AMERICAN TOP EXECUTIVES - A NEW RULING CLASS?

I first became interested in executive pay when I came across this nugget in a WaPo article:

Between 1993 and 2002, total compensation paid by all public companies to their top five executives was $260 billion, according to a study by Bebchuk and Cornell University professor Yaniv Grinstein.

I didn't get the total number of executives but $260 billion is serious money, even by the standards of federal government spending. Over the same time period, the federal outlays for Science, Space and Technology total a bit over $179 billion in constant FY 2000 dollars (pages 51-52).


More recently, I came across this NY Times article about top executive's pay:

The average pay for a chief executive increased 27 percent last year, to $11.3 million, according to a survey of 200 large companies by Pearl Meyer & Partners, the compensation practice of Clark Consulting. The median chief executive's pay was somewhat lower, at $8.4 million, for an increase of 10.3 percent over 2004. By contrast, the average wage-earner took home $43,480 in 2004, according to Commerce Department data. And recent wage data from the Labor Department suggest that workers' weekly pay, up 2.9 percent in 2005, failed to keep pace with inflation of 3.3 percent.

The average top executive's salary at a big company was more than 170 times the average worker's earnings in 2004, up from a multiple of 68 in 1940, according to a study last year by Carola Frydman, a doctoral candidate at Harvard, and Raven E. Saks, an economist at the Federal Reserve.

About 81 percent of Americans say they think that the chief executives of large companies are overpaid, a percentage that changes little with income level or political party affiliation, according to a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg survey in February.

The divide between executives and ordinary workers was not always so great. From the mid-1940's through the 1970's, the pay of both groups grew at about the same rate, 1.3 percent, according to the study by Ms. Frydman and Ms. Saks. They analyzed the compensation of top executives at 102 large companies from 1936 to 2003.

But starting in the 1980's, executive compensation began to accelerate. In 1980, the average chief executive made about $1.6 million in today's dollars. By 1990, the figure had risen to $2.7 million; by 2004, it was about $7.6 million, after peaking at almost twice that amount in 2000. In other words, executive pay rose an average of 6.8 percent a year.

At the same time, the growth rate slowed for the average worker's pay. That figure rose to about $43,000 in 2004 from about $36,000 in 1980, an increase of 0.8 percent a year in inflation-adjusted terms.

CORPORATIONS, meanwhile, projected that their own earnings would grow by an average of 11.5 percent a year during that 24-year stretch, by Mr. Bogle's calculations. In reality, he said, they delivered growth of 6 percent a year, slightly less than the growth rate of the entire economy, as measured by gross domestic product.

Chief executives "aren't creating any exceptional value, so you would think that the average compensation of the C.E.O. would grow at the rate of the average worker," Mr. Bogle said. "When you look at it in that way, it is a real problem."

I found a paper by Frydman that has a logarithmic graph (note the y-axis) of the changes in executive compensation from 1936-2003:



With the Bush regime changes to the tax code, this group of very rich people will get even richer in the future and may come to have an even larger voice in our public affairs.

BRITISH DOSSIER DEBUNKING

I got this link from poster ELCYMOO on AOL. It's from a New Zealand paper and here's the meat part:

Dossier Blows Up in Faces of Blair and Bush
Monday, 20 October 2003, 12:41 pm
Column: Dennis Hans

A close reading of the latest report by the British government’s Intelligence and Security Committee and two classified memos made public by the Hutton Inquiry, coupled with material that’s been in the public domain for several months, leads to the following damning conclusions:

• The controversial statement in the British government’s September 24, 2002 dossier “Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction” — “But there is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa” — was in reference to only one country: Niger.

• The wording of that sentence was not the work of the Brits alone. Rather, it was the result of difficult negotiations between British intelligence and their Italian counterparts who, as the “originators and owners of the reporting” of that particular intelligence, had final say on how the Brits could use it or publicly describe it.

• That “intelligence” consisted of summaries written by the Italians of documents later shown to be crude, laughable forgeries of purported correspondence between Iraqi and Nigerien officials and a “memorandum of agreement” for the sale of as much as 500 tons of yellowcake uranium.

