Week of: |
5:21 PM
Forced labor in the United States
There are 10,000 forced laborers in the United States, according to a report released by the University of California at Berkeley's Human Rights Center and the Washington-based group Free the Slaves. (Click here to read the report in PDF.) The study estimates that 47 percent of the victims are prostitutes, 27 percent domestic workers, 10 percent agricultural workers, and 5 percent sweatshop/factory workers. They are defrauded, physically and emotionally abused, and, given their illegal status, language barriers, and financial dependence on their captors, don't see legal recourse as an option. They come from at least 38 countries and tend to live in California, New York and other states with large immigrant communities.
Advocates have called for more oversight of poorly regulated industries, like the hotel and restaurant industries, that rely on cheap labor, and feed the human trafficking business. Kevin Bales, president of Free the Slaves told the San Francisco Chronicle that police departments must do more to catch perpetrators:
"There are 16,000 murders in the U.S. every year. Certainly every police department has a homicide division or authority. There are at least this many cases of trafficking...Yet there are no police departments that have a trafficking division or officers who are trained in investigating or prosecuting crimes like this."
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1:18 PM
The tax habits of highly fortunate corporations
Bob MacIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice has a startling new report (PDF) out about the tax habits of major corporations. The study covered 275 Fortune 500 companies with profits (profits, mind you) of over $1.1 trillion. A few of the striking discoveries:
82 companies on the list paid no income tax whatsoever in at least one year between 2001 and 2003. Under the 35 percent corporate rate, these companies should have paid about $35 billion to the government. But they won so many subsidies, breaks, and rebates, that they ended up receiving $12 billion from the government.
In 2002-2003, the 275 companies managed to shelter more than half their profits from tax.
Most companies received large "accelerated depreciation" write-offs that were supposed to increase investment. But the 25 companies receiving the largest write-offs actually decreased investment by a good amount. (This sort of runs against Barry Ritholz' argument that companies aren't hiring because they have tax incentives to invest in plants and equipment and whatnot.)
As MacIntyre writes, the billions spent to subsidize and boost the economy over the last two years "appears to have been exceedingly poorly spent." Meanwhile, the deficit expands, and the great Bush "tax shift" continues to work its job-creating magic.
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12:08 PM
Will Russia sign on to Kyoto?
A week after Tony Blair's speech on the dangers of global warmin -- a speech that was all but ignored in the United States -- Russia, the world's other big polluter, give signs that it's paying attention. President Vladimir Putin has instructed his Cabinet of Ministers to "sign as soon as possible" draft ratification documents on the Kyoto Treaty, which will then go up for a vote in the Duma, the lower-chamber of the Russian parliament. The 1997 treaty, which targets to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases to 5.2 percent below the 1990 levels, can't take effect until countries responsible for 55 percent of the greenhouse emissions sign up. The United States, which accounts for 25 percent, pulled out of the talks under President George W. Bush and if Russia, which accounts for 17 percent of the pollutants, pulls out as well, the treaty is dead.
Russian environmentalists have welcomed Putin's move as the most promising sign yet that he's serious about ratification. Yet environmentalists are also cautious, given the government's perpetual back-and-forth on the issue and the influence of Kyoto's opponents within the Economic Development and Trade Ministry. As in the United States, Russian critics have questioned the validity of science on global warming, fear that Kyoto's ratification will stem the country's economic growth, and sabotage Putin's very ambitious goal of doubling Russia's GDP in 10 years. Yet ratifying Kyoto would bolster Russia's chances of gaining membership in the World Trade Organization later this year. Of course, Putin may very well end up using disagreements within his cabinet not to move forth with ratifying the treaty, while looking as if he is doing the right thing. But let's hope that Putin, unlike Bush, actually does the right thing on global warming.
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11:10 AM
Call it a tax "shift"
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities develops a theme that can't be stressed enough. Bush's tax cuts aren't really tax cuts -- they're tax shifts onto future generations. As we described yesterday, House Republicans are no doubt hoping that the deficit will get so bad that we'll have to slash spending at some future date. But the fact is that voters like their discretionary programs -- federal highways, housing subsidies, health care spending, education spending -- and no future senator or congressman will have the fortitude to propose the sort of drastic cuts necessary to balance the budget. So either taxes go up, or the deficit persists and we have rapid inflation, which basically counts as a tax.
What CBPP shows is that when you balance the tax cuts received by the middle class now against the inevitable tax raises in the future, the middle class will be much worse off, by a couple hundred dollars on average (depending on how the tax cuts are repaid). The lowest income-earners, of course, get screwed even more. Naturally, though, the top 20 percent comes out ahead, even after the deficits are repaid in full. Anyway, now that press has found its conscience, debunking this "Kerry flip-flops" nonsense, maybe we can get them to use the more accurate term "tax shift" too.
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10:40 AM
In Darfur, little changes on the ground
After more than a year of avoiding the word, George Bush, John Kerry, Colin Powell, the U.S. Congress and the European Union have all labeled the Sudan crisis a "genocide." But the result so far is a U.N. Security Council resolution threatening oil sanctions and a call for an investigation into whether the killing constitutes genocide. The situation on the ground still features few safeguards against further killings of ethnic Africans by Janjaweed militia.
The African Union still lacks the funds to mobilize the 5,000 troops it hopes to send, U.S. forces remain no closer than Djibouti, and the responsibility for disarming the militias remains the realm of the same Sudanese government accused of supporting them.
In an online The New Republic piece Thursday, author Marisa Katz argues calling Darfur a genocide without doing more to stop it accomplishes little more than a devaluation of the word. While acknowledging that the U.S. has provided more than $200 million in assistance for refugees, she also notes Washington hasn't sent troops or played a role in peace talks :
No doubt, when Raphael Lemkin coined and started to promote the term genocide, he hoped it would acquire enough of a moral stigma to actually restrain perpetrators and save lives. But Powell, in debunking the myth that the genocide convention legally compels signatories to action, and by invoking the word while making it explicit that no corresponding action is forthcoming, has succeeded in diluting the convention of much of its moral power.
