I have a ton of charts on my hard drive, and I have reviewed many many more, but this is my favourite chart of all time (yeah, as Hale Stewart would say, how lame is it that I have a “favourite chart”)
The chart shows wages for non-supervisory, goods producing, hourly employees from 1947 to today. It shows, graphically, a point I think needs to be hammered home – you can’t talk about the “post war economy”, as if there is only one. There were two, and the first one ended sometime in the seventies.

More after the jump

Brian Hammon, the blogger at Eye On Williamson County, and I discuss net neutrality, Texas Democratic politics and the chances for a successful Texas Democratic gubernatorial campaign.

Listen here.

Jason Zengerle of the New Republic has some serious problems:

What makes this all the more disturbing is Zengerle's claim that he was "re-print[ing] some of the e-mails that were going to the 'Townhouse' list, according to three sources . . . " It is difficult to see how Zengerle's claim about his sources could be true, to put it generously. It is highly unlikely (to put it mildly) that three different sources would send Zengerle the same fabricated e-mail and falsely tell him that it was sent by Gilliard to the Townhouse list. And it is equally unlikely that three different sources would confirm that Gilliard sent an e-mail that he, in fact, simply never sent.

Zengerle owes his readers and The New Republic an explanation, and soon. Did Zengerle really have three sources for these e-mails (as he claimed), or did he simply receive things from an anonymous source and then blindly rely on the veracity of what he was sent, only to claim that it was from "three sources" in order (a la Jason Leopold) to enhance the credibility of his claims?

He either needs to a.) apologize for lying about what Steve Gilliard did not write or b.) burn the sources that sent him the fictitious email. I can personally vouch for Steve that he did not write said email and that I did not receive any email from him that even remotely resembled the one Zengerle cites. It's really quite simple: 'fess up, Zengerle.

Here's a great, simple and easy to understand net neutrality video that even Mike McCury or Charlie Gonzalez couldn't distort.

Also see Sanford Nowlin in today's paper asking why Charlie Gonzalez didn't accept my invitation to the show? Inquiring minds want to know!

Take action: Call Congress: 888-355-3588, it"s free Write Congress, Blog it or add the logo to your site, and make it your MySpace best friend!

Let the swiftboating begin. Check this out: www.murthalied.com

Here is the DNS info (here and here and here)if anyone cares to track this stuff down.

More as it comes.

I just received a reply from Texas Senate candidate Barbara Ann Radnofsky to a query I made yesterday about her position on net neutrality and her recent experience on the issue. She writes back:

Net neutrality has certainly dominated my telephone time and thoughts recently. I'm on the road to San Antonio. This is trip 416 in a two and a half year campaign, and the rad-note-skys blog at www.radnofsky.com will give you a written and photographic account of many of the trips. This morning, I spoke at my opponent's home town to a community meeting at Rising Star Baptist Church about the importance of the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, and particularly section 5. Voting rights, education and fairness of opportunity tie well with
Net neutrality.

It's been a hectic, enjoyable three days since Move-on encouraged its members to contact me and my opponent to determine our positions on net neutrality. I've taken over 200 phone calls on my cell phone, and they include Republicans as well as Democrats. I didn't get people's ages, but many of the women sound as though they are in their 50s or older. I've told each I support net neutrality. Many have visited my website which I've sent them via my blackberry.

More after the jump.

David Isenberg, at Isenblog, catches net neutrality foes in a lie, and a crude one at that. He writes:

the TV commercial is a double lie. a) The four entitlements don't support network neutrality, and (b) Handsoff doesn't either.

Give the whole post a run-down, and follow the links. On that note: Rocketboom is good today too! Give it a watch.

Take action: Call Congress: 888-355-3588, it"s free Write Congress, Blog it or add the logo to your site, and make it your MySpace best friend!

The definition and meaning behind weapons of mass destruction is in desperate need of refinement, as Ricky Sanitorium made evidently clear the day before yesterday and William Arkin elucidates this morning.

The day before yesterday in a stunt designed to shore up his sinking Senatorial re-election bid, Rick Santorum (R-Nuts) engineered the declassification of a memo from NID John Negroponte, and then declared before all the world (and Faux News) that "we found them!"

Exactly what had been found? 500 ⁺/_- a few degraded chemical weapons munitions from the 1980-88 war with Iran, which had quite poosibly been bombed by us in 1991 and forgotten by the Iraqi regime.

More after the jump

....in absentia

Pile on!

....after the jump.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Today, I read in the Washington Post, that the government has been seizing bank records with no judicial oversight, no warrants, no oath and affirmation.