• That bogus intelligence supplied by the Italians was the Brits’ only source that supported the specific wording of the dossier assertion. Thus, by extension, it was the only source to support George W. Bush’s 16-word assertion in the 2003 State of the Union address (SOTU) based on the dossier.

• Bush officials who continue to defend those “16 words” on the basis that Bush and the Brits had used the expansive term “Africa” — implying the Brits had uranium intelligence on a nation or nations other than Niger — are now left without that leg to stand on.

• Although the Brits had a second, non-documentary source on Iraq’s alleged pursuit of Niger’s uranium, from what is known of that source it could not be the basis for the actual dossier words. (See the section below on “’Just-In-Time’ Intelligence.”) A statement based on the Brits’ second source would likely sound something like this: “Some Nigerien officials, all of whom acknowledge that no Iraqi in the past five years has ever mentioned uranium or yellowcake in their presence, nevertheless hold unrealized suspicions that certain Iraqis may have wanted to talk with them in 1999 about purchasing an unknown quantity — significant or not we cannot say — of low-grade uranium, which the Iraqis would not be able to enrich into weapons-grade uranium because they don’t have centrifuges.”

• At the very time the CIA recommended that the Brits remove from an early draft of the dossier the statement that Iraq had recently “purchased” uranium from Africa, the agency was preparing a deceptive National Intelligence Estimate that would lead members of Congress to conclude that Iraq was aggressively seeking uranium in Africa and may even have found a willing supplier. The wording in the Brits’ published dossier — “has sought the supply of significant quantities” — was WEAKER than the CIA’s presentation in the NIE, as declassified excerpts show ( http://fas.org/irp/cia/product/iraq-wmd.html ). The CIA should be viewed not as the “good guy” in a “good vs. evil” intelligence war against Pentagon neocons, but as a devious outfit that did its part to trick congressional fence-sitters into voting in October 2002 to authorize war.

RUMMY SPEAK

On May 4th, Rumsfeld gave a talk in Georgia and took a few questions from the audience. What's infuriating about his "answers" is the amount of ignorance and distraction he is peddling. Take this exchange as an example:


Q Is one of the goals of the U.S. in Iraq to provide a free economy or free enterprise economy in Iraq?

SEC. RUMSFELD: The new government, if -- they just have a new constitution. And a referendum was successful. The terrorists tried to stop it, and they failed. They just had an election in December 15th, and the terrorists tried to stop it, and they failed. They've just announced the top seven officials in their new government. The terrorists tried to stop it, and they failed. They're now going to be announcing the new ministries.

Then that new government and the parliament will fashion an Iraqi solution for their political situation, their economic situation and their security situation. And until they get in the saddle and get going, I don't think it's probably possible for us to characterize it.

I would say that what they have -- they didn't have anything like a free system -- free economic system before. But what -- anyone who goes around Iraq today -- most of the violence is in four out of the 18 provinces. One of them's Baghdad, so the bulk of the population is in those four. But if you look around, there's satellite dishes on every house. There's -- at night when the electricity is shut off, in some sections of the town, there's all kinds of electricity because they've all got -- (audio break) -- and what the new government will do precisely, I don't know.


First of all, the new constitution states that the people will own the oil and gas fields and that the federal and provincial governments will control them:

Article 108:

Oil and gas are the ownership of all the people of Iraq in all the regions and governorates.

Article 109:

First: The federal government with the producing governorates and regional governments shall undertake the management of oil and gas extracted from current fields provided that it distributes oil and gas revenues in a fair manner in proportion to the population distribution in all parts of the country with a set allotment for a set time for the damaged regions that were unjustly deprived by the former regime and the regions that were damaged later on, and in a way that assures balanced development in different areas of the country, and this will be regulated by law.


Even worse from the perspective of free-market worshippers, Iraq will not only have socialized medicine but also State-guaranteed minimum incomes:

Article 30:

First: The state guarantee to the individual and the family -- especially children and women -- social and health security and the basic requirements for leading a free and dignified life. The state also ensures the above a suitable income and appropriate housing.

Second: The State guarantees the social and health security to Iraqis in cases of old age, sickness, employment disability, homelessness, orphanage or unemployment, and shall work to protect them from ignorance, fear and poverty. The State shall provide them housing and special programs of care and rehabilitation. This will be organized by law.