Author Samantha Power, who spent time reporting from Darfur and won a Pulitzer for her book on the Rwandan genocide, told a Council of Foreign Relations roundtable on Tuesday that:
"My concern in, again, channeling all our efforts to getting them to use the word, use the word, use the G-word, was not simply that it would debase the word because we wouldn't do anything, but it was actually that it would engender what I fear now is, in fact, happening, which is another debate about facts ... And so my concern was we get this label and then we have to go back to the drawing board where we go into the, you know, policy circles and we get Americans on one side of the room saying it's genocide now, we've decided firmly because we've read the Genocide Convention, and then you get people on the other side saying no, it isn't, then you have Kofi Annan saying let's convene a panel.And the reality is people are dying and they're dying every day, and the Sudanese government hasn't stopped its attacks on villages. It is not the case that the problem remains now simply that of feeding the refugee population; refugees are being created every day, an estimated 50,000, in fact, just in the last month while this debate has been going on about whether the G-word should apply."
Despite threatened sanctions from the U.N., the Sudanese government in Khartoum is making little progress on disarming the killers and has disputed which militias constitute Janjaweed:
"The government and international community are not in agreement over the definition of the Janjaweed," party secretary general Ibrahim Omar told the Associated Press. "We do not consider Arab tribes and their leaders Janjaweed."
But other nations have little manpower on the ground. The African Union has 80 military observers spread out across Darfur to monitor the oft-violated ceasefire agreement, and the AU's 300 troops protecting those observers can hardly cover so large an area. Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo asked Thursday for other countries to help fund a force of 5,000 additional troops, saying the AU still needs "hundreds of millions" of dollars to achieve that goal.
Meanwhile, while the World Health Organization found humanitarian aid has helped decrease the death rate, it found anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 people per month are dying in Darfur from either violence, malnutrition or disease.
The international community has certainly stepped up its language in recent weeks. But it still hasn't done enough to improve conditions on the ground.
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4:00 PM
Who you gonna believe: us or the "experts"?
I hate to call into question Dennis Hastert's expertise on intelligence reform, but what is this?
A House Republican plan [circulated by Dennis Hastert's office] to implement the 9/11 Commission's recommendations contains a raft of additional provisions that would expand federal law-enforcement powers and centralize information about private citizens in government databases....
The draft bill, which exceeds 300 pages, contains a number of provisions designed to make it harder to obtain false identity documents. The proposals also appear to expand the amount of personal information on all citizens that states would have to make available to the federal government in return for federal funds.
For instance, within five years states would have to make available electronically to the federal government birth, death and marriage records and other "vital" personal information on U.S. citizens. The draft bill doesn't define what other information might be sought, leaving it to regulators to define.
In one of the more far-reaching proposals, the bill would require the U.S. attorney general to maintain a database of criminal records that employers could access in making hiring decisions for jobs requiring a criminal background check. To receive the information, businesses would have to "submit fingerprints or other biometric identifiers" to the Justice Department.
Leave aside that Hastert wants to make intelligence reform a stalking horse for Patriot Act 2.0 (which, as David Cole reminds us, ranks as one of the great non-solutions to terrorism of all time), and just ask yourself, what is this? Recall that the 9-11 Commission originally wanted to get different agencies talking to each other about terrorism, so that intelligence experts could determine for themselves exactly what their priorities were. Perhaps those experts would decide that keeping nuclear weapons out of al-Qaeda's hands was more important than spying on libraries. Who knows?
But, no, Hastert has decided instead that he knows best what our intelligence priorities should be, and as luck would have it, those prorities just happen to match up perfectly with a longstanding pet project of his. Interesting. Add in Bush's recent quip that the CIA's intelligence estimate on Iraq was "just guessing," it would appear that the new campaign slogan is: "Vote Republican. Because the war on terror is too important to be left to the experts."
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2:29 PM
Bush's Cuban calculus
To their credit, House members took a stand this week against some of George Bush's new sanctions against Cuba, voting to include a weakening of sanctions in the language of a bill funding two Cabinet departments. Unfortunately, this is a battle the White House is likely to win.
The much-maligned Transportation and Treasury Department spending bill finally passed the House on Wednesday by a vote of 397-12. The final House version includes three amendments, all sponsored by Democrats, opposing White House policy on Cuba. As the Associated Press explains:
"The first, introduced by Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.), would make it easier to sell agricultural products, medicine and medical supplies to Cuba. Sales of such goods have been legal since 2001 but restrictions on commercial financing and credit guarantees have discouraged exports."The second, sponsored by Rep. Barbara Lee (D., Calif.), prohibits funds to enforce regulations promulgated June 30 this year that erect obstacles to American student programs in Cuba. The rules are 'just plain undemocratic and punitive and simply don't make sense for Americans,' she said.
"On Tuesday the House voted 225-174 to approve an amendment by Rep. Jim Davis (D., Fla.) that blocks another June 30 rule allowing Cuban-Americans to visit family in Cuba only once every three years. Mr. Davis's provision would restore the old system allowing one visit a year."
While these measures generated bipartisan support, President Bush has promised to veto the bill if it weakens the June 30 restrictions he created. As a result, Rep. Ernest Istook told the AP, the language added by those measures will almost certainly "evaporate" when the House and Senate convene to draft a final version of the bill.
Despite his popularity among Cuban voters in Florida during the 2000 election (about 80 percent of whom backed him), Bush wanted a harder line against Fidel Castro. But instead of weakening Castro, the rules anger exiles and hurt their families back in Cuba. That's especially true, as an editorial in Thursday's New Orleans Times-Picayune points out, in the wake of massive damage inflicted on Cuba by Hurricanes Ivan and Charley. As the editorial reasons:
"These votes are part of a growing effort in Congress to ease the embargo's restrictions. The shift is a logical one. If the embargo hasn't dislodged the Cuban dictator after 42 years, it isn't likely to do so. The better strategy is to work from within. If Cubans are able to see the benefits that freedom carries, they are more likely to want it for themselves."
The majority of the House agrees. But it's the one guy in the White House who'll probably get his way.
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1:27 PM
Republicans on the deficit: bring it on!
Only House Republicans could vote to widen the deficit, and then turn around to suggest a balanced-budget amendment in the same breath. As we noted here yesterday, Congress could have easily paid for the latest middle-class tax cuts with revenue gained by shutting down corporate tax shelters. But no, they decided to use that revenue for other corporate subsidies, and they decided to pay for the middle-class tax cuts by expanding the deficit. And now House Republicans want to lecture us on balancing a budget. Indeed.