The Bush administration, relying on a presidential declaration of emergency, has secretly been tapping into a vast global database of confidential financial transactions for nearly five years, according to U.S. government and industry officials.

State of Emergency Declared in Baghdad
June 23

AP - The Iraqi government declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew Friday after insurgents set up roadblocks in central Baghdad and opened fire on U.S. and Iraqi troops outside the heavily fortified Green Zone.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered everyone off the streets of the capital. U.S. and Iraqi forces also fought gunmen in the volatile Dora neighborhood in south Baghdad.

Iraqis Rescue Hostages; 5 U.S. Troops Die
Sinan Salheddin | Baghdad | June 22

AP -- Iraqi police stormed a farm north of Baghdad early Thursday and freed at least 17 people who were snatched a day earlier in a mass kidnapping of 64 workers and family members at the end of a factory shift.

The U.S. military Thursday reported four Marines and a soldier were killed in operations south and west of Baghdad, and an explosion of sectarian and revenge killings in Iraq's third largest city over the past three days claimed 24 lives.

Must read:
Baghdad embassy cable gives the lowdown on how things really are.

June 21:
 •  Saddam defence lawyer killed
 •  Fears of massacre over abduction of 100 workers
in Iraq
 •  GOP Senators Attack Iraq Proposal by Democrats

Leah and I spent three hours picking in the garden last night. It has evolved into an every afternoon ritual for me. If I miss a day, the next picking will be extra heavy and some vegetables will be overripe. Not good for those wishing to participate on the social scene.

We didn’t can anything last night, but instead put a bunch of tomatoes on the stove to reduce into sauce, which we hope to can tonight. We have a couple of five-gallon cans of serrano and jalapeno peppers. Two days worth of okra sitting in a bucket. I need to give them away. The irrigation machines are running at Belmont—I need to meet with the man and figure out how to run them, cowboys are scheduled to work our cattle at Gonzales, which means I need to buy feed, vaccines, etc, the publicist at HarperCollins needs to talk, my horses…

Jonathan Chait (one of TNR's best writers, in my opinion) wrote about Kos' excommunication of TNR yesterday. And in the article he cited this post of mine, asking the question: Is our owner a Lieberman-worshipper, or is he a Gore-worshipper?

Well, it was the Gore/Lieberman ticket, right?

Glenn Greenwald of "Unclaimed Territory" and I discuss his New York Times bestselling book: "How Would A Patriot Act: Defending American Values from a President Run Amok. It's a short segment but a great intro on his book, what it is about and why you should read it.

Listen here.

Jennifer Hughes in New York | June 23

FT - Barclays Capital economists on Thursday joined the small but growing “6 per cent” club of analysts predicting that further US monetary tightening still lies ahead.

The Federal Reserve’s Open Markets Committee meets next week and is expected to raise its benchmark Fed funds rate by a quarter point to 5.25 per cent.

Damn, at 6% munis start to look attractive again. But how much higher will rates go?

I just cannot resist (from the Nelson Report):

To the amazement of all, and consternation of many, the formerly respected former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry today advocated a preemptive military attack on N. Korea’s alleged Taepodong-2, still on the launch pad.

National Security Advisor Steve Hadley, in Europe with the President, immediately shot down the idea, saying Bush’s policy remains peaceful negotiation. Given this week’s Administration bloviations about firing-up the still non-functioning National Missile Defense network, including possibly attacking the missile during take-off, the ironies are duly noted.

Indeed, a source with close ties to the Administration ruefully noted that the Perry recommendation “is an artifact of the lack of choice which stems from Bush having no Korea policy except neglect, to the point of criminality (itself one of the reasons for the N. Korean move, many argue). And it’s not like the White House has an alternative at its disposal?”

This source continues: “How many billions have been spent on a national missile defense which was sold in and is still justified as being for this precise situation...deterring an attack from North Korea? Now here we are and we can’t do anything to stop this missile except an attack directly on N. Korea itself.”

And Conservatives disagree. That's weird.

Of course the Sears Tower Seven will overshadow this as a nation with attention deficit disorder needs new and ever moving entertainment.

Key graf:

Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, said the company's policy revisions come at a curious time.

"It appears to be carefully crafted to get the company off the hook for any number of ways that it shares customer data," she said. "It wouldn't surprise me if this was done in response to the scrutiny they've received over the NSA's wiretapping program."

Every report I have heard about this today, and it has been big news everywhere since Lazarus broke the story, notes the same coincidence.

There are no coincidences in life; there are only raw deals in which Ed Whitacre chooses to remain anonymous.

Unfortunately, some local San Antonians think it is great, because they have nothing to hide. What happens when you do have something to hide, that is not necessarily illegal or unethical? As we know, many, many things can be taken way out of context and used against us when we least expect it.

