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GOOD NEWS
"Illustrating the political juggernaut of the nationwide minimum wage movement," the conservative-dominated Michigan House voted this week to raise the minimum wage $1.80 per hour, the first increase in nine years
STATE WATCHMISSOURI: State House shoots down a plan to provide funding for birth control because conservative lawmakers argued it would be "saying promiscuity is OK as a state."
PUBLIC WORKS: You pay steep taxes to utility companies and they...keep the money for themselves.
VOTING: Why it's easier to "rig an electronic voting machine than a Las Vegas slot machine."
BLOG WATCHTHINK PROGRESS: Fellow senators praise Feingold's censure resolution.
F.A.I.R.: Remembering the Iraq War's Pollyanna pundits.
THE SWAMP: Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Myers scores $200,000-per-year weapons industry job.
AMERICA BLOG: Current and former Supreme Court Justices Ginsberg and O'Connor warn of death threats motivated by right-wing activists.
DAILY GRILLTexan Joe Simpson, proud father and manager of singing sensations Jessica and Ashlee Simpson, got to chat with President Bush at the inaugural youth concert Tuesday night: "I said a lot more to him than he said to me," Joe tells us, "but I said, 'The Simpsons are big supporters.'"
-- Washington Post, 1/20/05
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"Concerned about politicizing her favorite charity, singer-actress Jessica Simpson on Wednesday turned down a invitation to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush."
-- Reuters, 3/15/06
ARCHIVESProgress Report
STUDENTS
Politics with an Attitude: Everyone from Barack Obama to Stephen Colbert talks to Campus Progress. Right-wingers seem scared of us. Find out why here.
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by Judd Legum, Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney
Amanda Terkel and Payson Schwin
GRADUATION MADNESS: Join Graduation Madness now, and tell Nike, Adidas, and Reebok to get off the academic sidelines.
GOVERNMENT
Secrets and Lies
In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a landmark law that opened the government's records to public scrutiny and is being celebrated today -- National FOI Day. Ruth Rosen, former columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, called FOIA "one of our greatest democratic reforms...allow[ing] ordinary citizens to hold the government accountable by requesting and scrutinizing public documents and records." Yet now, approaching its 40th year, FOIA -- and open government in general -- is under attack. Since 9/11, the Bush administration has stalled or ignored an increased number of FOIA requests, classified a record number of documents, stepped up punishment for whistleblowers, and tightened secrecy in the name of national security. Meredith Fuchs, general counsel at the National Security Archive, explained that 9/11 has become "an excuse for secrecy, rather than a need for secrecy." Fifty-nine percent of the American public believe there is now "too much secrecy" in the federal government. From refusing to release information about detainees at Guantanamo Bay, to keeping lawmakers and the public in the dark about an illegal, warrantless, domestic wiretapping program, "the administration's preference for secrecy is less about winning the war on terrorism than simply avoiding public scrutiny."
FREEDOM-FROM-EMBARRASSING INFORMATION ACT: More than ever, the public wants to know what is happening in the government. Any individual can file a FOIA request, giving one access to a government agency's public documents. In 2004, the America public made over four million FOIA requests, a 25 percent jump from the previous year. Yet the federal government isn't keeping up. The Bush administration increased FOIA funding by only 5 percent in 2005 and by the end of 2004, the government had 147,810 FOIA requests pending, a 24 percent increase over the previous year. This administration has actively worked to make it harder for the public to gain access to information. In 2001, then Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a memo -- in the works long before the 9/11 attacks -- assuring government agencies that "when you carefully consider FOIA requests and decide to withhold records...you can be assured that the Department of Justice will defend your decisions." Ashcroft's memo superceded a 1993 memo issued by President Clinton's Attorney General Janet Reno urging agencies to "err on the side of disclosure." Now, in order to get information, "[y]ou have to artfully phrase your FOIA letters," said Louis Clark, president of the Government Accountability Project. In 2003, an investigation by the National Security Archive found that because of the administration's lack of resources for FOIA, "agency contact information on the web was often inaccurate; response times largely failed to meet the statutory standard; only a few agencies performed thorough searches...and the lack of central accountability at the agencies resulted in lost requests and inability to track progress."
INCREASING CLASSIFICATION, DECREASING DECLASSIFICATION: Keeping secrets is expensive, but it's money the Bush administration has been more than willing to spend. Declassifying a document costs only $1. Maintaining a classified document costs $148. Classifying a new document costs $460. In 2004, the Bush administration classified a record 15.6 million documents -- 81 percent more than before 9/11 -- and spent $7.2 billion securing its secret information -- "more than any annual cost in at least a decade." Additionally, it declassified 72 percent fewer documents in 2004 than it did before 9/11, despite the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and the congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11, which both told the administration to reduce unnecessary secrets. The Bush administration has also increased its use of labels for "sensitive but unclassified" information, allowing it to withhold more information from the public's FOIA requests. In 2002, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card told federal agencies to protect "sensitive information related to America's homeland security," which wasn't technically classified. Yet Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton doesn't buy the White House's national security excuse for withholding information: "This is not about national security. This is about some muckety-muck at the Interior Department meeting with lobbyists and saying, 'I don't want to tell you about it.'...I think they forget who they work for sometimes." The Bush administration hasn't forgotten about large corporations such as Halliburton when it has withheld documents. In 2004, Reps. Chris Shays (R-CT) and Henry Waxman (D-CA) requested audits of the Development Fund for Iraq, which financed the country's rebuilding. The audit issued to the United Nations "had so many references blacked out that U.N. officials said they couldn't tell what was happening." Five months later, Shays and Waxman finally received the documents and found out that the 460 items the Defense Department had originally redacted "were for more than $218 million in disputed charges submitted by Halliburton."