Max Sawicky explains here why balanced budget amendments are a terrible idea, especially in this day in age. Note that if we wanted to keep all of the Bush tax cuts and get back in the black by 2010, we would have to cut every single penny of non-defense discretionary spending. Bye-bye education! So long housing and urban development! Federal highways, we'll miss you! Of course, House Republicans like Tom DeLay know that, under normal circumstances, these sorts of drastic cuts would spark a voter rebellion. The goal, I guess, is to fuel a budget crisis via tax cuts, and when 2010 hits, tell voters that they have to cut programs because the deficit is out of control and the Constitution simply requires a balanced budget. Real cute.
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12:23 PM
Iraq elections: a sneak preview
Not that we really need another gloomy statistic from Iraq, but BBC Journalist Paul Wood noticed an overlooked item this week: in local elections in the British-controlled sector, local turnout was only about 15 percent. Keep in mind that Southern Iraq, where the British are, is pretty homogenous, and while bombs and crime and violence are a daily reality, the region is a whole lot more stable than, say, the Sunni triangle or Baghdad. And turnout was still abysmally low. Why does President Bush -- or Iyad Allawi -- think nationwide elections will be any better? Over to you, White House Press Corps.
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11:29 AM
Afghanistan, rose-colored version
The New York Times does dueling op-eds on Afghanistan today. The first, by Alexander Thier of the Hoover Institution, shuffles out the usual concerns -- warlords, the drug trade, terrorism. The second op-ed, though, will no doubt get more attention. Peter Bergen, a Mother Jones contributor, actually visited Afghanistan and found that things weren't so bad. Or so he says. But take a look at what he actually found:
The Kandahar airport, where I had once seen Taliban soldiers showing off their antiaircraft missiles, is now a vast American base with thousands of soldiers, as well as a 24-hour coffee shop, a North Face clothing store, a day spa and a PX the size of a Wal-Mart. Next door, what was once a base for Osama bin Laden is now an American shooting range. In downtown Kandahar, the gaudy compound of the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, now houses United States Special Forces units.
That's right, American troops have secured a military base and have built nifty retail shops for themselves. True progress! But why aren't there any nifty retail shops in actual downtown Kandahar? And what are things like in those parts of the country not overflowing with U.S. troops? Questions, questions. Now here's Bergen on warlords and the drug trade:
As I toured other parts of the country, the image that I was prepared for - that of a nation wracked by competing warlords and in danger of degenerating into a Colombia-style narcostate - never materialized. Undeniably, the drug trade is a serious concern (it now compromises about a third of the country's gross domestic product) and the slow pace of disarming the warlords is worrisome.
But hasn't Bergen conceded everything? Even president Bush admits that Afghanistan lacks the resources to deal with its drug trade. As for the warlords, numerous studies have explained that the problem isn't so much that warlords are fighting each other (although they are), as that they're the only ones who can keep order. The "rule of the gun" still dominates the countryside. Ismail Khan, the Herat governor relieved of his post by Hamid Karzai, may have been a dictator, but he kept the roads paved and the food distributed. If Karzai can't do that, he's not likely to steer people away from the warlords.
Oh, and meanwhile, Bergen notes that 10 million Afghans have registered to vote. Good news, except that, by The Century Foundation's calculations, this means that roughly 120 percent of the male population has registered.
Yes, Afghanistan has made progress since the Taliban days. But the danger with Bergen's piece is that policymakers might think everything is basically on the right track, and we just need to "stay the course". But as Sam Zarifi of Human Rights Watch has noted, Karzai's "doing well" in the sense that he can keep Afghanistan stable until more international forces arrive. The key phrase, of course, is "more international forces."
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11:27 AM
Finding loopholes in the campaign finance laws
By accepting public funding, John Kerry and George Bush both agreed to spending caps for the general election. But as the Associated Press reported in a story that should be getting more attention, the Bush campaign has found a loophole in campaign finance law that lets it use money raised for the Republican Party:
"Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager, said in an interview that federal election law allows the campaign access to party money 'provided that your message is broader than the individual candidate and includes a discussion of the overall agenda and the message of the party.' The Republican National Committee has $93 million on hand.This month the Republicans began airing television and radio commercials paid for jointly by the president's re-election campaign and the RNC and including the words 'our leaders in Congress.'"
GOP sources told the AP that the cost of such ads can be split between the RNC and the Bush campaign without the money counting against the $16 million the party can legally spend in coordination with the campaign. While the Bush campaign does have to count its share of the ads against its $75 million cap, having the RNC pick up some of the cost helps stretch that $75 million.
When asked about this tactic by the AP, the Kerry campaign admitted not knowing about it, though it has reportedly gone on for several weeks. The Democrats will likely, and wisely, follow suit, but the Republicans have given themselves a nice head start.
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10:49 AM
Our man in Baghdad
Iyad Allawi sure gives a rousing speech, but does he do democracy? Ayatollah Ali Sistani -- you know, that Shiite spiritual leader who can summon thousands to the street with one word -- has already expressed concern that Shiites will be underrepresented in the January elections. His biggest fear, it seems, is that Allawi's interim government is planning to consolidate all the major parties into one, all but ensuring that the U.S.'s handpicked leaders will still be around come January. Presumably, President Bush approves.
Of course, as Spencer Ackerman writes, you can't just cut out a man as prominent as Ali Sistani. So why is Iyad Allawi trying to do just that? His recent raids on everyone's favorite "firebrand" cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, have undercut the Najaf truce brokered by Sistani, and by extension, Sistani's authority. Sadr is already using the assault as an excuse to further challenge Sistani's standing among Shiites. This would all fall under the heading of "petty Shiite politics" were it not for the fact that inter-Shiite fighting could get pretty disastrous pretty quickly.
Still, as David Ignatius reports, at this point "Iyad Allawi" is the Bush administration's two-word plan for Iraq. So sure, we might have to step on a few Shiite toes. But seeing as how the administration has been so good at navigating the rocks of Iraqi politics thus far, I think we should trust that they know what they're doing...
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4:33 PM
Slow progress on world hunger
A group of 110 countries agreed Monday to work together on a solution to the global hunger crisis, with the goal of raising $50 billion annually for development aid.
The United States is not among those 110 countries.
