewitt for a radio chat yesterday, what followed was one of the most brutally candid discussions ever about the Mainstream Media and its deeply ingrained liberal biases.

Here's just one exchange, to give you an idea of how Edsall pulled no punches:

"HH: Is there any big name political reporter, and you know them all, Thomas Edsall. That's why your book, "Building Red America," is getting read left and right. Are there any of them who are conservative?

"TE: Big name political reporter?

"HH: Right.

"TE: Jim Vandehei of The Washington Post.

"HH: Think he's voted for Republicans for president?

"TE: Yes, I think he has. I don't know, because he’s never told me. But I would think he has.

"HH: And so, of those sorts … and he's a very fine reporter.

"TE: He is.

"HH: He probably is a Republican. But given that number of reporters out there, is it ten to one Democrat to Republican? Twenty to one Democrat to Republican?

"TE: It's probably in the range of 15-25:1 Democrat."

Go here to read it. And, as Glenn Reynolds says, just keep scrolling.

Boycott Chavez' Citgo

2006-09-21T22:11:00.000-04:00

Dear Citgo:

Every morning and evening, I drive more than 50 miles to and from work. That means twice or sometimes three times each week, I need to fill up. There is a Citgo/High's Store conveniently located about seven miles from my house on my route. That's almost always where I stop to fill up.

Never again.

UPDATE: CITGO Boycott momentum growing

GOP and the City is where I found the wonderful logo above. The Man there is tracking bloggers picking up on the Chavez-Citgo Boycott and posting additional logos like the praying Chavez. You think maybe he's praying Americans don't get a gutful of him and stop buying his gas?

Note to The Man: Sorry about the tardy credit and thanks for helping lead the response to the lunatic rantings of Chavez, who obviously expects to succeed Fidel Castro as the Southern Hemisphere's most visible despot.

UPDATE II: Captain likes boycott

Captain's Quarters Ed Morrissey normally isn't a fan of economic boycotts, but Chavez was so insulting to America and Americans that:

"However, in this case, it's not a protest about gas prices in general but against a business owner (Chavez) who went out of his way to personally insult our Head of State, from which all Americans should take offense. For me, BP Amoco and SuperAmerica look better and better all the time."

We don't have SuperAmericas in Maryland, at least not where I live, but we do have lots and lots of alternatives to Citgo.

UPDATE III: Here are the American-owned stations

Chevron	American
Coastal	American
Conoco	American
Esso	American
Exxon	American
Gas Express	American
Getty	American
Gulf	American
Hess	American
Kerr-McGee	American
Marathon	American
Martin	American
Mobil	American
Murphy USA	American
Pate	American
Petro	American
Phillips 66	American
Sergaz	American
Sinclair	American
Sonoco	American
Spur	American
Star Kleen	American
STP Fuel Centers	American
Sunoco	American
Tenneco	American
Texaco	American
Ultramar	American
Union 76	American
Zephyr	American

This list is courtesy of Roger Simmermakers, who is the guy behind the How Americans Can Buy American web site, which you should check out here.

HT: Kyle Tapscott (Yes, he's my bro and I'm proud of him! He ought to start a blog.)

Politics
Media
Republicans
GOP
Congress
Citizens Media
citizen journalism
Open Source Politics
Blog
Blogging
Media
News

Make Your Own Video, Tell Your Congressman What You Think He/She Does All Day

2006-09-21T12:36:00.000-04:00

The Sunlight Foundation's Punch Clock campaign seeking to persuade all Members of Congress to post their daily schedules on the Internet has moved into phase two and features an interesting new twist - encouraging supporters to make videos explaing what they think their representative does with his or her time all day.

Sunlight is already offering $1,000 rewards - aka "Goodwill Bounty" - to people who persuade congressmen to sign the Punch Clock Pledge to post their daily schedules, and $250 for those who nab congressional challengers.

Now the Congressinthirtyseconds.com site allows supporters to:

"Mix and match the video and audio sound tracks provided and add your own text to create a 30 second video explaining what you think Members of Congress do with their time. Make as many videos as you want, watch other user-created videos, share them with your friends, and share it with your Member of Congress when you ask him or her to open up their schedule.

"Show them that being open is better than leaving us to guess."

Persuading congressmen to post their daily schedules might not seem like a big deal and it certainly won't prevent the kinds of contacts by lobbyists and other special interests seeking special favors.

But post daily schedules is an important step in the right direction, which is a maximum of practical transparency in the operations of our government.

Smoking Cannon Found in Iraqi Documents

2006-09-20T18:18:00.000-04:00

It's the least heralded example of the Blogosphere's power to focus the wisdom of crowds on a particular problem - the slowly progressing process of translation of those thousands of Saddam Hussein regime documents captured by U.S. forces during the 2003 invasion, and the efforts of dedicated bloggers who are reading the documents in search of the "nuggets" about which the Bush Administration, the MSM and Members of Congress apparently have no interest.

Well, guess what? One of those documents reviewed by milblogger Fix 4 RSO is an internal Iraqi intelligence memo that includes this:

"1. Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban Group in Afghanistan were in touch with the Iraqis and that group of the Talibans and Osama Bin Laden had visited Iraq.
"2. The United States of America has evidence that the Iraqi government and Osama Bin Laden’s group expressed cooperation among themselves in bombing targets in American.
"3. In case Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban were proven to have been involved in carrying out these terrorist operations, it could be possible that the United Stated will attack both Iraq and Afghanistan.
"4. The Afghani consul heard about the connection between the Iraqis and the Osama Bin Laden group during his stay in Iran."

In other words, here's what appears to be concrete proof that Saddam Hussein was indeed workiing with Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban, just as President Bush has maintained since soon after 9/11.

The document was translated by the U.S. Army's Foreign Military Studies Office Joint Reserve Intelligence Center at Ft. Leavenworth. Here's a screen shot of Fix 4 RSO's post on the document:

The most amazing aspect of this document, however, is not that it seem to clearly connect the dots in the case for the administration's claim about Osama's links to Iraq, but the fact that it was made public two months ago and yet have you heard of it?

Did you read about it in the MSM? Did President Bush hold it up in a press conference and challenge David Gregory to refute it? Has anybody in Congress even bothered to read it?

Maybe the document doesn't really say what it appears to say, but we'll never know for sure one way or the other as long as officials and the MSM continue to ignore those thousands of documents being translated out in Kansas, especially this particular document.

Iraq
Politics
Media
Journalism

Now It Can Be Revealed! The Aides Who Master-minded Coburn-Obama

2006-09-19T17:45:00.000-04:00

The phone just keeps ringing with people wanting to know who are those incredibly smart, politically cunning Capitol Hill operatives behind the Oklahoma senator who has made spending transparency one of the hottest issues of the year.

Well, I am pledged never to reveal their names, but I can publish this photograph of the two, taken unbeknownst to them as they prepared to launch a new campaign aimed straight at the heart of Big Government here in the Fantasyland-on-the-Potomac.

You will just have ....

to scroll down a bit ....

just a little more ....

okay, here they are:

Do You Know Which Senator Said This?

2006-09-18T12:07:00.000-04:00

X says "he has learned something about how to keep the likes of [Sen. Tom] Coburn from stopping his pet projects from becoming law. The way I do it is I fold them into bills where you can't find it. I've been around here long enough to know how to bury it."

Sound like somebody who shouldn't be in Congress?

Meanwhile, Rep. Brian Bilbray lays it out on earmarks and transparency. Note who declined to provide an opposing view in this USA Today editorial page feature.

When is 12 Years an Eternity?

2006-09-18T07:39:00.000-04:00

When it's the dozen years the Republicans have controlled both houses of Congress and yet haven't delivered on their promise to restore responsibility to federal spending. In fact, that was the first promise of the 1994 Contract with America that led to the GOP regaining control of Congress for the first time in 40 years:

"1. THE FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ACT: A balanced budget/tax limitation amendment and a legislative line-item veto to restore fiscal responsibility to an out- of-control Congress, requiring them to live under the same budget constraints as families and businesses."

True, that measure was voted on by Congress, but failed to attract sufficient support to become law. But the proposal also represented the GOP's traditional commitment to keeping spending under control, which could have been achieved in other ways.

It's that spirit underlying the Contract with America and indeed the GOP's conservative foundation that the party's congressional leadership has forgotten in recent years. Instead, they've been spending tax dollars like drunk sailors.

Voters figure, reasonably, that if the GOP hasn't delivered on the original promise to control spending in 12 years, odds are they simply aren't going to do it.

The Wall Street Journal's John Fund connects the dots and explains why this failure is fundamental to understanding the GOP's unnecessarily weak situation going into the final stages of the 2006 congressional campaign :

"The federal government is now an astounding 185 times as big in real terms as it was a century ago. A general sense that Republicans have forgotten why they were sent to Washington is a big reason why only 43% of Republicans approve of Congress in this month's Fox News poll. If Republicans can't better explain how they plan to get a grip on spending, many voters will conclude they both deserve and need a time-out from power. "

What is especially distressing about this is that the consequences of GOP's spending profligacy could be coming home just when the nation most needs the party's traditional strength on foreign policy issues in order to fight and win the War on Terror.

But voters aren't stupid. Why send a drunk sailor to fight a war you can't afford to lose?

Republicans
GOP
Congress
Earmarks
Pork
Corruption

Ending Earmarks Express News Conference Video

2006-09-14T15:12:00.000-04:00

The nationwide tour of the Ending Earmarks Express came to the nation's capital and to celebrate, Republican Study Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Pence, R-IL, Re. Jeff Flake, R-AZ, and a bunch of Right colleagues held a news conference to mark the occasion yesterday and to call for House passage of earmark reforms.

Check out the video, courtesy of Ed Frank and Americans for Prosperity.

President Bush Lauds Passage of Federal Financial Accountability and Transparency Act

2006-09-13T22:00:00.000-04:00

The White House issued this statement from the President this evening:

"I applaud the House for today's passage of S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, and look forward to final passage by the Senate soon. This legislation demonstrates Congress' commitment to giving the American people access to timely and accurate information about how their tax dollars are spent.

"This bill builds on existing Administration initiatives to help ensure Federal agencies clearly reflect how they spend the taxpayers' money. Expectmore.gov is one such resource, allowing Americans to see which Federal programs are successful and which ones fall short.