CRACKING DOWN ON LEAKS, WHISTLEBLOWERS: The Bush administration has recently come under criticism for cracking down on leaks by putting in place "initiatives targeting journalists and their possible government sources" and by prohibiting government officials from "discussing even unclassified issues related to the NSA [spying] programme." USA Today rejects the administration's national security justifications, concluding, "It is being driven by a desire to punish those who blew the whistle on domestic surveillance and other troubling programs. If prosecuted aggressively, this could amount to using the powers of the government to quash dissent." John Dean, Nixon's legal counsel involved in the Watergate scandal, called President Bush and Vice President Cheney, "a throwback to the Nixon time" and even Ari Fleischer, Bush's former press secretary, recently admitted that "this administration is more secretive." Congress has had just as hard a time getting answers from this administration. Most notoriously, Cheney convened an energy task force whose 2001 recommendations reflected the interests of the oil, gas, and coal companies. While Bush assured the public that his administration was "not interested in gathering dust. We're interested in acting," he refused to release any information about the make up of the task force to Congress and to cooperate with the Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan research arm of Congress.
RUMSFELD WAS FOR OPEN GOVERNMENT BEFORE HE WAS AGAINST IT: As a young conservative Illinois congressman, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- who now oversees the government agency with one of the worst records in fulfilling FOIA requests -- was one of FOIA's original co-sponsors in 1966. According to the young open government advocate, a new FOIA law was necessary because the 1946 law it was replacing "was designed to provide public information about government" but had "become the government's major shield of secrecy." In 1965, Rumsfeld called for more information on America's involvement in the Vietnam War: "[T]he people of the United States must know not only how their country became involved but where we are heading." Yet, the Defense Secretary has become one of the strongest advocates of government secrecy in the Bush administration, refusing to give straight answers on pre-war intelligence and withholding information about detainees kept at Guantanamo Bay. Rumsfeld has become what he fought against in 1966: a government official with "a vested interest in the machinery of their agencies and bureaus, and there is resentment of any attempt to oversee their activities, either by the public, the Congress or appointed department heads."
LET THE SUN SHINE IN: "Let the people know the facts, and the country will be safe," said Abraham Lincoln in 1864. An open government is essential to the success of American democracy. "If your government does not allow you to have the information you need as a voting citizen, if you're not allowed to find out what's happening in your name, you're disenfranchised. That's basic to a democracy," said Clark. Because of FOIA, Vietnam War veterans learned about their exposure to Agent Orange, the "Food and Drug Administration released studies about aspirin and Reye's Syndrome that resulted in mandatory warning labels," and reporters learned that the military had given U.S. troops in Iraq body armor that failed ballistics tests. One of the most comprehensive attempts to open the government and reform the FOIA system is a bill -- passed by the Senate and awaiting approval in the House -- by Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT). The bill "would clarify timetables for agencies to respond to requests, create penalties for capricious denials, authorize the payment of attorneys' fees for people who prevail in litigation under the law and modernize agency processing of requests." Take action and tell Congress to open the government.
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Under the Radar
MEDIA -- HARDBALL HOST RECEIVED FEES FROM SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS IN VIOLATION OF NBC POLICY: The Progress Report has learned that NBC anchor Chris Matthews received tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for delivering speeches to corporate interest groups. Matthews’s speaking engagements appear to be in direct violation of NBC’s policy prohibiting its employees from accepting such fees. The Washington Post has reported that NBC had "banned the practice" of allowing their reporters to attend paid speaking engagements. The Progress Report obtained confirmation from the National Venture Capital Assocation (NCVA), the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, and the American Hospital Association that Matthews had received fees to speak at events hosted by these groups. NCVA paid Matthews a fee of approximately $35,000. The Progress Report contacted MSNBC President Rick Kaplan for comment. Kaplan said information that Matthews was paid to speak to outside groups was, “Totally untrue?totally.â He provided no evidence to support his claim.