The idea is to improve what the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization labeled "disproportionately slow" progress on the U.N. goal, set eight years ago, of cutting world hunger in half by 2015. According to a report by the organization, the number of undernourished dropped only 19 million from the 1990-1992 estimate to that for 1999-2001 - and the number actually rose in North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Worldwide, the U.N. estimates about 1 billion people are hungry, with 800 million chronically undernourished.
As Jacques Diouf, director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, told the Associated Press:
"When a significant portion of a nation's population is hungry, that nation will never develop economically. And it will never pull itself out of poverty. Because they are hungry they can't produce, and as long as they can't produce they will always go hungry. It's a vicious circle."
In an attempt to break that cycle, French president Jacque Chirac and Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called for a campaign to raise the annual $50 billion - the figure deemed necessary by the U.N. to meet the international community's goals. In Chirac's words:
"It is up to us to give globalization a conscience," he said. "There is no future in globalization that tolerates predatory behavior and the hoarding of its profits by a minority. There is no future in globalization that destroys the social and economic balances, crushes the weak and denies human rights."
Monday's agreement, however, is just a tentative step. Instead of settling on one way of raising the needed money, the agreement lists a range of options. According to Reuters, those possibilities include "a global tax on financial transactions, a tax on the sale of heavy arms, an international borrowing facility and a credit cards scheme that would direct a small percentage of transaction charges to the cause." Other possibilities include taxes on airline tickets and greenhouse gas emissions.
However, Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman (who led the U.S. delegation) dismissed such fundraising programs as unfairly targeting wealthy nations:
"Economic growth is the long-term solution to hunger and poverty. The report should give more attention to practical steps to sustained growth. There is too much emphasis on schemes such as global taxes to raise external resources. Global taxes are inherently undemocratic. Implementation is impossible."
But Diouf and others have already stressed that much of the money raised should go toward long-term agricultural and rural development. Obviously, the proposed solutions do place most of the burden on the developed world, a charge used by the Bush administration to pull the U.S. out of the Kyoto protocol. As with Kyoto, the right thing would involve negotiating the terms of the deal or, if an acceptable solution can't be found, having the U.S. take its own steps to at least address the problem. But as with greenhouse gas emissions, the administration is giving no indication that it plans to do anything about hunger, with or without the international community.
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4:00 PM
The Iranian revolution may or may not be blogged
Remember all the hopeful 1990s talk about how the Internet would be a revolutionary force for democracy? That's the goal of some Iranian bloggers, who are using blogs to republish information censored by the Iranian government.
The BBC reports the protest was started by an Iranian student at Toronto University, and includes "hundreds" of blogs posting news items from banned or censored publications. A major reformist website also moved its censored content to a blog as a way of getting around the government. In all, the BBC estimates more than 10,000 Iranians are now blogging.
Unhappy about this trend, the Iranian government is reportedly working on a nationwide intranet system, separate from the Internet itself, that would let it block sites the government doesn't want its citizens to access.
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1:23 PM
Ballot problems in Nevada
Here's one for those still looking for reasons to get nervous about the election. With just 41 days until votes are cast, Nevada still has no official ballot.
The wording of initiatives on Nevada's ballot has prompted a number of lawsuits, the most recent being a Monday appeal to the state's supreme court asking it to halt the "Keep Our Doctors in Nevada" initiative, which would cap damage awards and attorney fees in medical liability cases, on the grounds that language is potentially confusing. As a result, county clerks will likely have to wait to mail absentee ballots until the lawsuit is resolved, while federal guidelines would otherwise allow those ballots to go out Thursday.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Dean Heller is considering asking the Justice Department to investigate the lawsuits:
"I am considering writing a letter to the Justice Department because games are being played to delay the ballots until Question 3 is killed. I'm sure the Justice Department would take a look at an action that will make it too late to mail absentee ballots to our military men and women overseas. The courts are tying my hands on this matter."
And last weekend, a court ruled that Heller must either reword the initiative or drop it from the ballot altogether. Part of the problem are the "for" and "against" arguments included with each initiative, which are drafted by committee. As Danny Thompson of the Nevada AFL-CIO argued:
"There's no challenging this. They can put a half-truth in there or an outright lie, and the secretary of state's office, from what I see, is accepting whatever the committees put out."
It appears this problem won't get resolved to everyone's satisfaction, and Nevada residents living overseas will likely lose their votes in the process.
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11:05 AM
Democratic contract with America
A few hours ago, Democrats in the House released their version of the "Contract with America", entitled "Our New Partnership For America's Future." It's not really a radical new agenda so much as an attempt to package and frame longstanding Democratic values. Sam Rosenfeld of The American Prospect reports that the Democrats did a lot of polling in the course of developing this package, and recruited linguistic experts like George Lakoff.
Here are the six principles they came up with: Prosperity, National Security, Fairness Opportunity, Community, and Accountability. Read the whole press release -- the details are pretty good, too. But one thing Democrats don't talk about is spreading democracy around the world -- something that Bill Clinton did quite well in his later years. I suppose not talking about democracy and global reform is better than President Bush giving a sham speech about "freedom and democracy" in a world where freedom and democracy are clearly on the wane. Still, Bush's high-minded speeches -- even if they don't match up with reality -- do have some good ideas, and I would assume they poll well. But Democrats, apparently, disagree.
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10:55 AM
Independent former governors weigh in on the election
Former governors Angus King of Maine and Jesse Ventura of Minnesota -- who both served as popular independents in battleground states -- gave separate speeches Tuesday, discussing the coming election and announcing their voting preference. The results: one for Kerry and one for no one.
King, who voted for George Bush in 2000, endorsed Kerry, two days before Bush comes to campaign in Bangor. While he said he likes Bush on a personal level, King had some harsh words for the president's first-term performance:
"I think the country is in the most significant danger in my lifetime. I wouldn't be here unless I thought there was a grave threat to the future of the countryŠ"To be building deficits at the same time we're facing known deficits in Social Security and Medicare I think is irresponsibleŠOur generation is buying things that we want and passing the bill on to the next generation. That's wrong. It's irresponsible. And I think it verges on being immoral."