"In addition to these reforms, I urge the Senate to follow the House in passing the Line Item Veto, a critical tool that will help rein in wasteful spending and bring greater transparency to the budget process. I call on the Senate to pass this important legislation this month."

Blogosphere's Men of the Year

2006-09-13T16:57:00.000-04:00

I move the award be made unanimous.

Sunlight Network Launches Punch Clock Campaign for Daily Congressional Calendars

2006-09-13T12:12:00.000-04:00

Most people out in the real world beyond Washington, D.C. have to account for their time while at work. Millions of working folks even punch in and punch out every day. It's the way their paychecks are calculated.

So what about our representatives in Congress, shouldn't they have to account for their time to us, the taxpayers who are their collective boss? I think so and so does the Sunlight Network, which today has launched a super new campaign designed to get Members of Congress to agree to publish their daily calendars.

Want to know more (and you should)? Here's a handy FAQ from Sunlight that explains the Punch Clock campaign:

What is the Punch Clock Campaign?

The Punch Clock Campaign is a two-month grassroots campaign to get Members of Congress, whether they are running for re-election in 2006 or not, and all other FEC qualified candidates, to sign an agreement to post their daily schedules on the Internet.

The Sunlight Network is offering members of the public a “good-will bounty,” or fee, of $1,000 for each Member of Congress, and $250 for all other qualified candidates, that they persuade to sign this Agreement. That’s a $680,000 bounty award.

Members of Congress work for us, and we need to know what they do with their time.

Why are you launching the Punch Clock Campaign?

There are a couple of reasons. First, this Congress has put in less work days than any other Congress since 1948. We are curious as to what they are doing with their time when they are not in legislative session. Second, the Sunlight Network is hoping the change the nature of the relationship between lawmakers and citizens and that starts with lawmakers being more transparent and open about what they do as elected representatives – posting their calendars would begin that process.

What does the Agreement say?

The Agreement reads:

I believe citizens have a right to know what their Member of Congress does every day.

Starting with the next Congress, I promise to publish my daily official work schedule on the internet, within 24 hours of the end of every work day. I will include all matters relating to my role as a Member of Congress. I will include all meetings with constituents, other Members, and lobbyists, listed by name. (In rare cases I will withhold the names of constituents whose privacy must be protected.) I will also include all fundraising events. Events will be listed whether Congress is in session or not, and whether I am in Washington, traveling, or in my district.

Can one person get more than one Agreement signed?

Absolutely. You do not have to be a constituent of any particular candidate or lawmaker to get receive the fee for a signed pledge. We are paying the bounty as a fee for valuable services rendered.

Why do you think any Member would sign this?

They will, if their constituents demand it. Change only happens when lots of grassroots people get involved.

This campaign is a way of distributing the work among the people who care the most about it, and rewarding them for their efforts. To get this to happen, we’ll need lots of people pressing their own congress members in their own districts.

Why should Members of Congress post their schedules? Shouldn’t they be private?

Of course not. Every Member of Congress works for the American people, yet, we don’t know how they spend their time. Imagine if you told your boss that you couldn’t punch in and out of work, because your time was “too private.”

Over 60 percent of American workers work hourly, and almost all workers have to account for their time. Custodial workers and chain store workers punch a clock, and lawyers keep time sheets – everyone knows that they are accountable to their bosses and clients.

The most remarkable fact of our democracy is our commitment to having those who govern us be governed by us. This can only work where there is basic trust, openness, and transparency. It’s our job, as citizens, to ask them to do better on all these fronts.

So you want them to tell us when they get their haircut or when they have dinner with their wife?

No, the pledge only asks that Members post their work schedule, not time off the clock. That said we include fundraisers, junkets – serious or frivolous – and lunch meetings with other lawmakers or lobbyists or constituents.

Aren’t there security concerns here? Should Members let dangerous people know where they’ll be any second of the day?

We took that into account, and the Agreement provides that schedules be posted one day after they happen. That way, no one can use the schedule to figure out where they can go to harm a lawmaker.

How do you think Members of Congress spend their time?

We simply don't know. An educated guess is that a good chunk of time is spent with lobbyists and donors, or making campaign fundraising phone calls. But again, that's a guess – we simply do not know for certain.

Maybe Members of Congress are spending most of their time meeting with their constituents, overseeing government agencies, developing legislation and going on fact-finding missions. Either way, they should have nothing to hide.

Unfortunately, that lack of disclosure has led people to think negatively about how their representative is spending time. For those Members who are spending the strong majority of time doing the people’s work, opening up their schedule should increase public confidence in them.

Who is the Sunlight Network? How is it related to the Sunlight Foundation?

The Sunlight Network, a 501 c(4) affiliated with the Sunlight Foundation, was founded in 2006 to foster a more positive relationship between lawmakers and their constituents, using technology, transparency, and local communities. Te Sunlight Foundation is a 501 c(3).

House to Vote on New Rule Making Earmark Sponsors Public; Rep. Emanuel Expected to Offer Amendment Ploy

2006-09-13T09:16:00.001-04:00

House Majority Leader Rep. John Boehner, R-OH, is the prime mover of a proposed rule that will be voted on tomorrow in the U.S. House of Representatives to make public the names of all Members of Congress sponsoring earmarks in spending bills.

Boehner explains the rule (go here for the text) and why it is important in a RedState.org post today:

"The proposed rules change in the House is straightforward. It specifies that when a bill comes to the floor that contains earmarks, it must be accompanied by a list identifying those earmarks, as well as the names of the members who requested them. The list would be publicly available for members, the media, and the general public to see.

"It's common sense: if you request a project, you ought to be willing to put your name on it and defend it. And if you aren't willing to put your name on a project, you shouldn't expect the American people to pay for it.

"The new rules will bring earmarking out of the shadows and into the light of public scrutiny. They will bring sunshine and transparency into the earmarking process, resulting in greater accountability from legislators and greater public confidence in how tax dollars are being spent."

Like Boehner says, it's just common sense. So why is the House only now considering this rule?

"There is a growing realization among legislators that the lack of transparency in the current earmarking process invites the perception of corruption. The American people - to their credit - are inherently suspicious of what goes on behind closed doors in government. It's in our DNA as Americans, and has been since 1776.

"Recent events have fanned the flames of this suspicion. The bribery confession of former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) confirmed the current earmarking system can be manipulated by those with misguided intentions.

"Over the years, billions of federal dollars have been spent on projects, sometimes at the urging of lobbyists, without any public record of who requested them, and frequently without debate.

"The earmarking process is fundamentally flawed. No legislator, even one with the most noble of intentions, should have the power to anonymously spend millions of dollars in taxpayer money."

Like the man said, it's in our DNA as Americans. Go here for the full Boehner on RedState. And interested folks in the Blogosphere should be calling their congressmen to encourage them to vote for the Boehner earmarking rule.

By the way, it is true this is just a House rule, but since all appropriations bills must originate in the House under the Constitution and the House has to approve all conference reports, this rule would effectively include the Senate.

UPDATE: Captain's Quarters on Rep. Eamnuel earmarks amendment

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters is well-sourced on Capitol Hill and explains why the expected proposed amendment to the Boehner earmarks rule is not a good idea and almost certainly will be ruled out of order:

"I asked about a new effort by Rahm Emanuel to amend this rule with more language that would prevent Representatives from adding earmarks where they have a personal connection to the recipient.

"The staffer reminded me that amendments to rules changes are almost always out of order, and that the GOP leadership did not want to create the need to referee the earmarking process.

"In my opinion (and not that of the staffer), such a rule may sound fine but would likely result in earmark trading. In other words, two or more members would simply propose earmarks for another, expecting that his earmarks would follow in return, which would make accountability for influence that much harder to track.

"The GOP approach would simply allow citizens to know who earmarked funds for whom, and let the voters hold politicians accountable.

"Emanuel will attempt to offer the amendment during the debate, but will most likely be found out of order. The Democrats will then claim that the Republicans are not serious about earmark reform and use the refusal in the upcoming midterm elections.

"However, people should remember that Emanuel's proposal could simply be offered as a separate rule change and get its own vote. If it doesn't conflict with the pending rule change, both could be adopted and applied. If Emanuel doesn't offer the change separately, then we will know he never took it seriously."

Go here for the full Morrissey analysis.

UPDATE II: Tim Chapman looks under the House hood

And finds a lot that needs fixing, much of which will be taken care of by the proposed Boehner rule. By the way, he also got this great quote from an anonmyous House GOP staffer who clearly should be in the word business:

"Republicans all agree that there is a problem, but not everyone agrees on the exact solution. This rules change allows us to open up the hood of the car and figure out what is wrong with the engine. If we never even open up the hood of the car, than it will continue to backfire on us."

Go here for Tim's complete post. Any time you need to understand congressional rules and procedures, Tim is the first place to go.

You Say You Want a Revolution ...Well, You Know ...

2006-09-13T08:32:00.000-04:00

It's happening now, right before our eyes! Thanks to my friend LaShawn Barber, who pointed out to me earlier today this story in USA Today and reminded me of something I wrote back in November 2004 in my first post on Tapscott's Copy Desk:

"Bloggers forcing more media transparency today can force more transparency in government tomorrow, from the most obscure bureaucracy to the White House. It will be tougher to bring about in government because the light of accountability is anathema to so many bureaucrats and office-holders. But happen it will."

Thus reminded, I went back and reread the whole post, including the concluding graph that asked:

"How long before vast networks of Internet-savvy citizen analysts apply the same immense fact-checking power to pork-laden government programs as the emerging Blogosphere is now doing with Big Media? Then the Freedom of Information Act will have real muscle."

If that sounds like a prophecy of Porkbusters.org, no, I am not laying claim to being the Nostradamus of the Blogosphere. Believe me, other, smarter people were predicting the same and more long before me (I'm thinking, for example, of people like Glenn Reynolds and Jay Rosen and Dan Gillmor here).

But I do think it is important that we be continually assessing where we are and where we should be going. So being the obnoxious -journalist-pain-in-the-neck that I am, here's my two-cens worth on that subject. I was reminded of this idea this morning by that same Nov 04 post, which noted:

"A logical starting place is the federal government's Past Performance Information Retrieval System (PPIRS), which contains millions of internal reports on the performance of thousands of government contractors."

