NDN Blog

Later this week the House will debate a $124 billion dollar bill to fund the War the Iraq through the end of FY 2007.  As you probably already know, Speaker Pelosi is walking a political tightrope between conservative members of her caucus who may oppose the eventual drawdown of troop numbers and restrictions on the President in the bill, and anti-war Democrats who don't think there are enough strings attached to the bill.  Here's how she pitched the bill in a floor speech last night:

Again and again, Harry Reid, the Senate Democratic Leader, and I, have urged President Bush to adopt a plan for Iraq containing the following elements: transition the mission from combat to training; responsibly redeploy our troops; build consensus for political accommodation in Iraq; encourage a robust diplomatic effort, primarily involving Iraq’s neighbors.  We must then reform and reinvigorate the reconstruction effort; and refocus on the real war on terror – the war in Afghanistan.

Later this week we will debate a plan to bring the war to an end.  The U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Health, and Iraq Accountability Act will rebuild our military, protect our troops, provide for our veterans, and hold the Iraqi government accountable. 

The benchmarks for the Iraqi government set forth in this bill are the benchmarks endorsed by President Bush on January 10.  They are: improvements in the performance of the Iraqi security forces; a greater commitment by the Iraqi government to national reconciliation; and reductions in the levels of sectarian violence in Iraq.

After four years of war, it is reasonable to expect these benchmarks to be met this year.

I welcome the debate over this bill and the opportunity it provides for Members of Congress to express themselves on what the greatest ethical challenge facing our country.

Outside of Congress, the influential progressive advocacy group MoveOn has decided to support the bill, after polling its 3.2 million members.  And they're running radio ads beating-up on Republicans who oppose the bill.

Of course, the President is strongly opposed to the bill, has threatened to veto it and in yesterday's Iraq War anniversary speech - at the end of the bloodiest year so far - said, "They [Congress] have a responsibility to get this bill to my desk without strings and without delay."  Of course, he gave the speech under a portrait of Teddy Roosevelt in heroic Rough Rider garb.  One thing that can be said for this White House, they still know how to pull-off a photo-shoot as delusion of grandeur.

Our friends over at the League of Conservation Voters are looking to hire a Director of New Media Communications.  Learn more on their site.

Biden gets to the core of the problem, that the Bush Administration is "pushing a rope," using a bad tactic, the surge to back-up a failed strategy. 

Matt Miller from CAP writes about an innovative way to solve the health care crisis in this country, in his Fortune Magazine column:

Start with the fact that business now spends a stunning $500 billion a year, or 4% of GDP, on health-care benefits. Let’s say we shifted that cost to government—that’s right, relieved business of it entirely—and, to make matters simple, combined it with other public funds to give citizens a voucher with which they could buy a private health plan. To pay for this without boosting the deficit, we’d raise taxes by an identical amount—not on business, of course, but on taxpayers broadly, via various gas or carbon taxes that would have the salutary side effect of helping cure our energy and environmental woes. Note that the total amount the country is spending on health care doesn’t change under this scheme; we just shift the financing burden from business to the general population, via government. (To make the left happy, we can toss another 1% of GDP into the pot in new taxes to make sure the vouchers go to all today’s uninsured as well. Presto, universal health coverage.)

What would business think of such an idea? Policy suggestions like this would ordinarily be dead on arrival, decried as a record $500 billion tax hike sure to sink the economy. But what if the business community rose as one to force politicians to get past such rhetoric—and publicly trumpeted the need for the new taxes? It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. Look what we’d be doing: We’d free business from the burden of financing health care. (Employers emotionally or paternalistically attached to their health role could still facilitate and arrange for coverage, just not fund it, as conservative Heritage Foundation scholar Stuart Butler lays out in a forthcoming paper for Bob Rubin’s Hamilton Project.) The boon for competitiveness—not to mention shareholder value and the stock market—is obvious. And to seal the deal for skeptical capitalists, conservative economists declare that this brand of tax hike should have no impact on growth. "In one scenario we call health expenditures government, and in another we don’t. What does it matter?" says Kevin Hassett, head of economics at the American Enterprise Institute and an advisor to John McCain. "It’s hard to imagine that would have the negative growth effects" normally ascribed to tax increases in the economics literature.

It's at the very least an idea worth debating and Matt finishes with an arguement that NDN's Globalization Initiative has been making for the past year, that American companies need to make improving their employees standards of living a priority now, or face the consequences.

If business doesn’t help Washington fix these essentials before long, rising worker anxiety will produce a protectionist backlash that could wreck everything capitalists believe in. Instead of reflexively resisting the idea of government and taxes, therefore, business leaders must now do some constructive, nonideological thinking if they want to serve corporate America’s self-interest—and the country’s.

It's hard to read the news these days - online, in print or otherwise - without hearing from Simon Rosenberg and Peter Leyden on the increasing influence of web video in politics and the end of the broadcast era.  Here's Simon in today's ABC News lead story on the "Hillary 1984" video and the broader phenomenon of web video in politics:

"This ad represents the emergence of a new era in political advertising," said Simon Rosenberg, president of the Washington-based New Democrat Network, an influential party advocacy group.

"It's a condition of 21st century politics," said Rosenberg. "It's a brave new world…the barrier to entry for politics has been lowered and it's much easier for average Americans to participate and engage..."

"It used to be that unless they bought tens of millions of dollars in advertising, you weren't going to be heard," said Rosenberg. "Now, if an ad catches on, on YouTube or wherever, and becomes trendy and exciting, it could have just as much impact," he said...