Meanwhile, in a seminar about the National Guard at Georgetown University, Ventura announced that he probably won't vote this year, saying, "I can vote against someone if I want, but I have no one to vote for." Ventura also took issue with Bush's use of National Guard forces, and the president's service record:
"So our commander-in-chief won't serve overseas, or decides not to, but yet is now sending all our National Guardsmen to do things that he wasn't willing to do."
Ventura also called for a reinstatement of the draft, saying it would help end the war in Iraq by changing public opinion. In the meantime, he called the use of Guardsmen and reservists in Iraq a "flagrant misuse" of those troops and one that harms security at home.
Whether such statements will sway any votes is, of course, unknown. But they add to the list of moderates on record against the administration.
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5:13 PM
Tea for National Security
The Taiwanese defense ministry wants to buy a $18 billion U.S. arms package and it's letting Taiwanese taxpayers know what a great deal ithis is by invoking ... bubble tea. The ministry has issued cartoon pamphlets in which a boy, bubble tea drink in hand, stands next to the desired missiles with a caption explaining: "A cup of pearl milk tea for national security. We can buy top-notch equipment to protect our country [if] everyone drinks one less pearl milk tea every week."
The bubble tea-drinking Taiwanese are quite aware of the threat that China, which regards Taiwan as a breakaway province, poses to the island's security. Beijing and Taipei remind them so on a regular basis. As Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian told the Taipei Times:
"In view of the seriousness of Communist China's attempts to legalize its military forces against Taiwan, all military personnel and our compatriots should remain vigilant and alert. Fearing war won't avoid or stop a war. The best way to avoid a war is to be prepared for a war."
Some lawmakers have criticized the defense package, arguing that it is too expensive and that the money is needed elsewhere. Given the bubble tea's popularity, however, the defense ministry just may want to reconsider its PR strategy.
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1:38 PM
Bush goes after the vet vote
After getting hammered by Democrats on veterans' issues, the Bush administration took a small step to help veterans rejoin the workforce Monday, as the Department of Labor proposed new regulations that clarify job protections for vets.
The clarification to the 1994 Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act was prompted by the natural rise in complaints from returning soldiers, with DOL receiving more than 3,800 formal complaints since October 2001. While Secretary Elaine Chao touted the proposal as a "major step" in ensuring veterans can return to their previous jobs, it's really just a helpful explanation of already-existing rules. For example, instead of the vague previous language that said an honorably discharged veteran must be "promptly re-employed" after re-applying, the new proposal specifies a two-week period for employers to rehire them.
Unfortunately, some major loopholes remain in the USERRA, such as a rule exempting companies that conduct layoffs or eliminate the position a veteran vacated to serve. But perhaps most disturbing is the time frame veterans can be away. Under the "period of service" regulations, USERRA "provides that an individual may serve up to five years in the uniformed services, in a single period of service or in cumulative periods totaling five years, and retain the right to reemployment by his or her pre-service employer." With the Bush administration recalling civilians who previously served -- and the now-notorious "back-door draft" that extends active troops' tours of duty -- the military is keeping troops out of the workforce for up to eight years. For those who served their required tour, but not the full eight years the military can hold them to, that USERRA loophole could prove an obstacle when they try returning to work.
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12:55 PM
Reports of rape in the military
Col. David Hackworth breaks open a woefully underreported story by reporting that the military has failed to protect our female troops in Iraq from rape by their fellow soldiers:
Military stupidity at its finest, or senior male brass who chose to shrug and look the other way?
[Brig. Gen. Janice] Karpinski believes the latter. "Reports of assault ... were mostly not investigated because commanders had other priorities," Karpinski says. "The attitude of Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez," then the ground commander in Iraq ... permeated the entire chain of command: The women asked to be here, so now let them take what comes with the territory."
According to Karpinski, Brig. Gen. Michael J. Diamond, then commander of the 377th Theater Support Command in Kuwait, followed Sanchez's lead and refused to take any proactive steps toward stopping the rapes.
When the Pentagon recently looked into the matter--after a massive public outcry--it did little more than mumble something about "performance metrics." More ignorance. Now there's a legitimate debate to be had about the use of female soldiers in high-intensity military operations. Phillip Carter went through a number of different arguments in his "War Dames" piece for the Washington Monthly. But at this present point in time female soldiers are a reality in Iraq, not a theoretical debate. Given that they play a crucial role in an already-understaffed occupation, the military has a responsibility to crack down on rape right now. As Hackworth says, "this problem would go away in a drill-sergeant minute if the guys wearing eagles and stars had the proper incentive -- such as promotions based on who has the lowest rape numbers."
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11:52 AM
Congress goes wild
The Washington Post lays down the hammer on the latest tax cut bill wending its way through Congress. The obvious question, of course, is: Why do we need another tax cut? The answer is that last year, in order to keep the cost of the 2003 tax bill down, Congress and the President decided to make the most popular items -- including the marriage penalty fix, the child tax credit, and the lowest 10 percent bracket -- temporary. So now Bush and Congress can push a "new" middle-class tax cut, and win the adoration of millions. Oh, and needless to say, these provisions will also be "temporary", so that Congress can a) mask the budgetary costs of the cuts, and b) get a chance to revisit these measures once again a few years down the road.
If that's not enough dishonesty for you, don't worry, there's more. As the Boston Globe points out, the new tax cut may actually hurt an estimated 4 million low-income families with roughly 9 million children. The problem is that the eligibility levels for the $1,000 child tax credit are indexed to inflation. Normally, that wouldn't be a problem, except that in the Bush economy, family income hasn't actually kept pace with inflation. So a number of low-income families will fall below the ever-rising threshold for tax credits. (Leonard Burman of the Urban Institute and John Karl Scholz of the University of Wisconsin lay out the gritty details here.)
To fix this kink would only cost about $4.3 billion a year -- peanuts in a $130 billion tax bill that contains a number of credits for high-income families. (According to the Tax Policy Center, the top 20 percent of households will receive an average of $1,196, while the middle 20 percent will only receive an average of $169.)
But no. The party of "family values" has other things on its mind. Namely ... corporate tax cuts! This week, the House and the Senate are meeting over bills that close corporate tax shelters, a measure which could raise up to $122 billion over ten years. That might sound good and fiscally responsible, but alas, these savings are going entirely towards other corporate tax subsidies. It's a lobbyist free-for-all. Meanwhile, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has noted that if we closed those corporate loopholes and used the savings to finance a middle-class tax cut, the middle-class would actually come out net winners. But no, instead we have pork for everyone and deficits as far as the eye can see. Because these days, that is how a bill becomes law.