I can hear the squawks and protests from the bureaucrats and Hill types now but it seems to me that if any government report ought to be public, it would be those assessing the past performance of government contractors who are now seeking new contracts.

The Inspector-General reports in most federal departments and agencies are generally made public, GAO audit reports are made public, so why not make contractors performance assessments public?

I know there are hundreds of ways we haven't yet thought of to apply the principle of transparency produces accountability to government operations at all levels, but, if we believe in the wisdom of crowds, it shouldn't be too difficult to get the discussion going about what comes next after Porkbusters.org.

Like the song said: "You say you got a real solution ... Well, we'd all like to see the plan."

Anybody got a plan?

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AP Issues Statement On Iraqi Document Noting Source in the News Organization; The American Thinker's Lifson Responds

2006-09-11T20:51:00.000-04:00

For reasons known only to AP's flak, the following statement was posted as a comment in the comments section of Tapscott's Copy Desk, rather than being emailed to me with a request that it be published.

Since the statement is now a stand-alone post here, I have removed it from the comments section of the original post on this issue.

Readers are encouraged to note three key things about the AP flak's opening two paragraphs. First, the AP flak says "all of the information" in the translated document was actually published by AP two weeks prior to the document's date.

In fact, the document's characterization of the Iraqi source was not part of the prior AP story. That may seem obvious, but the opening sentence of the AP statement could be read as saying that everything contained in the translated document was actually published beforehand by the news service.

Second, the AP flak addresses at the very outset of her statement a document that "some blogs claim to be evidence that an AP employee worked for Saddam Hussein."

In fact, the original author of the Iraqi document in question described the individual as "one of our sources (the degree of trust in him is good) who works in the American Associated Press Agency."

So the description of the individual as working for AP originated with the Iraqi document, not "some blogs."

Third and most important, the AP flak asserts that "speculation by the blogs rests entirely on use of the term 'one of our sources' in the Iraqi document." In fact, as far as my analysis of the translated document is concerned, the document is significant only because it describes its source as "working for the American Associated Press Agency."

If the document didn't describe its source as working for the AP, it would be of no particular significance, at least in my judgement. But I'm a journalist and any document written by any government official anywhere that describes somebody working for a news organization as a trusted source automatically gets my attention.

It's easy to understand why an AP flak would prefer to shift the focus to material that was clearly published beforehand by AP, but that is not the issue that gives rise to the present controversy. What makes it a controversy is the statement by an Iraqi intelligence operative that somebody working at AP was a trusted source.

The AP statement follows, reproduced exactly as it was received:

"To: All interested parties
"From: Linda Wagner, Director of Media Relations & Public Affairs, Associated Press, info@ap.org

"All the information in a handwritten Arabic document from Iraq that some blogs claim to be evidence that an AP employee worked for Saddam Hussein was actually published and distributed worldwide as a wire story by Associated Press two weeks prior to the date on the document.

"Since the information in this AP story was distributed worldwide, it would be absurd to consider its substance as espionage. Speculation by the blogs rests entirely on use of the term 'one of our sources' in the Iraqi document. However, an AP employee who provides a government official in any nation with a copy of a published AP story is providing public information, not espionage services.

"Additional background:

"A number of blogs have posted items with speculative headlines such as: "Did The AP Have A Spy For Saddam?" and "Hussein's AP Spy?" and "The AP Gave Saddam Information."

"The source for these speculative headlines is a document that has been posted by the U.S. Foreign Military Studies Office Joint Reserve Intelligence Center as one in a collection of unclassified documents from Iraq, captured by the U.S. military. The document's description on this government site is "Correspondence and Handwritten Intelligence Reports Issued by Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) regarding UNMOVIC training on inspection of Iraqi weapons." The document, dated July 25, 2000, is handwritten in Arabic, and is posted on the U.S. site at: http://70.168.46.200/Released/07-25-06/ISGQ-2005-00026108.pdf

"This U.S. military site is an unsecured public web site that can be found at: http://70.168.46.200/. According to a prominent disclaimer on the site's home page:
At the request of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the US Army Foreign Military Studies Office has created this portal to provide the general public with access to unclassified documents and media captured during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The US Government has made no determination regarding the authenticity of the documents, validity or factual accuracy of the information contained therein, or the quality of any translations, when available. The ODNI press release and public affairs contact information is available at http://www.odni.gov/
"AP's own translation of the Arabic in the document indicates that all the points of information in it come from the AP wire story below, which was distributed worldwide on July 12, 2000. The sources for nearly all the information in the AP story were U.N. officials, except for one sentence about the reaction of Iraqi officials to a potential U.N. inspection.

"In the Iraqi document, an introductory sentence written in Arabic and translated by AP, states:
"We have learned from one of our sources (in whom the degree of trust is good) who works for the American news agency Associated Press that the agency transmitted the following through the computer system in its branches in the countries of the world:"

"Following is the AP story that was the source of the information in the handwritten Iraqi document:

"Copyright 2000 Associated Press
"All Rights Reserved
"Associated Press Worldstream

"July 12, 2000; Wednesday

"SECTION: International news

"LENGTH: 386 words

"HEADLINE: New U.N. weapons inspection agency for Iraq starts training staff

"BYLINE: EDITH M. LEDERER

"DATELINE: UNITED NATIONS

"BODY:
"The new U.N. weapons inspection agency for Iraq has started its first training program for new staff, who could be deployed in late August if Baghdad drops its opposition to inspections, according to U.N. officials.

"The Security Council created the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, to replace the U.N. Special Commission whose inspectors left Iraq in December 1998 ahead of U.S. and British airstrikes.

"Rolf Ekeus, the first executive chairman of UNSCOM, and Charles Duelfer, its last acting chief, spoke to the 44 UNMOVIC staff members from 19 nations during Wednesday's closed-door training session.

"Richard Butler, the outspoken Australian arms expert who replaced Ekeus and left when his contract expired in June 1999, was not invited to participate, U.N. officials said.

"The four-week training course, which began Tuesday, will cover historical, legal, administrative and political issues related to weapons inspections and monitoring activities in Iraq. It will also include the historical and cultural background of Iraq, with guest lecturers from Columbia University, the U.N. officials said.

"The 44 trainees including between six and eight who served with UNSCOM will all get general training, including a three-day safety course set up by the U.S. government, the U.N. officials said. Afterwards, they will get specialized training on ballistic missile, biological and chemical weapons, and issues related to arms exports and imports.

"U.N. officials and diplomats said UNMOVIC's executive chairman, Hans Blix, told the Security Council when he delivered his first report in June that he would probably be able to send a small inspection team to Iraq at the end of August.

"The focus of initial inspections would be to examine the sites that UNSCOM had been monitoring, the U.N. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Iraq barred UNSCOM from returning, and top Iraqi officials have said Baghdad would not accept new weapons inspectors from UNMOVIC, but others have left open the possibility of compromise.

"U.N. economic sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait can only be suspended if Iraq cooperates with the new inspectors, and can only be lifted if Iraq is declared free of its weapons of mass destruction."

UPDATE: The American Thinker responds to AP

Thomas Lifson, editor and publisher of The American Thinker reproduces the AP statement , notes my response to AP and himself responds on behalf of his site:

"Mark notes his use of the important qualifier 'if' in the second paragraph quoted above. It is certainly not beyond the realm of possibility that the Iraqi intelligence officer claimed to have an inside source, and was merely passing along published data, as if it were secret, in effect justifying his salary and perhaps payments to a phantom source or sources which he pocketed himself. Such things have been known to happen in realms where receipts are not normally provided for services rendered.

"Nevertheless, what we reported was quite literally true and we stand by our report. The captured document did claim that an AP source was providing data to Saddam’s agents, and did note that the source was trusted by Iraqi intelligence. Someone who provides data to intelligence sources and is trusted as a source is normally called a spy. Even when the data is from published sources.

"There can be no definitive conclusions drawn from the captured document by itself, but it is a data point, to be considered along with the body of reporting AP has provided over the years. If one believes that the Associated Press has been scrupulously fair in its reporting, then the data point fits into no discernible pattern and can be dismissed as insignificant, and possibly the claim of a rogue intelligence officer.

"There have been no admissions from the AP like CNN's confession that it maintained a bureau in Saddam's Baghdad on the condition of its reports meeting the approval of that regime. Nor has AP been found to have provided digitally-altered photographs, as its competitor Reuters has.

"Like all other news sources, the AP provides ongoing evidence for readers to make their own judgments on the matter of its fairness. The captured document says what it says. AP reports, you decide, to borrow and adapt a catch-phrase from Fox News."

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Who Do You Remember Today?

2006-09-11T06:38:00.000-04:00

Five years ago today, 2,996 people died in the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Flight 93.

These victims are pictured above in an exhibit used during the Moussaoui prosecution.

If you want each individual's story, go here.

HT: Michelle Malkin

What is Going on at AP?

2006-09-10T08:20:00.000-04:00

Saddam Hussein had a very trusted source inside AP, according to the translation of another of the thousands of documents captured by U.S. forces that are only slowing being made public. In this particular document, the source inside AP tells Hussein about the formation of UNMOVIC, the UN weapons inspection team.

So if Hussein had a credible source working for him within AP, was it a stringer in a Middle Eastern nation, an Iraqi "dissident" who had become a full-time employee or consultant to AP or a regular AP employee whose decades of agreement with the "Blame America First" school of foreign policy led to a decision to aid one of America's enemies?

Is this individual still employed by AP? Has this individual gone on to work for another U.S. media organization like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, etc.?

Everything AP reported about Iraq prior to and likely afterwards about everything connected with Hussein and Iraq is now subject to doubt as to its credibility. AP owes its customers in the news industry and its readers in the American public a complete explanation of what it will or already has done about the spy within its ranks (if that spy actually existed as Hussein thought - clarification added. See note in Update IV).

And one more thought: There remain thousands of untranslated documents. We still do not know with any certainty whether in fact Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Go here to The American Thinker for the translation of the key passages of the Iraqi document by Foreign Military Studies Office Joint Reserve Intelligence Center.