NATIONAL SECURITY -- THREE YEARS LATE, BUSH RELEASES NEW SECURITY STRATEGY: The President of the United States is required by law to present a national security strategy every year. Tellingly, during his first five years in office, President Bush produced only one, in 2002, which offered up the now discredited doctrine of preventive war to justify the war in Iraq. Today, the administration will release its second national security strategy. "In his revised version, Bush offers no second thoughts about the preemption policy," stating flatly that it "remains the same." The document does differ from the 2002 edition in some ways, placing "greater emphasis on working with allies and declar[ing] diplomacy to be 'our strong preference' in tackling the threat of weapons of mass destruction." The shift in strategy is an implicit recognition of the high costs to our national security from the administration's emphasis on unilateralism: our military is weaker, many of our historic alliances are frayed, our Treasury is depleted, Osama bin Laden remains at large, and our tarnished reputation abroad has diminished our capacity to exercise moral leadership. American Progress last year published a progressive national security strategy, "Integrated Power," which argues that by "merging the many and varied powers of the United States - military, economic, political, cultural, and diplomatic, among others - the country will be in the strongest position to address threats, prevent conflicts, and recapture its moral leadership."
HEALTH -- MILITARY RETIREES VOICE OPPOSITION TO BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S ATTEMPTS TO RAISE HEALTH COSTS: Thirteen military associations are rallying support to block the Bush administration's efforts to the instill new fee increases for Tricare, the health system for military retirees under the age of 65. The Military Retireesâ Healthcare Protection Act, HR 4949, would prevent increases in enrollment fees and pharmacy co-pays that could affect three million military retirees and their families unless and until Congress approved changes that would then have to be signed into law. The bill was introduced in Congress two days ago and has already gained 64 co-sponsors in the House. The bill's chief sponsor, Rep. Chet Edwards (D-TX), wondered how people would react if the bill he introduced had "created a tax â $1,000 for retired officers and $490 for retired enlisted people â and had that money go to cover the cost of the war? That wouldn't be well received, would it? But that is, essentially, what the Bush administration is asking â for retirees to be charged to cover military expenses." The Military Officers Association of America has come up with a list of 16 options for reducing military health care costs without increasing fees.
KATRINA -- INVESTIGATIONS CONTINUE TO FIND FAULT WITH ADMINISTRATION'S FAILED RESPONSE: Today, the House Katrina panel will release an addendum to its Feb. 15 report, "A Failure of Initiative." The report criticizes former FEMA Director Michael Brown and "refocuses an unflattering spotlight on the former Bush political loyalist and on the White House." According to the report, Brown "deliberately ignored a new national disaster plan and circumvented his boss, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, in trying to manage the federal response to Hurricane Katrina directly with the White House." By ignoring the National Response Plan, Brown "deprived 'the nation of an opportunity to determine whether the NRP worked.'" Additionally, the report found that "Brown's communications with the White House . . . raise serious questions about when and how the White House becomes involved in disaster response." On the Senate side, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) refused Sen. Joe Lieberman's (D-CT) request to "subpoena documents and testimony from Bush aides." Lieberman said that a lack of White House cooperation left the committee "unable to obtain any real sense of what the White House did or didn't do to run or aid the federal response to Katrina."
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Think Fast
Halliburton âfailed to protect the water supply it is paid to purify for U.S. soldiers throughout Iraq, in one instance missing contamination that could have caused âmass sickness or death,â an internal company report concluded.â
$39,000: The amount in donations Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) accepted last year from people in the U.S. Virgin Islands, more than twice as much as he received from residents of his home state.
House conservatives initially said their ethics package would include a âpermanent ban on privately funded travel, ending lobbyist-paid meals, and doubling the duration of the so-called revolving door ban on members and staff to two years.â The package introduced yesterday âdoes not do any of the three,â but is still facing an uphill battle among conservatives.
âSeniors and disabled Americans enrolled in Medicareâs new prescription drug program face more coverage disruptions in two weeksâ as the special 90-day transition period comes to an end. Health experts warned of a ârepeat of problems first encountered in January,â but this time âmore intense, because people are going to be really without their medicines.â
The U.N. General Assembly yesterday âoverwhelmingly approvedâ a much-improved new Human Rights Council, despite opposition from human rights luminaries like U.N. Ambassador John Bolton and Cuba.
The Wall Street Journal asks, âWhat do super-investor Warren Buffett, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and labor boss Gerald McEntee have in common?â Answer: âThey all believe executive compensation in the U.S. has gotten out of hand.â (Theyâre right.)
The Department of Homeland Security received an F on cyber security for the third straight year, at a time when âassaults against government information systemsâ have skyrocketed.
A top Army intelligence commander, Col. Thomas Pappas, testified in court yesterday that he approved the use of military dogs during the interrogation of a detainee at Abu Ghraib on at least one occasion, âa rare acknowledgment that soldiers may have received permission from superiors to employ harsh techniques.â
Bush nominated Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach to serve as the new commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Patty Murray (D-WA) immediately blocked any vote on his nomination until the drug agency decides whether to allow over-the-counter sales of Plan B, something the FDA promised to do a year ago.
And finally: Jessica Simpson is worried that President Bush will damage her credibility. âConcerned about politicizing her favorite charity,â Operation Smile, singer-actress Jessica Simpson yesterday âturned down an invitation to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush.â
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