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11:50 AM
All John Howard is saying is give preemption a chance
Less than two weeks after its embassy in Indonesia was attacked by terrorists, Australia took a page from the "Bush Doctrine" and proposed pre-emptive strikes against terrorist targets, using specialized police squads. But after complaints from Asian neighbors, Prime Minister John Howard is backing off a bit.
Howard -- who like Bush is trying to make national security the focus of his re-election campaign -- proposed creating six teams of specialist investigators to catch terrorists, with two squads deployed in Southeast Asia and the other four stationed in Canberra until needed. But he also said Australia would carry out military action against terrorists if needed:
"We will not wait for a terrorist threat to eventuate before we take action."
That last statement didn't go over too well in neighboring countries, with Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines rejecting the idea. Najib Razak, Malaysia's deputy prime minister, said his country has "the capability to deal with any threat of terrorism" and would not allow Australian-led strikes in its territory. Also, as the BBC reports:
"Indonesia's ambassador to Australia, Imron Cotan, reacted to the idea by saying he had been assured two years ago by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer that Australia would not send troops to intervene in other countries in the region. The Philippines responded that existing treaties would prevent Australia going beyond intelligence-gathering and technical expertise."
Faced with such opposition, the Howard government clarified its stance Tuesday, saying it will only carry out pre-emptive strikes in a country with its government's cooperation. Howard's electoral opponent, Mark Latham, quickly pointed out the inherent contradiction in that statement:
"You can't have it both ways, you can't make out you're going to be launching unilateral strikes, that is without telling the country, and then say there's some element of cooperation."
Like Bush, Howard is doing all he can to play up the "war on terror" in the campaign instead of playing to Latham's strengths on domestic issues. And like Bush, he's finally seeing his unilateralism criticized by his opponent.
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10:54 AM
The Iran debate heats up
A prediction: As long as John Bolton, the under secretary of state for noproliferation, remains in power, the U.S. will not make any progress on Iran's nuclear program. At least, judging from Bolton's most recent remarks to the New York Times:
In an interview, Mr. Bolton declined to comment on whether regime change was appropriate for Iran, other than to say that even without outside support, widespread unhappiness among Iranians over a lagging economy and stifling religious rule could bring a "revolution from below."
Ah, yes, the magical "revolution from below". Where have we heard this before? Right, back in 2001. Over Colin Powell's best objections, Bolton -- and the rest of the Bush administration -- decided not to engage North Korea over its nuclear program, and instead just tried to "wait out" Kim Jong-Il's regime, hoping it would collapse of its own accord. It didn't work, of course. Kim Jong Il stayed in power, pushed forward with his nukes, and left the U.S. in a poor bargaining position. (In June of 2004, Bush offered Kim Jong-Il basically the same deal that President Clinton proposed in 1994.) So much for "regime change."
We have yet to hear a credible analysis that Iran is on the verge of a revolution -- and by "credible analysis" I mean more than the cheerleading by warbloggers over student protests in Tehran. Over the past few years, the "hardliners" in the Iranian government have shown that they can easily shut down newspapers, imprison protestors, sideline reform candidates, and thwart parliamentary legislation. American support has only hurt the reform movement and strengthened the hardline opposition -- nowadays most reformers try to distance themselves from the U.S. Meanwhile, Iran's armed forces -- including the Army, Revolutionary Guard, and the basiji, the religious vigilante groups -- show little sign of revolt. As analyst Ray Takeyh has argued, a gradual revolution may eventually occur, but only if Iran is integrated into the "international economy and global society." Keeping Iran isolated and hoping the regime collapses on its own seems, as with North Korea, fanciful at best.
Alas, with Bolton heading up nonproliferation, and the Army conducting war games for strikes on Iran (all of which have gone badly), it seems like the Bush administration is planning either to strike Iran (which would be disastrous), or, more likely simply to do nothing, letting Iran join North Korea among rogue states that have duped the U.S. and gone nuclear.
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5:32 PM
The White House is mute on Hong Kong's democratic debacle
Hong Kong's parliamentary elections were a disaster for its democrats and a victory for Beijing. Sadly, the White House seems to be hardly bothered by the strangulation of Hong Kong's democracy.
While the democrats won 60 percent of the popular vote, they will occupy only 25 of the 60 seats in the Legislative Council. This is far short of the majority needed to press for full elections of Legco members and a popular vote for Hong Kong's governor, who is currently appointed by Beijing. Half of Legco's seats were decided by various pro-Beijing business and professional associations, but this limit on the will of the electorate was apparently insufficient for Beijing. Human rights activists criticized the intimidation and smear tactics that preceded the elections, including the firing of anti-Beijing media personnel and threats of physical violence against pro-democracy activists. And last, but not least, the democrats themselves have to take part of the blame for their less than expected returns. A sex scandal, poor campaign strategy, and a unity created, as the Economist puts it, by a "blind opposition to anything proposed by the government," have not exactly thrilled voters. The election was historic for the victory of the Trotskyite activist Leung Kwok Hung (aka "Long Hair"), who can now debate Beijing the fine-points of Marxism-Leninism, but that minor annoyance aside, Beijing is sitting pretty.
The U.S Congress has called on the Chinese government to follow through with full elections in Hong Kong, but the White House's love for democracy seems to be reserved solely for the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan. As the New Republic's Joshua Kurlantzick points out:
"As the freedoms promised Hong Kong have eroded, the White House has been mostly mum -- even as other U.S. actors, to their credit, have taken tougher stances. It has not commented on the congressional resolution, and it continues to act as if Hong Kongers control their own affairs. It has taken a muted tone towards the dirty tricks employed in the run-up to the recent poll, saying little about the intimidation even as Washington highlights abuses of human rights by Beijing in Tibet and elsewhere."
President Bush is fond of pointing out that democratic values are universal; and given the absence of WMDs, democratization has become one of his main justifications of the war in Iraq. All of this makes the White House silence on Hong Kong out of place. As Kurlantzick notes, "Hong Kong is everything Iraq is not" -- wealthy, capitalistic, ethically homogenous, with a history of democratic elections to boot. The dismantling of Hong Kong's democratic system bodes ill for China's prospects for democratization and can only contribute to an even further deterioration of relations with Taiwan. And it would nice to send a general message that the United States cares about democratization in Asia -- home of several nuclear powers and WMD proliferators. In short, President Bush has plenty of reasons to speak up in support of Hong Kong's democrats.