UPDATE: Link is fixed!

My apologies for all you folks who came over from Instapundit and found the link to The American Thinker didn't work. I was in a hurry to get the post up before heading out to church (on my motorcycle, which is probably why I missed the link copy), and didn't return until after lunch. You know how Southern Baptists are about going to lunch after Sunday services!

Also, the translation was done not by The American Thinker, but by Foreign Military Studies Office Joint Reserve Intelligence Center. Thanks to Thomas Lifson of TAT for pointing this out so diplomatically.

UPDATE II: Why this matters a lot

Some folks are doubting whether this revelation of a Hussein source within AP is really all that important. My buddy Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters, for example, points to the timeline of UNMOVIC:

"The date of the memo also calls into question the usefulness of the source. The memo was written on July 24, 2000. However, the UN commissioned UNMOVIC in 1999, eight months earlier.

"Hans Blix got the assignment as UNMOVIC chief in March 2000, four months prior to the memo. The group began its training for new inspectors on July 11th, almost two weeks prior to the memo. While the AP may or may not have reported the information in this memo publicly, Reuters did on July 14 -- ten days before the memo was written."

Similarly, John Hinderaker at Powerline notes that "the memo also does not say whether the source was a reporter or some other category of employee. So it is impossible to say, based only on this document, what significance this source may have had, either in terms of the AP's reporting on Iraq, or in terms of funneling information that should have been confidential to Saddam."

Morrissey and Hinderaker are two of the people I most admire and trust in the Blogosphere and they both make strong points here. Even so, I still think this revelation is significant for these reasons:

First, if Hussein had one source - regardless of the postion held by the individual -in a major U.S. news organization, we have to consider that possibility that there were also others within AP and/or other news organs.

This is a topic that is virtually never discussed but it doesn't take much reflection to realize the value of knowing how a story is going to be played before the rest of the world sees it in print. Or to be able to spike or otherwise shape it in some fashion. We ought not assume that it is impossible for there to be people with unseen loyalties in and about newsrooms around the world.

Second, good reporters always have multiple sources of conflicting views, some of whom are rarely or even never actually quoted. They are rather used to check information and assess potential approaches to a difficult or subtle story. They help "shape" a story by confirming a detail here, suggesting a source there or knocking down a competing source.

This is why I noted the possiblity of the Hussein source being a "consultant." Given the prevalence of Iraqi dissidents of varying degrees of credibility, I think it is most likely the individual was from that community and was working as a double agent of sorts.

Third, even if the individual was merely a researcher or a copy editor, any employee or other person from within a news-gathering process whose loyalties are not to the readers or customers of the news organization raises a question mark because they are in a position to poison the process and thus the product.

UPDATE III:

Just had a conversation with a friend who is a long-time and highly respected AP reporter who thought I went too far above in making accusations about spies within his organization. Let me just reiterate the first sentence of the second graph: "So if Hussein had a credible source within AP ...." Everything I said in what followed in the post should be viewed in the context of that very important "if."

And please note that I repeated the qualifier - "First, if Hussein" - in my response to Messers Morrissey and Hinderaker's doubts, which I also quoted at length, about the newly translated Iraqi document.

More to come, no doubt.

I hope this clarification makes my view sufficiently clear - it is an important development IF it was true that Hussein had a source within AP.

UPDATE IV: Now I see ...

... another clarification is in order. The fourth graph above should from the beginning have been clearly qualified, as it now is, to reflect the "if ... then" nature of the post. My apologies to the folks at AP for the oversight.

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House and Senate Reach Agreement on Spending Database

2006-09-08T16:33:00.000-04:00

Things are moving rapidly on the Hill now in the wake of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's adroit maneuvering yesterday in securing a unanimous Senate vote for S. 2590, the Federal Financial Accountability and Transparency Act to establish a Google-like Internet database of most federal spending.

Senate and House conferees agreed today on a common version that will include grants and contracts, as provided in the Senate version of the original bill. Originally, the House version approved earlier this year did not include contracts.

A joint statement announcing the agreement was issued this afternoon by House Majority Whip, Rep. Roy Blount, R-MO, House Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Davis, R-VA, and senators Tom Coburn, R-OK, Barack Obama, D-IL and Tom Carper, D-DE.

The statement said in part:

"'This process has focused on enhancing the accountability and transparency in the federal budget process,' Blunt, Boehner, and Davis said. 'The federal government awards approximately $300 billion in grants to roughly 30,000 different organizations. Each year, roughly one million contracts exceed the $25,000 reporting threshold. We need to be sure that money is spent wisely.

"'Our legislation creates a transparent system for reviewing these expenditures so that Congress, the press, and the American public have the information they need to conduct proper oversight of the use of our tax dollars. The package we've agreed to move requires the Administration to establish searchable databases for both grants and contracts.'

"'I'm pleased that the House leadership agreed with us that all federal spending should be accessible through this website. It doesn't matter if it's a grant, an earmark, or a contract, this legislation will allow the public to know how their tax dollars are being spent," said Sen. Obama.

Both chambers could vote on the revised bill next week, which would then send it to President Bush for signature.

David Broder Retirement Coming Soon

2006-09-08T15:07:00.000-04:00

Veteran opinion columnist and political analyst David Broder of The Washington Post will be retiring soon. He may not realize it but he will be because the MSM will not abide these words in his column today:

"For much of the past five years, dark suspicions have been voiced about the Bush White House undermining its critics, and Karl Rove has been fingered as the chief culprit in this supposed plot to suppress the opposition.

"Now at least one count in that indictment has been substantially weakened - the charge that Rove masterminded a conspiracy to discredit Iraq intelligence critic Joseph Wilson by 'outing' his CIA-operative wife, Valerie Plame.

"I have written almost nothing about the Wilson-Plame case, because it seemed overblown to me from the start. Wilson's claim in a New York Times op-ed about his memo on the supposed Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake from Niger; the Robert D. Novak column naming Plame as the person who had recommended Wilson to check up on the reported sale; the call for a special prosecutor and the lengthy interrogation that led to the jailing of Judith Miller of The New York Times and the deposition of several other reporters; and, finally, the indictment of Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff - all of this struck me as being a tempest in a teapot.

"No one behaved well in the whole mess - not Wilson, not Libby, not special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and not the reporters involved.

"The only time I commented on the case was to caution reporters who offered bold First Amendment defenses for keeping their sources' names secret that they had better examine the motivations of the people leaking the information to be sure they deserve protection.

"But caution has been notably lacking in some of the press treatment of this subject - especially when it comes to Karl Rove. And it behooves us in the media to examine that behavior, not just sweep it under the rug."

I've read Broder for years and for the most part disagreed with him, but this time he is absolutely on target. And for that he will either recant or be ostracized.

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Coburn, Obama Praise Bloggers in S. 2590 Passage

2006-09-08T10:34:00.000-04:00

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, the man who first proposed a Google-like Internet database of most federal spending, and Sen. Barack Obama, D-IL, the first senator from his side of the aisle to step forward as a co-sponsor, issued this statement this morning:

"Every American has the right to know how their government spends their money, and then to hold elected officials accountable for those decisions. I applaud my colleagues for unanimously supporting a bill that will aid the American people in that effort," Dr. Coburn said. "This bill is a small but significant step toward changing the culture in Washington. Only by fostering a culture of openness, transparency and accountability will Congress come together to address the mounting fiscal challenges that threaten our future prosperity."

"The group that deserves credit for passing this bill, however, is not Congress, but the army of bloggers and concerned citizens who told Congress that transparency is a just demand for all citizens, not a special privilege for political insiders. Their remarkable effort demonstrates that our system of government does work when the people take the reins of government and demand change," Dr. Coburn said.

"By helping to lift the veil of secrecy in Washington, this database will help make us better legislators, reporters better journalists, and voters more active citizens," Obama said. "It's both unusual and encouraging to see interest groups and bloggers on the left and the right come together to achieve results. This powerful grassroots alliance shows that at the end of the day, Americans want to see Congress work together to get something done and not continue to engage in the partisan gridlock that so often brings Capitol Hill to a grinding halt."

Senate Passes Coburn-Obama, Frist Praises Victory for "New Model for Participatory Democracy"

2006-09-07T21:14:00.000-04:00

NEWS FLASH: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-TN, acted quickly after the most recent anonymous hold was removed this evening on Coburn-Obama and put the bill before the full Senate, which approved it 100-0!

Said Frist on his VOLPAC blog after the vote:

"The passage of this legislation is a triumph for transparency in government, for fiscal discipline, and for the bipartisan citizen journalism of the blogosphere ... the unprecedented synergy between online grassroots activists and Senate leadership provides a new model for participatory democracy in action."

Go here for the full Frist statement.

Now all that remains is a Senate-House conference committee to work out differences between their chambers' respective versions of the bill, then both chambers to pass the conference committee version and send it to President Bush, who is expected to sign it.

Folks, I've been working on this proposal for more than five years. This is a sweet night!

Blogosphere Storm Brewing on McCain-Feingold

2006-09-07T18:40:00.000-04:00

Might be, judging by a compilation of blogs that responded to a recent editorial in The Washington Examiner calling McCain-Feingold a mistake on a par with Prohibition and calling for its repeal.

Andy Roth at Club for Growth tracked the blogs that responded to the editorial and compiled them earlier today here. Well worth reading because it contains a whole bunch of extremely passionate, informed and important commentary about the most serious assault on political speech in America since the Alien & Sedition Acts during John Adams' benighted presidency.

PAC Contributions Show Stevens is a Political Saint

2006-09-07T17:27:00.000-04:00

Sen. Ted Stevens, R-AK, has been catching loads of grief throughout the Blogosphere in recent weeks as a result of his opposition to the Coburn-Obama bill to establish an Internet database of most federal spending.

He put an anonymous hold on the bill and appears to be scheming with Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WV, and a third as-yet-unnamed Democrat senator to prevent the Senate from having an up-or-down vote on the bill.

But the latest figures on campaign contributions, as compiled by the Political Moneyline, suggest that instead of the political devil he is so widely made out to be by blogospherians, maybe the Alaska solon ought to be seen as the exact opposite.