"This is unsettling, particularly for the candidate," said Rosenberg. "It means that increasingly, the political campaigns are going to be one voice among many, albeit a very loud one," he said.

"They're not going to be in control and there's nothing they can do about that," said Rosenberg...

"The next big thing to watch is broadcast quality video becoming available on mobile phones," said Rosenberg.

"We have no idea what the campaigns are going to look like in Fall 2008 because the velocity of change is increasing," said Rosenberg, noting that the Apple iPhone is scheduled for launch in June 2007.

"Broadband video will be in 80 million phones by 2009," said Rosenberg, "YouTube is going mobile by the end of the year. TiVo will soon allow you to record things off the Internet. Media, including these viral political ads, are going to be viewed in a rapidly accelerated way," he said.

And Peter joins Simon in talking about web video and politics in this Saturday's San Francisco Chronicle:

The compelling "Hillary 1984" video recently introduced on YouTube represents "a new era, a new wave of politics ... because it's not about Obama," said Peter Leyden, director of the New Politics Institute, a San Francisco-based think tank on politics and new media. "It's about the end of the broadcast era."

The ad is proof that "anybody can do powerful emotional ads ... and the campaigns are no longer in control," Rosenberg said. "It will no longer be a top-down candidate message; that's a 20th century broadcast model."

It also dramatizes that today, political activists with the Internet as their ammunition have gone from being "just donors to the cause," he said, "to being partners in the fight. And they don't have to wait for permission."

And just a few weeks ago Simon and a number of NPI fellows were featured in an article in The Hill looking at a host of emerging technologies and their effect on politics. 

Stay tuned for more analysis on web video from NPI soon and if you haven't already, make sure to read NPI fellow Julie Bergman-Sender's paper on viral video in politics. 

While our blog was away, NDN hosted a major event focused on passing comprehensive immigration reform legislation. The event featured remarks from Senate Majority Leader Reid, Senator Kennedy, Senator Menendez, and Senator Salazar. Representing the House were Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, Congressman Luis Gutierrez and Congressman Xavier Becerra. 

For video, click the thumbnails of the speakers below.

You can also learn more about our efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform on our website and in our blog posts on the subject.

        Simon Rosenberg               Senator Kennedy                    Rep. Gutierrez                    Senator Salazar 

          Senator Reid                         Rep. Lofgren                    Senator Menedez                    Rep. Becerra

If the White House thinks that throwing Attorney General Albert Gonzalez under the proverbial bus will be enough to end the US Attorney's scandal, they had better thing again, because it is clear that this scandal goes beyond the constituion-hating Bush consigliore all the way to Karl Rove and maybe the President himself.  The NYT reported today, and the email below proves (thanks TPM Muckraker) that Karl Rove was deeply involved in the discussion over firing US Attorneys, a long time before Tony Snow or anyone else in the White House had previously admitted.  (Note: 'Judge' is a nickname of Alberto Gonzalez who served as a State Court Judge in Texas)

What does all this mean?  It means the White House was full of it when they said this was all Harriet Mier's idea, in the hopes that Mier's, who resigned in January, could be the White House fall-guy.  Clearly this goes to the highest levels and was being batted around between Rove, then White House Counsel Gonzalez and who knows who else.  And everyone involved lied about it to Congress and the press.  The forecast is for Tony Snow's memory to remain hazy and for the White House's story to keep "evolving."

And for your moment of zen, here's the unflattering Rove pic the Times ran with the story...

Beginning with an opening line that our own Peter Leyden would love - "As California-and Australia and Europe-goes, so (should) go the nation. That's why it's time for the country to phase out inefficient energy-consuming light-bulbs" - California Congresswoman Jane Harman announced a new bill today that would require light bulbs made or used in the US to meet a higher energy efficiency standard, dramatically reducing energy demands from that most-used of appliances, the lamp. 

Her post in the Huffington Post nicely sums up arguements that should be familiar to all of us.  Standard incandescent lights waste energy and don't last as long as compact flourescents.  And thanks to Rep. Harman, now Congress will have a chance to encourage American producers and consumers to make the switch-over.  As Rep. Harman herself says:

The old joke revolves around how many people it takes to change a light bulb. The answer is: 218 members of Congress, 51 Senators and one President. 

At NDN our tech team works hard to try and keep our email free of spam, and they do a damn decent job - thanks, Gillian and Ben.  The one drawback to our spam filter is that it blocks outgoing emails that contain offensive words.  So when I accidentally slip the kind of word that gets you detention in high school into an email, that email will be deleted.  That's ok, that's why I use my personal email account outside of work, and quote "Midnight Run" to my hearts content. 

Our friends at CREW have found a much more nefarious use of personal email accounts though.  It turns out that Karl Rove's Deputy Scott Jennings has been using a personal email -linked to a domain owned by the RNC no less - to send emails about the purged US Attorneys.  It isn't the first time Rove's office has pulled this kind of thing either.  Susan Ralston, another Rove Deputy, used to use a personal email account to get in touch with her old boss, Jack Abramoff.  The problem with all this personal email is that it may well amount to a purposful and illegal evasion of the Presidential Records Act, if Congress, a Special Prosecutor (fingers crossed), etc don't know about your personal email account, they can't read the damaging contents, right? 

The deceptive and maybe illegal practices of the Bush/Rove team are a a disgrace to the institution of the Presidency, and yet another sign of the moral degradation of the conservative movement. 

Sounds like Joe Biden has had enough...