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5:25 PM
Promise and peril in Indonesia
For the first time, Indonesian voters chose their leader Monday. And while the final results won’t be formally released until early October, exit polls show an overwhelming lead for former general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono against current President Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Indonesia is home to the Al Qaida-linked group Jemaah Islamiyah, which has carried out three bombings on Indonesian soil – the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing, an attack against the Jakarta Marriott, and a car bomb at the Australian embassy two weeks ago. Yudhoyno ran on a platform that included a crackdown on terrorist activity, and he worked on counterterrorism while serving as security minister.
Yudhoyno’s willingness to confront terrorism makes him a favorite of Washington. And as Lee Hamilton and George Schultz argue in Monday’s Washington Post, the success of the democratic vote in Indonesia is an opportunity to work with that country in the war on terror, and help strengthen democracy there:
As the elections demonstrate, the vast majority of Indonesians are willing to embrace political, judicial and economic reforms, although they are wary of the United States. Progress on reforms will lead to much-needed foreign investment in this resource-rich country, improving the standard of living for many Indonesians. Meanwhile, by helping Indonesia, the United States can help democracy gain a foothold in the world's largest Muslim country while undercutting efforts of terrorists.There is great promise and potential peril in Indonesia: promise for a thriving democracy in an important Islamic country; peril arising from the regional erosion of state control that enables terrorism. A sustained and comprehensive U.S. policy of engagement and encouragement of democracy can help ensure that Indonesia's elections are part of a broader democratic success story -- one that someday may be looked back upon as a watershed for the Islamic world.
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03:26 PM
For Halliburton, no dice in Nigeria
After years of operating in Nigeria, Halliburton won't be able to receive any more contracts there -- no-bid or otherwise -- thanks to an embargo announced Monday. But the Nigerian complaints against Dick Cheney's former employer have little to do with cronyism and more to do with incompetence.
Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo approved the embargo, which cancels all contracts between government ministries and Halliburton indefinitely. According to a government statement:
"The federal government has decided to place an embargo on the patronage of Halliburton Energy Services Nigeria Limited arising from its negligent conduct which led to the loss of two ionizing radioactive sources from Nigeria in 2002. Additionally, the company, among other infractions, has refused to cooperate with government authorities in ensuring the return of the sources to Nigeria and the ultimate resolution of the issue."
The "negligent conduct" charge stems from a 2002 incident, in which two radioactive measurement devices the company used were reported missing in Nigeria's delta region. The equipment eventually turned up in Germany, but the government was upset with what it deemed Halliburton's failure to help with the recovery.
With Halliburton involved in both the oil and natural gas industry there, the loss of all Nigerian contracts could be embarrassing for the company. Particularly because its affiliate TSKJ is under investigation in the U.S. for, as the AP put it, "allegedly considering bribing Nigerian officials to win the lucrative natural gas project some 10 years ago."
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2:36 PM
The Bush administration and the price of loyalty
In a recent interview with Mary Jacoby, Seymour Hersh conjectures that those forged Niger documents originally came from government officials trying to undermine the case for war:
Q: Do you have any idea of the origin of the forged Niger documents that Bush cited in his January 2003 State of the Union address as proof that Iraq was seeking uranium to make nuclear weapons?
A: I don't really know. I know that they think it was an inside job. And my idea is that there were people in the government who knew that you could give [the neoconservatives] anything, and within three days, if it said the right thing, there would be a principals meeting [of the senior foreign policy officials] at the White House on it. And one idea would be to get them in a position where they really walked on their dongs, in a way. Give them some bad stuff. They'd have a big meeting about it and [the neocons] would finally be exposed as ludicrous. Nobody anticipated that [the forged documents] would end up in the State of the Union address. I mean, it's beyond belief. I don't believe in these conspiracy theories, about [Michael] Ledeen [a neocon operative] and these things. He's too smart for that. Because it was designed to be caught.
You can believe Hersh's theory, or you can believe that the documents had something to do with the back channel set up with Iranian businessmen and Italian intelligence by Michael Ledeen and a few Iran hawks in the government. (Josh Marshall and Laura Rozen are trying to get to the bottom of this, so stay tuned.) Either way, though, the Bush administration appears to be facing a mini-revolt within its ranks. For this, blame secrecy.
Critics of the Clinton administration will recall that the Pentagon and White House during the '90s were characterized by public feuds and bitter spats -- most famously the nasty disagreements over Bosnia that led to Wesley Clark's dismissal. Leaks and loudmouth dissenters became a mainstay. The whole atmosphere was circus-like, yes, and it may have cost Clark his political career, but that's about it.
The Bush administration's obsession with secrecy, loyalty, and "staying on message," meanwhile, seems to have spurred its dissenters to go to drastic lengths to voice their disapproval. Competent officials like Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke have simply quit the administration, becoming die-hard critics of the administration. And now we find that Pentagon staffers, unable to air their views in private, had decided to produce phony intelligence, or to share information with Israeli lobbyists, or both.
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1:14 PM
A swing voter in the Senate
If George Bush wants to attract moderate swing voters, there's one in the Senate he needs to convince.
Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) told the Associated Press Monday that he might write in a Republican candidate rather than vote for the president who often ignores moderates:
"It wasn't that long ago that moderates had more of a voice. It's a cycle that I hope will come back."
Chafee, who opposed the October 2002 Iraq war resolution, stressed that he is still a Republican. Just one who doesn't like his party's direction under Bush.
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1:12 PM
Taming Tehran
So the Bush administration has concerns about Iran meddling in Iraq. Fair enough; but this paragraph in the New York Times report really makes clear how upside-down and confused our Middle East policies really are:
Bush administration officials, in addition to their charge that Iran is supporting the insurgency, described new concerns that Iran is financing medical clinics, hospitals and social welfare centers in Iraq, especially in areas where the interim government of Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and American forces are not in control.