Why? Because the data shows Stevens represents the state with the least contributions by residents to federal candidates, with a mere $1.677,656. That compares with the more than $138 million by California residents, $124 million by New Yorkers, $72 million by Texans and $59 million by folks living in the District of Columbia.

Think of it - Stevens represents a state whose residents apparently can hardly be bothered to pull out their check books and write a $25 check to a candidate. Yet Stevens devotes himself selflessly and ceasely to the task of corralling federal dollars to send back to the ingrates living in that ice box he represents in Congress

(Ok, Ok, my family is from Texas and maybe I do have a little residual bias, as a result of losing our title as the biggest state. Sorry about the ice box reference. It was rather cold-hearted, wasn't it.)

He's been so dedicated to that task that he even threatened to resign at one point during the debate over the $250 million "Bridge to Nowhere." Look at it this way - $250 million-plus in return for $1.6 million in contributions (and he doesn't even get all of the contributions!).

Either this man is the best investment in American political history or he's nothing less than a political Saint.

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New Hold Shows Opponents' War of Attrition Against Coburn-Obama Spending Database; Frist Warns Democrats of "Consequences;" Stevens Renews His Hold

2006-09-05T16:40:00.000-04:00

Rebecca Carr of Cox News Washington Bureau continues to score scoops on the secret Senate holds story. Now it appears a second Democrat has placed a hold on the Coburn-Obama bill to establish an internet database of most federal spending, S. 2590.

Carr notes that the new Democrat holder may have mis-lead bloggers who asked all 100 senators in recent weeks if they had placed the original hold. Except for Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WV, all of the Democrats denied placing a hold. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-AK, conceded that he placed the original anonymous hold on the bill.

Carr also notes the new hold author may be in trouble with Democratic party leaders: "If it turns out that a new hold has been placed, that senator might be in hot water with his/her party. That's because leaders from both parties are urging passage of the bill in a particularly tight election season."

Looks to me like opponents of Coburn-Obama have decided to see how long the measure's supporters in the Blogosphere can keep up the campaign of unmasking anonymous holders. There are more than 75 senators who are not co-sponsors of the bill.

If even a dozen or 15 of them agree to place successive anonymous holds after each new holder is unmasked - assuming they are - they could easily exhaust the legislative calendar and perhaps also the Blogosphere, thus effectively blocking consideration of the bill.

And don't think there aren't at least that many senators from both parties who would be more than happy to play a role in such a scenario.

UPDATE: Frist warns Democrats they will pay

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is again using his VOLPAC blog to stay ahead of the issue, posting a warning just minutes ago that Democrats will suffer "consequences of further obstruction." Go here for the full Frist.

But note that he is not fixing a date for a vote: "Now is the time to act on S. 2590. And we will act this September to pass this bill and bring the bright light of public scrutiny to the federal budget."

UPDATE: Has Stevens renewed his hold?

The Senate is aswirl with talk that Stevens has indeed renewed his hold, even as a second Democrat has placed a [third] anonymous hold.

Is it time for a "Cut the BS, Pass the Bill" campaign by the Blosophere?

Or is Stevens simply trying to tell Frist who is really Senate Majority Leader, at least on spending issues?

Frist responds:

"As soon as I blogged this, I received word that a Republican Senator has not cleared the bill. Let me be clear, hold or no hold, I will bring this legislation to the floor for a vote in September."

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Thank You, Josh Marshall

2006-09-05T15:49:00.000-04:00

Josh Marshall and Talking Points Memo are on "the other side" of the Blogosphere, so he rarely appears in this space. But Josh's father passed away a few days ago and Josh's description of his thoughts and recollections about his father in the early hours of his grief struck home with me.

My father passed away in 1992 and, even with the passage of time that supposedly heals all wounds, I still feel the pain of his passing in moments of reflection about some cherished or forgotten detail I suddenly and without warning recall from my years with him. I miss him so very much.

Josh moved me to tears and I appreciate his sharing his mourning. You can read his entire moving post here.

Frist Guarantees Coburn-Obama Will Get Vote by Full Senate

2006-09-01T07:37:00.000-04:00

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-TN, posted a statement on his VOLPAC blog yesterday commending the Blogosphere for putting all 100 Members of the Senate on record concerning the secret hold on S. 2590 and promising to bring the bill to the floor of the Senate.

Here's the key quote:

"I'm very encouraged to see that all 100 senators have now answered the blogosphere's inquiries on the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act. Now is the time to act. In September, I will bring S. 2590 to the floor of the Senate for the vote it deserves."

Go here for the full post.

Now the question is what will the Phantom Menace do once the bill is officially on the Senate calander and legislative maneuvering begins in what could be as much as six days of debate.

You don't know who is the Phantom Menace? I'm sorry. Just scroll down a bit and you'll find a handy identifying photo. Believe me, you can't miss these two characters on the Hill!
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.Keeping going, it's hard to get them to hold still long enough for the camera to capture them.
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Stevens, step away from the light sword now!
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One more time and I call Jack Bauer, you hear me, Stevens????
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No, Senator Byrd, this is not for your portrait in the Roman Senate Hall of Fame. We'll do that one tomorrow after you've had a nice long nap. Yes, Senator, I know you play a mean fiddle. What's that? Well, I never met Cato the Elder, so I can't really say if you look like him or not. He played a mean fiddle, too, huh? That's nice.
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OK, that's good. Here you go:

Byrd 'Fesses Up, He's the Democrat Who Put Hold on Coburn-Obama

2006-08-31T16:14:00.000-04:00

Sen. Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat, released a statement confirming that he is the senator who put a second anonymous hold on S. 2590, the Coburn-Obama bill to establish a public Internet database of most federal spending.

Paul Kiel at TPMMuckraker has the statement and more details here.

And in the Earmarks Project News ....

2006-08-30T16:15:00.000-04:00

Check out Porkoplis, the blog of Mario Delgaudo in Cinncinnati. Mario is providing a textbook demonstration of how bloggers can use the posted database of 1,800+ Labor-HHS appropriations bill earmarks to pressure Members of Congress and earmark recipient to come clean.

You can check out the Earmarks Database on the Examiner.com web site here. You can also give it a look at the database and some excellent charts breaking the data out by various factors by Porkbusters.org here.

You can get a superb graphic representation of the database via an earmarks map created by Sunlight Foundation here.

And you can scan the database at Citizens Against Government Waste by going here.

You will also find lots of useful background information about earmarks and advice on how to research the earmarks at each of the four sites that posted the Labor-HHS earmarks database earlier this month.

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As Predicted - It's Ted Stevens; And He Wants a "Cost-Benefit Analysis;" Why Coburn Knew but Didn't Tell; A Democrat Has Also Placed An Anonymous Hold

2006-08-30T14:34:00.000-04:00

Congrats to TPMuckraker's Paul Keil who got a spokesman for Sen. Ted. Stevens, R-AK, to confirm that the Alaska Republican is the senator who placed an anonymous hold on the Coburn-Obama bill to create an internet database of most federal spending.

Rebecca Carr at Cox News Washington Bureau has more details, including this knee-slapper that was undoubtedly delivered with a totally straight face by Stevens' aide:

"Aaron Saunders, spokesperson for Stevens, said [Sen. Tom] Coburn was informed two weeks ago that his [Saunders] boss had concerns about the bill. Namely, Stevens is concerned that the bill would create more bureaucracy. He wants to see a cost-benefit analysis."

If that obvious BS doesn't get Stevens hooted out the U.S. Senate .... How about we do a cost-benefit analysis of Stevens' tenure in the nation's capitol?

UPDATE: Beltway Blogroll assess the campaign

Beltway Blogroll's Danny Glover has a superb look at the secret hold campaign from its outset.

UPDATE II: CNN web site features Stevens unmasking

It's the top-rated story on the web site at the moment, which is an indication of attention to the issue among the general public. Go here for the CNN piece.

UPDATE III: Here's why Coburn didn't out Stevens

John Hart, Sen. Tom Coburn's communications director, confirmed for Tapscott's Copy Desk that the Oklahoma Republican senator who is the main force behind the Coburn-Obama bill, knew two weeks ago that Stevens placed the hold on the bill, as claimed earlier today by an aide to the Alaska Republican.

So why didn't Coburn simply announce that it was Stevens who placed the anonymous hold on the bill, S. 2590, the Federal Financial Accountability and Transparency Act?

"Coburn did know two weeks ago, but his position is that it is the responsibility of the senator placing the hold to reveal himself or herself," said Hart. "That's why Coburn didn't want to go after Stevens to put pressure on him to do it."

Hart acknowledged that Coburn also places holds on proposed legislation but emphasized that when he does he goes directly to the sponsor of the bill in question and explains his concerns about it. Stevens has yet to speak with Coburn about the bill, according to Hart.

"Coburn didn't find out it was Stevens until after the August recess began," Hart said. "The difference is that Stevens has avoided press and blogger calls and he refused to meet with us to discuss his concerns."

Hart said there is concern that a second anonymous hold may also be in play, but he said the Coburn staff has been unable to confirm it one way or the other.

FYI: The superb "Stevens busted" artwork topping this post is courtesy of Andy Roth and the mischievious crew at Club for Growth. The second and third pieces of artwork are by Karl Engenberger, who N.Z. Bear calls "the talented creator of the original Porkbusters logo."

UPDATE IV: Timeline shows Stevens actively avoided Coburn

After reviewing a detailed timeline of events beginning with the April 6 introduction of S. 2590 by Coburn, it seems clear that Stevens has done everything possible to avoid working with Coburn or his staff to address the Alaska senator's objections to the proposal. That avoidance strongly suggests that the purpose of the anonymous hold by Stevens was not to force a compromise with Coburn, but to kill the bill outright.

For example, on July 18, Coburn chaired a hearing of his subcommittee on the bill. Stevens could have attended the hearing and was invited but did not.

On July 20, members of Coburn's legislative staff invited Stevens via email to co-sponsor the bill. No response was ever received.

On July 27, the full Homeland Security Committee on which both Coburn and Stevens serve voted unanimously to report the bill to the full Senate with a recommendation that it be considered under unanimous consent, which would have cleared it for quick passage. Stevens did not attend the hearing, even though his staff, if not he himself, knew the agenda for the committee meeting.