I am sure that Rumsfeld knows these provisions of the constitution but he decided to pretend that he didn't.

"BULLET-PROOF"

Ray McGovern asked Rumsfeld about his "bullet-proof" claim that Saddam was working with Al-Qaida and I decided to look up Rumsfeld's speech:

They did, they came back, we ended up with five or six sentences that were bullet-proof. We could say them, they're factual, they're exactly accurate. They demonstrate that there are in fact al Qaeda in Iraq. But they're not photographs, they are not beyond a reasonable doubt, they in some cases are assessments from a limited number of sources. They're in some cases hard information that were we to release it would reveal a method of gathering it. And it seems to me that if our quest is for proof positive we probably will be left somewhat unfulfilled.

Rumsfeld, Sept. 27, 2002
Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce

It's hard to make out what Rumsfeld means by all this. On the one hand, we have bullet-proof facts BUT they are not beyond a reasonable doubt and are not proof-positive.

Later on, Rumsfeld seems to be saying that there is no doubt that Saddam and Al-Qaida are working together:

"The regime plays host to terrorists, including Al Qaida, as the president indicated."
Source: Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Myers Hold Regular Defense Department Briefing, Defense Department (1/29/2003).

GREAT IRAQ RESOURCE

Rep. Conyers has made a site where you can search for all the lies the Bush regime told us about Iraq: Iraq on the Record. You can search by speaker, keyword, subject or date and there's a ton of fat juicy lies available for the choosing. Here's just one of 52 lies made by Rummy alone:

"We said they had a nuclear program. That was never any debate." Source: This Week with George Stephanopoulos, ABC (7/13/2003).

AL KAMEN

Kamen writes the In the Loop column for the WaPo and has a few nuggets in it every so often. Here are a few I liked:

Let's face it, the media continue to emphasize the bad news out of Iraq and absolutely refuse to highlight the important good news coming out of there of late.

Fortunately, the Republican National Committee puts out a weekly "Iraq Facts" page on its Web site that focuses on all the good news out of Iraq. This week's "Other Good News" section tells us: "Baghdad is to get its first water park and wave machine -- thanks to a Scottish company" called Murphy's Waves.

The RNC cites a report on the Web site of Scotland's Glasgow Daily Record a couple of weeks ago, quoting Murphy's international sales manager, Jim Stuart , who says he's "delighted to be involved in this project and it shows that rebuilding in Iraq really is happening."

The wave-machine pool project has been in the works for a couple of years, he said, when someone from a company called Baghdad Pools called and said he wanted to build a "fun pool for the city."

What better way to cope with the coming brutally hot summer in Baghdad with temps hitting 120 degrees? In the prewar days you might have had air conditioning, but electricity is still not up to prewar levels -- even to WWII levels.

So why not ride the great waves? LINK

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There was a most unseemly public friction last week between Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over whether tactical mistakes had been made in Iraq.

Rice had said there were lots; Rumsfeld, dismissing her as if she were a reporter, said there weren't any.

"How are things between you and the secretary of defense?" NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams asked Rice on Thursday, after the two secretaries had lunch with national security adviser Stephen Hadley .
"Couldn't be better," Rice said, apparently seriously. "I think that what the secretary said was that he hadn't seen what I said."

Uh, no. Rumsfeld said: "I don't know what she was talking about, to be perfectly honest." In addition, he said her comment might reflect "a lack of understanding . . . of what warfare is about." LINK

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The No. 1 reading material on the Condoleezza Rice - Jack Straw tour to Iraq this week was the book "Cobra II," an inside account of the Iraq war by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor .

Both U.S. and British officials accompanying the secretary of state and the British foreign secretary were engrossed in reading it as they flew back and forth to Baghdad from England. The book contains an appendix with a series of secret British memos critical of the U.S. occupation, written by diplomat John Sawers , who just happened to be part of the Rice-Straw meetings in Iraq.

The book also recounts how British officers were appalled when Gen. Tommy Franks showed his officers the movie "Gladiator" before the invasion to inspire them.

RADIO TIDBITS

This AM, Laura the War Whore Ingraham claimed that Patrick Fitzgerald has stated that Valerie Plame was not covert. This is just another example of the Noise Machine's use of the Big Lie. Here's the relevant excerpt from Fitzgerald's press conference:


Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community.

Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life.

The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well- known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It's important that a CIA officer's identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation's security.

Valerie Wilson's cover was blown in July 2003. The first sign of that cover being blown was when Mr. Novak published a column on July 14th, 2003.

TROUBLE IN PARADISE

It looks like the Sunni's from Anbar province have their own notion of where they should serve.

From Reuters:

BAGHDAD, May 3 (Reuters) - The commander of Iraq's ground forces said on Wednesday he would not tolerate soldiers' protests against their deployment orders after a near-mutiny at the weekend by army recruits.

In an embarrassing episode for the U.S.-trained army, hundreds of young Sunni Arabs staged a rowdy protest during a graduation parade in Anbar province on Sunday after learning they would be posted away from their home towns.

"These people joined the army and were assigned to one area but they bypassed the army's conditions. We don't need people who put their conditions above the army's conditions," Lieutenant-General Abdul Qader told reporters.


From Stars & Stripes:


HABBANIYAH, Iraq — The first all-Sunni class of Iraqi army trainees graduated from an American-run basic training course here Sunday, marking what U.S. military officials called a significant step in rebuilding the Iraqi security forces.

Some 978 men — including more than 800 from Fallujah — were sworn in as privates in the new Iraqi army, the first cadre of a planned 6,500 Sunni troops to be recruited from and trained in Anbar province.

[snip]

After the ceremony, word spread through the new troops that they might not, in fact, be deployed in Fallujah, but in other, more violent areas of Anbar. Many of the new troops threw their hats in anger or ripped off their uniform shirts and waved them over their heads.

Then, as an Iraqi sergeant major tried to calm the troops, an unlikely figure grabbed the microphone. Gen. Sha’aban, commander of the Anbar province Iraqi police force, exhorted the soldiers not to give up. As a thousand men crouched and sat in front of him, he told them that they serve all of Iraq, that Iraqis from Basra, for instance, serve in Fallujah and vice versa.

After answering several minutes of questions posed by a representative chosen from among the new soldiers, it appeared Sha’aban had assuaged most of their concerns.


From UPI:

One of the recruits, Ahmad Mahmoud Azzawi said his mind was made up.

"If they disperse us to Shiite and Kurdish areas, we will not go," he said. "Frankly, we would much rather go back to our land, to plant and reap our produce, than to serve others."

From the Truthiness Squad at the Defense Department, not one mention of this protest.

NO WONDER SLOTS BENNETT LOST MONEY GAMBLING

From The Situation Room:


BLITZER: Today, in our "Strategy Session," a new poll shows Republican voters aren't as fired up as Democrats are when they go to the polls in November. At least, that's what is coming out right now. What can the GOP do to ignite their base? Can Democrats come up with enough support to gain control of either chamber of Congress? Joining us now, our CNN political analysts Democratic strategist Donna Brazile and Bill Bennett, the host of the radio program "Morning in America." Here's some aspects of this "USA Today"/Gallup poll. Generic congressional matchup, who do you prefer, Democrats or Republicans? Fifty-four percent of those who responded said Democrats. Thirty-nine percent said Republicans. But, Bill, perhaps more worrisome to you and your fellow Republicans is this question: Are you more enthusiastic about voting than usual? In January, 48 percent, the Democrats said yes. It's now up to 50 percent. But among Republicans, in January, 47 percent said yes, almost the same then as the Democrat . But it's gone down now to 38 percent...

BILL BENNETT, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes.

BLITZER: ... which suggests that that base is not necessarily as enthusiastic as it should be going into these midterm elections.

BENNETT: Well, as the song said, it's a long way from May to November, or something like that. There's time for excitement. Politics shouldn't necessarily have to be about excitement. It has to do with making choices. And on these generic polls, the problem with generic polls is, of course, people vote in a specific place for a specific person. And I -- by the way, I don't think you will see a change in the Congress. But...

BLITZER: In either House or Senate?

BENNETT: No. I don't. But I -- that's right.