I've touched on this before, but the reality of the matter is that we absolutely cannot prevent Tehran from exercising some political influence over Iraq. Moreover, the precise extent of this political influence remains up for debate. Some administration officials have hinted that Iran wants to aid Moqtada al-Sadr, SCIRI, Dawaa, and other Shiite groups in order to win elections in January. True, but this isn't as big a conspiracy as it seems. Sadr, for one, is generally considered a nationalist first and a Shiite second; it's extremely unlikely that he would ever serve as an Iranian stooge. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, meanwhile, along with the other Najaf clerics, probably exert more authority in the Shiite world than any of the Iranian clergymen in Qom and Mashhad. Iraq may well be moving towards a natural confrontation with Iran, rather than some nefarious alliance.
With all that in mind, the sensible U.S. strategy at this point would probably be to engage Iran in a dialogue aimed at promoting stability in Iraq, as the Council for Foreign Relations task force on Iran recommended in July. In particular, the Bush administration needs to figure out some way to prevent Sunni insurgents from allying with Shiite militants in Najaf, Sadr City, Basra, and elsewhere. (At least according to the vaunted "inkblot" strategy that Newsweek claims we're pursuing.) Iran could help here. Yes, any negotiations would involve hobnobbing with evil clerics, as Michael Ledeen helpfully reminds us. But if anyone can give a good strategic reason for taking an aggressive stance towards Iran at this point in time, they have yet to do so.
A side note: our current Iran approach seems to come from a number of rogue Pentagon officials who have consistently tried to outmaneuver the "Iran doves" in the State Department. It's a bizarre power struggle, and President Bush appears, alas, too feckless to control all the various factions. As a result, we have an incoherent Iran policy that has us gnashing our teeth whenever Iran builds hospitals and clinics in cities we can't control ourselves.
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12:17 PM
Washington and Caracas: the love affair continues
When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez faced a recall vote last month, he cast it as an attempt by Washington to undermine his populist, leftist presidency. While the White House denied any involvement in that vote, George Bush was no doubt displeased with Chavez's victory, and the tension between the two governments continues.
Ten days ago, Bush ordered partial sanctions against Venezuela on the grounds that Caracas hasn't done enough to stop international trafficking of women and children for sex. Among the penalties is U.S. refusal to back some $250 million in loan requests Venezuela is expected to ask for from international lending institutions.
Not surprisingly, the Chavez government responded by calling the sanctions "political blackmail." Deputy Foreign Minister Arevalo Mendez said Washington is targeting his government unfailry, and that Venezuela is working to stop the trafficking: "We recognize we have a problem, but it has neither the magnitude nor the nature that Mr. Bush's government claims." As Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue wrote in Sunday's New York Times:
"The human trafficking rationale for the sanctions risks trivializing, and politicizing, one of Latin America's most critical problems. Independent human rights experts say that Venezuela's record, though of great concern, is no more egregious than many other countries that have somehow managed to escape similar treatment. In the State Department's 2003 report on human trafficking, Venezuela did not even appear among the five worst offenders in the Western Hemisphere."
These sanctions can only lead to another round of back-and-forth accusations between Caracas and Washington, and prove a setback to the better relations both countries promised after the recall vote. If trafficking is the concern, Washington's decision to punish only Venezuela comes across as a political calculation. As Colin Powell told the Associated Press:
"We have concerns about some of the actions that President Chavez has taken over the years in pursuit of his vision of Bolivarian democracy. We want the Venezuelan people to do well. We are friends of the Venezuelan people. And now that the election, or the referendum, is over, we will just have to see how things develop."
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12:11 PM
Kerry, at least, has a serious Iraq plan
Compare and contrast. John Kerry's plan for Iraq, as outlined today:
First, the president has to get the promised international support so our men and women in uniform don't have to go it alone... Second, the president must get serious about training Iraqi security forces... Third, the president must carry out a reconstruction plan that finally brings tangible benefits to the Iraqi people... Fourth, the president must take immediate, urgent, essential steps to guarantee that the promised election can be held next year.
And here, apparently, is Donald Rumsfeld's plan:
At some point the Iraqis will get tired of getting killed and we'll have enough of the Iraqi security forces that they can take over responsibility for governing that country and we'll be able to pare down the coalition security forces in the country.
Unfair? Sure. But so is this notion that it's Kerry who needs a detailed plan for Iraq, when the sitting president himself has no idea what to do. As Media Matters noted, not a single reporter has asked Bush what, exactly, his "stay the course" policy consists of. Somehow Iraq has become the monkey on Kerry's back, not Bush's.
But you can only go so far complaining about media incompetence, and to his credit, John Kerry gave perhaps the best speech of his campaign today. Many of his ideas on Iraq have a lot to recommend them -- like shifting reconstruction over to Iraqi contractors, and convening an immediate global summit. But more than offering a grab bag of snazzy ideas, Kerry showed that he can look clearly and honestly at the situation in Iraq -- while trying to be as bright and sunny as humanly possible. Because Iraq is at least as bleak as Kerry claims. At this point, as this latest CSIS report makes clear, the best we can hope for in Iraq is probably a continuation of the low-level instability going on now. The worst, of course, is a civil war that spreads into a larger regional conflict, sucking in Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia. When Kerry says that elections "are not going to be easy," he's being too optimistic by half. Still, in the event that things get even worse, we want someone competent and capable in charge. John Kerry certainly showed today that he was ready to be that person.
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9:51 AM
The death penalty deserves to be an issue this election season
It hasn't yet emerged as an issue in the presidential race, but the number of wrongly convicted people freed from death row continues to expose flaws in the way justice is carried out. Last week, the non-profit Death Penalty Information Center released a report on the number of exonerations, and found more than 100 people freed from wrongful conviction since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
The new DPIC report, titled "Innocence and the Crisis in the American Death Penalty," comes after the group put out a similar study in 1997. Since then, 51 cases have been added for a total of 116 in which the wrongfully convicted defendant was set free after time on death row. The report is worth reading -- and terribly sobering -- for the details of recent cases, its collection of findings from other investigations, and the discussion of the systemic problems that led a staunchly pro-death penalty conservative like former Illinois Gov. George Ryan to clear his state's death row.
When one considers that reports like this don't include those wrongly convicted who didn't get the death sentence -- or those already executed - it's clear that serious reform is needed. Regardless of one's stance on the morality of the death penalty, a system that makes it this easy to convict the wrong person doesn't provide justice to defendants or victims.
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