On Aug. 2, S. 2590 was placed on the Senate calendar for consideration. Stevens and his staff must have known that fact but said nothing to Coburn.

On Aug. 3, S. 2590 was "hotlined" by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, seeking unanimous consent of Republican senators to approve the bill, and by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid for the Democrats.

On Aug. 4, Coburn and his staff are informed by Frist staff that an anonymous hold has been placed on the bill but they are not told the identity of the responsible senator.

On Aug. 16, Coburn and his staff learn that Stevens placed the hold.

On Aug. 17 at 10:25 a.m., Coburn and his staff email Stevens and his staff asking to meet to discuss Stevens' reasons for placing the hold on the bill. No response was received.

At 5:17 p.m., Stevens' staff acknowledge that their boss placed the hold.

At 5:21 p.m., Coburn staff again email seeking meeting with Stevens.

On Aug. 18, Coburn staff again emails seeking meeting with Stevens. No response is received.

On Aug. 19, Coburn staff receives email from Stevens staff saying no meetig is possible because the lead aide is on "much-needed vacation" and no meeting will be possible until after the August recess is completed.

On Aug. 29, Coburn staff is told by Frist leadership staff that at least one Democrat senator has placed an anonymous hold on the bill.

On Aug. 30 at 11:39 a.m., Coburn staff emails fourth request for meeting with Stevens.

At 11:48 a.m., Stevens staff says he may be available later in the week.

At 12:12 p.m., Coburn staff requests meeting at 1:00 p.m. on Sept. 1.

At 12:29 p.m., Coburn staff is told by Stevens staff that lead aide is still on vacation and cannot commit to a meeting.

At 2:30 p.m., Stevens' aide confirms to reporters that Stevens placed the anonymous hold.

At 3:27 p.m., Coburn staff is again told by Frist leadership staff that a Democrat senator has placed an anonymous hold on the bill.

UPDATE V: How serious is Stevens about spend and bureaucracy? Hardly

One of my Hill sources did some digging and came up with these cites from the record:

As Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Sen. Stevens has overseen the passage of 40 separate pieces of legislation in the 109 ^th Congress. Only 31 of those bills have been scored by CBO. According to those 31 official cost estimates, the legislation passed by Sen. Stevens' committee will increase federal spending by at least $89 billion over the next five years .

On March 16, 2006, only two hours after the Senate raised the nation's debt ceiling to nearly $9 trillion, Sen. Stevens' "hotlined" the Polar Bear Conservation and Management Act. When it was hotlined, the Polar Bear bill was estimated to cost $20 million over the next five years. In contrast, CBO estimates that S.2590 will cost $15 million.

S.2590, with 29 co-sponsors (and four additional co-sponsors to be added when Congress reconvenes), already has more co-sponsors than any bill passed by Sen. Stevens' Commerce Committee in the 109 ^th Congress according to information from the Legislative Information System.

The costs of hiding spending information from the public are well known; the benefits of hiding that information from the public are not. Numerous independent audits and investigations of Katrina spending have revealed rampant waste at all levels of government. Every dollar that is wasted is a dollar that does not go to someone in need. Greater transparency and oversight can only improve the way Congress and the federal government spend taxpayer dollars.

Existing databases of federal spending information are completely inadequate and difficult to use. For example, an August 1, 2006 article in Federal Times notes that shortcomings in the federal government's existing contracts database "are hindering policy makers and other users in their attempts to make procurement spending more efficient and responsible."

The CBO cost estimate of S.2590 notes that existing databases "do not comprise a comprehensive information source of all federal spending and reportedly are not timely nor easily queried for information"

UPDATE VI: The Best Stevens Post of the Day!

Rand Simberg of Transterrestrial Musings has it here.

UPDATE VII: Stevens career down the tubes?

Bulldog Pundit at AnkleBitingPundits wants to know!

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Frist Talks With Captain Ed About Secret Senate Hold; Senate Majority Leader Assesses Iran

2006-08-29T20:55:00.000-04:00

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-TN, was in Minneapolis earlier today and sat down for a lengthy interview with three of the Blogosphere's top intellects, Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters and Scott Johnson and John Hinderaker of Powerline.

Naturally, Captain Ed made certain the conversation turned to the secret hold put on the Coburn-Obama Federal Financial Accountability and Transparency Act to establish a public internet Database of most federal spending.

As I have said from the beginning, Frist acknowledged that he knows or can find out who is behind the hold. But he makes a case for not forcing that senator to come out from behind the protection of anonymity:

"EM: Do you know who's holding the bill? Is that something that's within your knowledge?

"BF: I can find out, Ed. What a hold is - a lot of legislation has come to the floor and things are moving kind of fast - but what a hold is, is the ability of someone to say 'Slow down and protect me on the floor.' You hear all the arguments about last-minute holds or holds occurring right before a break, and people will say, 'Slow it down so we can take a look at it.' Part of it is that things come to us so quickly, and this particular bill probably most people didn't see it because we were doing so much those last two or three days. But an individual can't stop it or hold it from coming to the floor. What it does mean is 'Put a pause on it until I can see it and protect our rights on the floor.' It’s a way to support the comity of the Senate. It doesn't mean it can't be taken to the floor."

Go here for the rest of Frist's comments to Morrissey.

And go here for the Iran section of the Morrissey/Johnson/Hinderaker session with the Senate Majority Leader and here for the general politics section.

FEC Officially Votes to Silence Political Speech for Last Two Months of 06 Campaign

2006-08-29T18:39:00.000-04:00

With a 3-3 vote featuring Democrat commissioners supporting the silencing of political speech against congressional incumbents and Republican commissioners in favoring of allowing it, the Federal Elections Commission has now made it official - As required by the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002, there can be no paid political broadcast ads criticizing incumbent Members of Congress for the two months prior to the Nov. 7 election.

This is the ultimate form of Incumbent Protection Act, short of repealing elections.

Go here for Knoxnews comment and text of AP story reporting the FEC vote.

I say it again - if the Republican Party nominates Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, for president in 2008 without his official apology for and repudiation of McCain-Feingold, plus introduction of legislation to repeal that monstrous outrage against the First Amendment, no conservative, libertarian or honest liberal can support him for the White House.

There is NO room for compromise on this issue. Either you believe in the First Amendment right to freedom of speech or you don't.

Glenn Reynolds also adds these two reminders that put the FEC action in proper perspective - McCain has been actively courting the Blogosphere for months and the "massive public support" for campaign finance reform was nothing less than a convenient PR myth bought and paid for by liberal foundations.

UPDATE: CapitalEye has more

This is worse than even I thought. Turns out the FEC was considering a proposal by a coalition of groups led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO seeking an exemption from McCain-Feingold to let unions, corporations and advocacy groups to run broadcast ads so long as they met certain qualifications.

It was FEC member Hans von Spakovsky's motion to approve the request that was voted down 3-3 (Motions have to receive a majority in order to gain FEC approval).

CapitalEye explains:

"Under von Spakovsky's proposal, labor unions, corporations and other advocacy groups could have run television and radio ads that urge members of Congress to vote a certain way on a bill or that encourage the public to contact their elected representatives.

"The proposal restricted ads to mentioning only incumbents and prohibited critiques of the lawmakers' qualifications for office. Ads could not refer to an upcoming election and would have to cite verbatim quotations from the lawmaker discussing the issue.

"Ads that promoted, supported, attacked or opposed a candidate would not qualify for exemption from the blackout period. Democratic Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, who voted against the proposal, said the definition of such ad content needed to be clearer."

This is exactly what the Founders intended to avoid - our political speech being at the sufferance of politicians and bureaucrats. McCain-Feingold is a textbook example: Congress passes legislation concerning political speech, which is approved by the Supreme Court and then administered by bureaucrats who are thereby authorized to slice and dice the nouns and verbs of every sentence of affected speech.

There is only one way to avoid this - Every word of McCain-Feingold must be repealed.

HT: Instapundit

Editor & Publisher Editor in Flap Over Admission of Early Career Lie

2006-08-27T17:42:00.000-04:00

Greg Mitchell is editor of the most widely read trade publication of the newspaper industry, Editor & Publisher. He is an aggressively liberal advocate of the traditional mainstream media and is often highly critical of bloggers.

Now it appears Mitchell may have misrepresented some key facts regarding his admission of decision to lie to his editors and readers during his first professional job with a newspaper. Dan Riehl explains:

"The facts seem to indicate he was a 21 year-old paid professional journalist, not the 19 year-old intern he allowed readers to believe. Mitchell has also previously acknowledged relevant facts he managed to get wrong in his mea culpa as highly memorable events.

"Given the additional discovery that he has now gone back three years after the fact to alter the article's lede, thereby reinforcing errors that diminish the significance of his lapse, some may find it difficult to conclude Mitchell's misreporting was anything other than an intentional act."

Go here for the rest of Riehl's post. AllahPundit first broke the story here. I've never met Mitchell and I often find myself disagreeing with him but I think he does have a genuine commitment to a journalism of truth and I hope there is more to be said on this flap.

UPDATE: Mary Katharine Ham explains everything

Fauxtography, Mitchell, MSM , everything, Here.

Must Reading for the Weekend: The Economist on Who Killed the Newspaper

2006-08-25T18:16:00.000-04:00

Jeff Jarvis points to a super package from one of the world's finest magazines. Go here. Read it all.

McCain PAC Off the Straight and Narrow, Again

2006-08-24T10:08:00.000-04:00

Jim Geraghty, proprietor of National Review Online's superb TKS blog, charter member of The Examiner's Blog Board of Contributors and chief "Geraghtyite" in the Hugh Hewitt political universe, has exposed another less-than-truthful - aka a lie - by GOP presidential aspirant and Arizona Senator John McCain's political action committee.

You will recall earlier this summer that Geraghty forced the McCain PAC - Straight Talk America - to admit publicly that it had retained blogger Patrick Hynes. The admission came after STA executive director Craig Goldman flatly denied knowing Hynes.

More recently, Geraghty asked STA and Goldman if the McCain PAC had an official relationship with former Dean campaign strategy Nicco Mele. Again, a flat denial. Then ... well, let's just let Jim pick up the story at this point:

"There's really no other way to look at this. For the second time in less than a month, I asked a direct question, and I received a direct answer, that was flatly incorrect. One time it's an accident, twice it's a pattern.