INT'L MEDIA POLL

The BBC, Reuters and The Media Center commissioned a 10-country poll of attitudes about the media. What I found interesting were some of the U.S. results:

The most trusted specific news sources mentioned without prompting by Americans include FOX News (mentioned by 11%), CNN (11%), ABC (4%), NBC (4%), National Public Radio (3%), CBS (3%), Microsoft/MSN (2%), USA Today (2%), New York Times (2%), CNN.com (1%), Time Magazine (1%), and friends/family (1%).

Attitudinally, Americans stand out from citizens of the other countries surveyed on a number of dimensions. They are the most critical of the news media’s reporting of all sides of a story; fully 69 percent disagree that the media does this. They are also significantly more inclined to disagree (46%) that the media reports news accurately; and more likely to agree (68%) that the media covers too many ‘bad news’ stories.


I'm not surprised that FOX got 11% but I was expecting other sources to do better. Excluding family & friends, the other sources are most trusted by 33% of Americans. Altogether, including family & friends, that accounts for 45% of Americans so I am wondering what the remaining 55% trust the most.

It also seems like we have a lot of WATB (© Atrios) who need more smiley-face news.

EX-CIA AGENTS FINGER CHENEY & BUSH

From the May 2nd Hardball show:

Tyler Drumheller was the CIA’s chief of operations in Europe until he retired last year. He says that the White House ignored warnings that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.

Gary Berntsen is a former CIA field officer who served on the ground in Afghanistan. He says the military let Osama bin Laden get away because they didn’t commit the right amount of forces to get him. He’s also the author of “Jawbreaker: The Attack on bin Laden and al Qaeda.”


MATTHEWS: What did he mean when I asked him [Tenet] "why didn’t the vice president get a report back from the trip to Africa by Joe Wilson?" That would have cleared this whole thing up. He said to ask him. What does that mean?

DRUMHELLER: I think it means that George didn’t want to answer because he knew what the answer was.

MATTHEWS: Which was he [Cheney] got a report.

Why didn’t all of this intelligence work by you pros to try find out the threat about the real threat from Saddam Hussein, before, after, during the war, why didn’t it get to the American people through the president and vice president? Why was there a wall separating us from the truth?

BERNTSEN: I think that the agency was trying to provide the intelligence to policymakers, that’s our role, to policymakers, not to the American public. What the president does with that information is his business.

MATTHEWS: In this case, he didn’t give us the full scoop, right?

BERNTSEN: Apparently.

RADIO TIDBITS

Fats comes on Slots' show and they start off by slobbering all over each other then discuss the drug settlement. According to Rush, the operative words are "not guilty" instead of "piss test." And like the sunrise, Fats blames the liberal media for how they covered the story. Shocking admission by Fats: "I haven't been able to talk about it for fear of incriminating myself."

Fats on the immigration protest: a bunch of leftist anti-Americans and Marxists.
Fats on Dems: they are trying to undermine everything America stands for.
Fats on national security leaks to the press: The press is rooting against America. Edward R. Murrow would be shocked about how the press behaves today.
Fats: Scooter Libby was trying to keep America well-informed. There is a shadow government in the CIA and State and other places trying to bring down the Bush regime. Jaime Gorelick!!!
Fats: Wilson & Plame concocted the Niger trip to sabotage the Iraq War. In fact, all the Clinton appointees (Gorelick, Clarke, Berger and others) are trying to sabotage Bush while protecting Clinton's legacy.
Fats & Slots: The liberals can't be trusted to fight the war on terror.


In addition to being liars and whore, these two are afraid and paranoid and they hope to instill their fears and paranoia into their listeners.

CULTURAL IGNORANCE

I caught this story on NPR's Morning Edition and it fit in nicely with a report in my local paper.

First, the NPR story:

The U.S. military's lack of understanding about Iraqi culture helped create the conditions for the insurgency that U.S. forces face there, according to a military adviser who has written a new book about the insurgency.

Between November 2003 and September 2005, professor Ahmed Hashim worked with U.S. troops in Iraq. His job was to try to understand the insurgents and what motivates them. His new book is called Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq.

Hashim lists about 20 groups of insurgents, including nationalists, former Baathists, tribal-based insurgents and religious extremists. The groups say they want the United States out of Iraq, and they reject the U.S.-backed government, but they don't agree on what they do want.