"I can understand that having Dean’s web guy on staff can create some headaches for a candidate for the Republican nomination. But that doesn’t excuse denials to direct inquiries that contradict the facts.

"Even a 'no comment' or 'I can’t talk about this because no decision on that has been made yet,' would have been fairer. Instead, I’m told that Mele is 'offering free advice' when in fact it’s the other way around, that according to the Hotline account, McCain’s people 'recruited' Mele."

Odd behavior coming from the head of a PAC bearing the name "Straight Talk America," no? But wait, there's more to this story because STA is working on behalf of a guy who increasingly acts like the presumptive GOP presidential nominee in 2008.

But if McCain wants to be the GOP nominee, why is his PAC paying a consultant whose clients read like a Favorite Lefty Causes index? Geraghty explains:

"The clients of Mele’s firm EchoDitto, by the way, include Air America Radio, Barack Obama’s Senate campaign, the Clinton Global Initiative, Democratic gubernatorial candidate John DeStefano in Connecticut, the campaign of Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm in Michigan, NoIraqDraft.com, Rock the Vote, PurpleOcean.org which is the online activism hub of the Service Employees International Union, and Rosie.com, the personal blog of Rosie O'Donnell."

This sort of thing is known in journalism circles as being "factually challenged." And speaking of journalists, Geraghty encourages the nation's political scribes to be careful, be very careful with what they are told by STA:

"I would urge reporters who deal with Straight Talk America to double check and verify everything that they are told; it is entirely possible that what you are told by the organization, on basic matters such as who is working for them, is completely false."

What should happen now is a surge of stories by political reporters going back and re-checking things they were told by STAers, as well as a marked decrease in the fawning reporting to this point that has reflected the herd's assumptions about the Arizona senator being the straight-talking independent candidate who tells it like it is.

But I'm not holding my breath for that prediction's fulfillment any time soon.

UPDATE: Patrick Hynes has something to say

He was keeping a bit of a low profile regarding Mele, but no more. Go here at Ankle Biting Pundits for his complete post.

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Will NHTSA, MSM Report New SUV Safety Data?

2006-08-23T11:20:00.000-04:00

There is a lot of coverage this week of the latest data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on traffic safety, particulary the increase in total fatalaties in highway accidents and experts citing the tremendous increase in the number of motorcyclists in recent years as the main cause.

As a long-time motorcyclist myself (06 Kawasaki Concours), I am encouraged to see new media attention being focused on the problem of motorcycle deaths and injuries, which are largely attributable to people in cars not seeing motorcyclists and thus turning left in front of them, pulling in front of them from side roads and changing lanes into them.

But there is another angle on the new data - the marked improvement in sport-utility vehicle safety. Ron Defore, communications director for SUV Owners of America, points out for whatever reason these notable developments from the data are not highlighted by NHTSA in the agency's official report:

Among all passenger vehicles, SUVs had the largest increase in registrations - up 11% (page 56 of the report)
The number of SUV rollover fatalities dropped 1.8 percent from 2,929 to 2,877.
SUVs had the largest decline in occupant fatality rate in rollover crashes - down 11% (page 91)
The overall occupant fatality rate for SUVs showed the greatest decline of all vehicle types - down 8.7% (page 61)
Occupants killed and injured in two vehicle crashes involving a passenger car and an LTV (pickup, van, SUV): passenger car deaths down 4.9%; LTV deaths down 3.0% (page 95)

You can view the NHTSA document here. Surely the folks at NHTSA didn't purposely ignore the improvement in SUV safety!

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Frist Uses His Blog to Express Anger over FFATA Hold; But Why Wait Till September to Take Action, Senator?

2006-08-23T06:50:00.000-04:00

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-TN, is upset that one or more of his colleagues placed the anonymous hold on S. 2590, the Coburn-Obama Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act to put most federal spending on a searchable public Internet database.

Frist noted a post earlier this week by Andrew Stuttaford on National Review Online asking if the Senate Majority Leader was aware of the widespread anger in the Blogosphere about the anonymous hold and observed that he was very much in favor of Coburn-Obama:

"S. 2590 would create a single, easily searchable database capable of tracking approximately $1 trillion in federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and loans. Pork thrives in Washington when it can hide from the bright light of public scrutiny - when it can be quickly slipped into massive appropriations bills with little transparency and no public debate. That's why the database proposed by this legislation would provide an invaluable tool for Americans frustrated with wasteful, unnecessary federal spending.

"Many in the blogosphere - left and right - have rallied to support this crucial legislation, which is fitting, for no group better knows the power of technologically empowered grassroots activism. And, for reasons of policy and politics, many bloggers are rightly outraged that S. 2590 was shot down when I attempted to bring it up for a vote prior to the August recess."

Frist then pledged that "as soon as the Senate returns in September, I will continue to fight to pass S. 2590 and other fiscal responsibility priorities."

That's fine, but here are two further questions for Frist:

First, Frist surely must know the identity of the senator or senators behind the anonymous hold. Why not call the holder or holders and tell them to withdraw it or the anonymity will end just as soon as the Majority Leader can get a post up on his blog exposing the senator or senators involved?

Second, why wait till September when Congress returns from its August recess? Here's a clear-cut opportunity to demonstrate leadership and make a concrete difference in advancing genuine, much-needed reform in Washington. What are you waiting for, Mr. Senate Majority Leader?

Go here for the full Frist post. Note that Stuttaford was reacting to this editorial in The Washington Examiner, which noted:

"Odds are slim that the real senator or senators behind the anonymous hold will ever come forward voluntarily, even though for years it has been customary in these arcane matters beyond the Senate cloakroom for the identity of such holders to be kept private only so long as necessary to force some sort of compromise on the legislation in question. Compromise is probably not the spirit behind the present anonymous hold."

But the Blogosphere - led by N.Z. Bear of Porkbusters.org - has made progress in identifying which senators are not behind the anonymous hold. Get the latest update here.

UPDATE: Unreasonable to Ask Frist to Move Now?

At least one commenter seems to think it is unreasonable to ask the Senate Majority Leader to move now on forcing the anonymous holder out into the open, rather than waiting till September.

It's my view that waiting till September is simply a way for Frist to appear to be aggressively in favor of the Coburn-Obama proposal while in fact not doing what is clearly within his perogative and ability to make passage of the bill possible.

Put another way, moving now rather than waiting is how Frist can demonstrate that he is not a typical Washington politician who uses procedural dodges to appear to be one thing while in fact functioning as another.

Politics as usual is the problem here, not the solution.

UPDATE II: Coburn Keeps Running Tab on Colleagues Earmarks

Human Events' Ivy Sellers was in Chicago this past weekend to hear Sen. Tom Coburn address the Americans for Limited Government Action Conference. Among much else, Sellers reports that Coburn disclosed that he keeps a running tab of how much each of his 99 Senate colleagues is spending via earmarks:

"The biggest spender in the Senate is Debbie Stabenow, D-MI. Coburn said that while she may look like a sweet, innocent grandmother, she sure doesn’t mind throwing her grandchildren's money - and future - down the drain.

How does he know? Coburn said he keeps a running total of each of his colleagues spending habits tucked away in his desk down near the Senate floor. That way when Sen. Dick Durbin , D-IL, tries to pass himself off as a fiscal conservative, he can ask him how that is possible when the record shows Durbin is the eighth highest spender in Congress."

You think Stabenow talks like a sweet old granny when she sees Coburn now?

UPDATE III: Human Events Tells Frist "We'll Hold you to that, Senator"

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist may be wishing he never posted anything about Coburn-Obama because now he's got Human Events promising to hold him to his promise. HE's associate editor Rob Bluey explains on Capital Briefs blog:

"I tend to agree with Mark's critique. August may be a month devoted to senators' spending time on the campaign trail, but that doesn't mean Frist can take a break from the job.

"That being said, I'm glad Senator Frist chose to respond to Stuttaford's question. But he needs to realize that bloggers will hold him to his promise - just like we won't forget about his commitment to confirming John Bolton and conservative judges."

Go here for Rob's full post.

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Joe Rosenthal, RIP

2006-08-21T17:26:00.000-04:00

Thanks, Joe.

HT: Scott Johnson at Powerline for the reminder and the tribute.

They Are Smokin' at Editor & Publisher

2006-08-21T16:37:00.000-04:00

Not from the reporting, however. Check out the Letters to the Editor regarding a recent piece by David Perlmutter regarding the Fauxtography crisis.

Smart editors shouldn't have to be told when their gooses are cooked.

HT: Bruce Kesler at Democracyproject.com. Check out Bruce's take on the Perlmutter piece here.

Blogosphere Digging Into Finding the Senator Holding Coburn-Obama Spending Database Bill Hostage

2006-08-18T17:41:00.000-04:00

Wow! On Wednesday, I wonder which senator (s) put the anonymous hold on S. 2590, the Coburn-Obama Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act to establish a public database of federal spending.

Not quite two days later and legions of Blogospherians are calling their senators and asking them point-blank - Are you the senator who put a hold on Coburn-Obama. And gues who stepped forward to provide the central repository for responses? N.Z. Bear at Truth Laid Bear, of course!

You've got to see this if you haven't already. Just click on the senator's picture and you'll get the scoop on what's been learned so far. Then, if you haven't already, call your two senators and ask them - Are you the senator who put a hold on Coburn-Obama?

UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal weighs in, too!

And on our side, naturally. Go here for the original. Go here for Glenn Reynolds' response to a beligerent Senate staffer unhappy that his or her boss is being asked to go public.

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Was Earmarks Project a Conservative Conspiracy to Undermine Social Services Spending?

2006-08-18T10:44:00.000-04:00

Among the most thoughtful responses to the Earmarks Project was that of Prof. Jay Rosen of New York University who is proprietor of the excellent PressThink blog.

Rosen understood immediately and described succinctly the potentially historic significance of the project in the development of networked journalism on the Internet.

Here's how Rosen put it:

"Today marks a key moment in the evolution of the Web as a reporting medium. The first left-right-center coalition of bloggers, activists, non-profits, citizens and journalists to investigate a story of national import: Congressional earmarks and those who sponsor and benefit from them.

"This is networked journalism ('professionals and amateurs working together to get the real story') beginning to come of age, and it's very much in the spirit in my initiative NewAssignment.Net."

He also provided a handy list of reasons why the Earmarks Project "is a significant marker in the history of web journalism:

"It's trying to bring new facts to light: 'which members of Congress sponsored the 1,867 secret spending earmarks worth more than $500 million in the Labor-Health and Human Services appropriation bill now before Congress.' That information is a secret right now.
"It's the work of a coalition that crosses partisan lines - from Zephyr Teachout to Glenn Reynolds, if you will.
"It's about a fundamental matter of accountability in elected government: will members of Congress own up to their concealed actions?
"The story is still in motion. As The Examiner said, 'Congress may still modify the bill, approve it as is or reject it.' This is journalism in time to make a difference. As Dan Gillmor notes, 'It could work to shame Congress people into at least telling the truth about their special favors.'
"It enlists Net users across the country in the collecting and sharing of information of vital public importance.
"Journalists in Washington do what they can do best ('Examiner reporters will be asking questions on Capitol Hill about many of these earmarks in coming days') citizen-reporters do what they do best - contacting their Representatives as concerned constituents demanding answers.
"It develops a pool of common data that different partners can interpret and talk about in their separate ways. Therefore they don't have to see eye-to-eye on everything, just the importance of bringing these facts to light.
"It has a clearly measurable goal by which to discern progress: More than 1,800 appropriations, the authors of which are unidentified. The more who are identified the more successful the project.
"It shows that in newspaper journalism Web innovations are more likely to come from outside the established players - in this case billionaire Philip Anschutz's Examiner chain (See Jack Shafer on Anschutz and innovation.)
"It couldn't be done without the Net."

Folks who have an interest in or need to understand where new media is headed would do well to spend some time reading and studying Rosen's post, including the After Matter section and the comments, plus Rosen's explanation of his NewAssignment.net proposal for a new kind of media organization.

In the meantime, I want to correct the record on a suggestion that appeared in the comments to the Rosen post that those of us involved in the Earmark Project specifically chose the Labor-HHS appropriations bill in an attempt to derail federal social service spending - i.e. Since the coalition members are mainly from the Right, the effort must be part and parcel of the heartless GOP's continuing effort to repeal the Great Society and throw the poor to the wolves.

Salon's Scott Rosenberg put forth the criticism this way:

"Why am I not surprised that the conservative Anschutz papers are looking at the earmarks in a social services appropriations bill? I'm sure there's plenty to find there, it's not a worthless effort, but ... the unfolding details of the Cunningham saga, as in the eye-opening confessions of Brent Wilkes in the Times, suggest that the most outrageous earmarking (a k a 'bribery') is happening in the military appropriations area. Let's see Anschutz go after that."

I posted this response to Rosenberg:

"Scott, The Examiner didn't initiate the examination of the Labor-HHS appropriation but we were excited about joining it because of the paper's commitment to transparency in government whenever and wherever possible, including at the Pentagon. If you are interested in further understanding where the Examiner editorial page is coming from, you should check out my congressional testimonies on the Cornyn-Leahy FOIA reform bill and the Coburn-Obama Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act.

"Link to the Senate Cornyn-Leahy testimony.
"Link to the Coburn-Obama testimony. (Pdf)"

Then in subsequent comments, Mark Howard of NewsCorpse.com insisted that the coalition members could easily have picked a different appropriations bill to focus on but didn't as a result of ideological bias:

"While there is a valid argument that all sides in the earmarking debate support openness, that doesn't mean that there is no prejudice in the selection of this project. At the completion there will be conclusions drawn that reflect poorly on the earmarkers. And I suspect the results of this project would show a larger group of liberal or Democratic earmarkers than a project researching an energy bill or one for the military as Scott noted.

"The heavy representation of arch conservatives causes me to fear that there is a hidden motive to do damage to Democrats. That may not be the case, but the perception itself is the problem. That perception can have an impact on the participation of others, on funding, and perhaps even on the reporting. I can't be the only one to harbor such fears."

I was frankly dumbfounded by Mark's assertion of an ideological agenda in the selection of the Labor-HHS bill and responded with this needlessly nettlesome comment:

"Mark@News Corpse, you literally do not know what you are talking about. There was no 'selection.' None. Zero. The Labor-HHS bill was literally the only bill available. For the record, I would give both of my eye teeth to have a comprehensive listing of all the earmarks in all 13 appropriations bills, especially including the DOD measure.

"And that level of transparency will be achieved as long as there are smart, energetic people across the political spectrum who are not so blinded by ideological prejudice that they are incapable of seeing important common ground."

To which, Mark responded:

"Firstly, the Labor bill was not literally the only bill available. It may have been the only bill that fit your criteria. You could have selected a bill that had already passed, but that did not comply with your criteria. That is literally "selection," which you claimed there was none of. So I guess it's also not true that I literally don't know what I'm talking about."

At this point, I thought it best to continue the conversation off-line and emailed this query to Mark:

"Here's what you said: 'Firstly, the Labor bill was not literally the only bill available. It may have been the only bill that fit your criteria. You could have selected a bill that had already passed, but that did not comply with your criteria.'

"You appear to have access to information that I don't regarding what was available to the Earmark Coalition. Your response will be published."

I expected to be flamed in response, but instead received this thoughtful message from Mark:

"All appropriation bills that have passed are available to you with the earmarks they contain. The difference in this case was, as Zephyr Teachout said: 'This is the first list of earmarks any congressional source has provided to us to do such work on in advance of the bill passing.'

"The point I was making was that the bill selected for the earmarks project did not have to be one that had not yet passed. Exposing the sponsors of earmarks in a bill that had already passed would still serve the purpose of advancing transparency. The advantage to using a bill that has not yet passed is having the potential to derail it. That could be a desirable thing, but it is not requisite to the project."

Mark's first sentence is the key to the misunderstanding at the root of this exchange. It is not true that "all appropriation bills that have passed are available to you with the earmarks they contain." Here's why:

Only two other appropriations bill has been approved by both chambers in Congress and sent to the President, the Department of Homeland Security bill, which contains no earmarks, and the transportation bill, which is infested with earmarks.

Unfortunately, even with appropriation bills that do pass both chambers and receive a presidential signature, there is no section conveniently labelled "Earmarks Listed Here." The earmarks are obscured in legislative language throughout the text of the bill that becomes law and it requires a trained legislative eye hours and hours of close examination to ferret the earmarks out. Even the best such experts can often miss the earmarks.

Even so, Mark is still having none of it, insisting in a subsequent email that:

"You keep coming up with new justifications for your decision making. First it was having info for a bill in advance of its passing. Now it's convenience. So now it comes down to your having made the selection because it was easier - because you didn't have to dissect the bill yourself to identify the earmarks. I don't mean to trivialize that, I know that's a big job.

"But my point is still correct. A choice was made. Other choices were available but were not considered due to your criteria. It's that simple. What I am missing is how we can be debating whether a selection was made when the answer is so obvious.

"By the way, there are resources for obtaining lists of earmarks from previous bills. There are people and organization that have pretty much done the work for you. I'm pretty sure you're aware of at least one of those resources Citizens Against Government Waste."

Why do I reproduce this lengthy exchange? Because I think it highlights one of the most important reasons why Congress is able to abuse the earmarks so easily. The legislative process itself is too often an arcane, multi-level cacaphony of confusion to anybody without lots of experience inside it and it bears only the most superficial relationship to the civics book description students were once taught in high school.

Congress is able to hide behind its self-imposed complexity, much of which is hidden away from public view. As government gets bigger and more intrusive, the costs and potential dangers of decisions made behind closed doors increases exponentially. And that is why, my many liberal friends, big government is always and everywhere the enemy of transparency and accountability.

Now, if my conservative friends can also understand that limited government need not be small-minded nor blind to social injustice, perhaps all of us across the political and ideological spectrum can recover a friendly common ground upon which to have a reasonable non-partisan discussion about what to do with this monstrosity we have together created on the Potomac.

Which Senator (s) Is Behind the Secret Hold on Coburn-Obama Spending Database Bill? Can the Blogosphere Force the Offender Out in the Open?

2006-08-16T14:29:00.000-04:00

Federal Times reports today that "an unknown number of senators have blocked legislation to create a public, searchable Web site of all federal grants and contracts. Senate rules permit any senator to anonymously block consideration of a bill on the floor, effectively killing the measure."

The measure is not necessarily dead because the offending senator or senators might withdraw their hold, or the Senate might even change its rules and require the identities of such holders to be made public.

In any case, the senator or senators who placed the anonymous hold on the measure are swimming against the tide of support for Coburn-Obama from more than 100 organizations that span the political spectrum.

As for which senator is the most likely candidate for being responsible, two come immediately to mind. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-AK, threw a temper tantrum and vowed to resign if funds for the proposed "Bridge to Nowhere" were killed.

Then there is former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-MS, who forever memorialized himself with this quote: "I'll just say this about the so-called Porkbusters. I'm getting damn tired of hearing from them. They have been nothing but trouble ever since Katrina."

Whoever it might actually be, the Blogosphere could be instrumental in uncovering the offending senator or senators identity by calling every senate office and asking if the boss is the one.

Let's keep a tally of the responses. Odds are, of course, that we will end up with a list of 100 senators who either said "no, it's not me" or "no comment," or senators' staff members who said "we don't know" or "we can't find out."

Who knows what might be the political consequences of being fingered as the senator who is so desperate to keep the American people from knowing how their government is spending their money that he or she would put a hold on Coburn-Obama and then hide in the dark shadows of anonymity provided by Senate rules.

UPDATE: Porkbusters.org Tracking Senators' Responses to The Question

The Question is did you put the secret hold on the Coburn-Obama bill to create a public, searchable database of all federal spending? N.Z. Bear, the genius behind Truth Laid Bear and (with Instapunditmeister Glenn Reynolds) Porkbusters.org, quickly whipped together a handy chart showing the name and telephone number for every U.S. senator.

Bear is asking people to call their senators, then email the results of the call to him at porkbusters@porkbusters.org. Regardless of the results of this particular campaign, I nominte Bear for the title of the Fastest Right Geek of the Blogosphere. This guy is awesome!

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