"If we were out of the picture, some of the insurgent groups could engage in bloodshed against one another because they have such different and disparate political views of the future of Iraq," Hashim says.

Hashim, who teaches at the Naval War College, says he was surprised by how little the U.S. military understands about the culture, or "human terrain," of Iraq. That includes "societal networks, relations between tribes and within tribes, kinship ties... what is it people are fighting for?"

NPR provided a brief excerpt from the book and these groups stuck out for me:

Popular Resistance for the Liberation of Iraq. Issued a call on 26 June 2003 to all in the Arab and Islamic worlds to come and attack the the insurgents’ way of warfare United States in Iraq.

Iraqi Resistance and Liberation Command. Appeared in late April 2003. It is secular and nationalist but has denied that it is an extension of the defunct regime.

Al ‘Awdah (The Return). Came to prominence in mid-June 2003. It is made up of former security-service members and Iraqi armed forces personnel organized into cells distributed throughout cities such as Baghdad, Mosul and Ramadi.

Higher Command of the Mujahideen in Iraq. This is one of the most active resistance groups in Iraq. It is unclear whether it is largely religious or nationalist, or a front for Saddam’s defunct regime. The group first emerged on 15 April 2003, when it issued a communiqué that stated it had 8,000 mujahideen (holy warriors) within its ranks.

National Front for the Liberation of Iraq. ... It issued its first communiqués in April 2003, and claimed that it had tried to assassinate Ahmed Chalabi but only succeeded in killing some of his supporters in an attack in Najaf.


All these groups became active in the late Spring or Summer of '03, the time when Bremer and some generals were asking for more troops, to no avail.

Now, the local story:

Huachuca turns out sensitive soldiers
GIs are taught how to avoid offending Iraqi population
By Carol Ann Alaimo
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona Published: 04.30.2006

Sgt. 1st Class Isham Mitchell doesn't want to be known as a "rude American" in Iraq. The Army doesn't want that either. So the service is stepping up efforts to teach soldiers like him how to mind their manners around Muslims.

In Southern Arizona and elsewhere, troops are learning how to get along better with locals in Iraq and Afghanistan — or, at least, to avoid offending them out of cultural ignorance.

At least 12,000 soldiers have been trained in Arabic culture since 2003, and the Army recently expanded the offerings.

For soldiers like Mitchell, who has served two tours in Iraq, the training has been an eye-opener. "There were a lot of things I didn't know going over there the first time," said the 37-year-old intelligence analyst at Fort Huachuca, who soon will be teaching cultural awareness to other soldiers.

Little changes can make a big difference in how U.S. troops are perceived, he said.

For example, he's now careful to avoid making eye contact with Arab women and to speak only to men. And he makes it a point to accept offers of hospitality, such as a meal or a cup of tea, after learning that refusing such gestures is an extreme insult.

Sgt. 1st Class Brady Warren, another trainee, was shocked to learn that something as simple as setting one's dirty boots on an Arabic newspaper can be a source of umbrage. The reason: Many Arabic papers contain some mention of Allah, so fouling the paper is seen as dishonoring God.


I doubt that this will have much effect now that we've been there for over 3 years but I suppose it is worth the effort.

RADIO TIDBITS

On Sunday, Drudge repeatedly played a clip of a report of some problems at one immigration demonstration. Drudge wanted to create the impression that the protests are violent and are prone to violence, despite all evidence to the contrary. He seemed to believe that violence was inevitable and perhaps desirable.


On Monday, Slots Bennett let David Gelernter bloviate about how America has deteriorated since (you guessed it) the 60s because people are more concerned with their rights than with their responsibilities. Of course, no mention was made of Tenet, Bremer and Franks each getting the Medal of Freedom.

MAY 1ST, 2003

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.

FREDO'S IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY

(Hat-tip to Atrios) Glenn Greenwald points out and discusses two articles in the Boston Globe (here and here) that investigate Fredo's use of signing statements to bypass the intent of Congress. What should give a chill to any American is the breadth of these statements:

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

The Globe has a graphic depiction of the enormous increase in the number of these signing statments compared to previous Presidents:






The Globe gives 10 examples of Fredo's signing statements so you can get a feel for how unconstrained Fredo thinks he really is.