I've just started raeding Ron Suskind's "One Percent Doctrine" and I've not really gotten into the meat of it yet. But I read something tangential to it and wanted to share it with you, as it supports many contentions and assertions I've made in the last five years and that many, many others have made as well about the War on Terror and Homeland Security: they are both in utterly miserable shape, the conventional wisdom notwithstanding.

I've been extremely critical of our efforts regarding both. I've consistently said that we have avoided doing the hard, tedious but essential work of real national and homeland security in exchange for what is essentially a photo-op presidency and a dysfunctional domestic and international security establishment. No port security. No Congressional oversight. No beefing up the analytical wing of the CIA and no new file sharing computer system for the FBI (although P2P has been rocking for years). Instead we have a two hundred billion dollar and two thousand KIA war in Iraq, a clusterf*@k in Afghanistan and virtually no, no security at home. By God, the Nunn-Lugar Act, designed to secure stockpiles of fissionable nuclear materials act was barely re-authorized. Our establishment has failed us, although it is yet not clear that this is the case. Instead our media have been warped by Cheney's crude, dark, ominous fear-mongering and Bush's credulous, insipid but strangely convincing grandstanding.

After reading this I am more convinced than ever that the last five years have been squandered. After reading Suskind's book and quite clearly being privy to other sources of information Jamestown Foundation fellow Michael Scheuer writes:

the book suggests that several judgments about al-Qaeda that are now accepted in the United States and the West as common wisdom—such as al-Qaeda's inability to stage large, complicated attacks in the United States; that bin Laden and al-Zawahiri are isolated and cannot exercise command-and-control over al-Qaeda; and that U.S. border security is greatly improved since 9/11—need to be reexamined and debated.

Until I write more tomorrow, read the whole report. It's short and to the point. And it packs a mean punch.

So we're back to estate tax repeal time again. Because, in the US, the rich aren't rich enough...

From Income Inequality in the United States, 1913-1998, Pikketty and Saez)

More after the jump.

Seems Somalia's interim government is to open negotiations with the Union of Islamic Courts. The interim government (which was formed in 2004 by a UN conference and didn't even control the capital, is calling for international peace keepers.

This statement from a US official is hilarious:

``They need to stop in their tracks where they are right now," Jendayi Frazer, assistant US secretary of state, said in neighboring Kenya. ``Their movement out makes all of us question their intentions, their motives, and it also threatens the neighborhood."

Daniel | June 22

Today’s remarks by General Casey, that seem to indicate some troop reduction in Iraq by years end, coupled with yesterday's Associated Press article outlining a significant reduction in military equipment in the troubled country may be the makings of an October surprise. What I find particularly curious is that while we are seeing signs of a pending military reduction, we see the Republican Party spinning calls by Democrats to begin the process of transitioning security and military oversight to the Iraqis as a “cut and run” strategy.

As I view the facts, it appears to me that the realities on the ground may in fact come close to matching the objective outlined in one of the Democratic proposals…and yet if we listen to the rhetoric on the floor of the Senate, one would be apt to conclude that the difference between the Republican and Democratic strategies is significant and tangible. My cynical and suspicious mind tells me the administration may be splitting hairs in order to garner political advantage.
more at Thought Theater.

This video is heartbreaking. I've stood in that square and looked at the adjacent buildings and the greenery amidst the withering heat of an Uzbek July. The video is much representative of the Uzbek population as a whole in the Ferghana: lots of veiled women, men bedecked in the traditional 4 cornered Uzbek skullcap and plenty of old people.

The things that tears me up as I watch the video is that 98% of the people in the video were unarmed and so many of them died. C.J. Chivers does an excellent job of reconstructing the events of those tense, horrific days in Andijon, the birthplace of Babur, the first Moghul Emperor, who said of his hometown: "Grain and fruit are plentiful there, and the melons and grapes are excellent. No pears are better than those from Andijon. . . ."

Sadly the future has wrought a bitter fruit and a sad harvest for the people of Uzbekistan.

Mercosur and Mexico’s election
Fred Rosen | June 19

El Universal - Every election takes place in a global context. A century ago, strongman Porfirio Díaz lamented that Mexico was “so far from God and so close to the United States.” One hundred years later that context has broadened to include Mexico’s proximity to a sovereignty-minded set of nations in South America.

While the challenges of those nations to U.S. financial and political dominance has placed them on the global “left,” Mexico, under its last few administrations, has remained apart from those challenges, and instead drawn closer to its northern neighbor. By design or by happenstance, President Vicente Fox has become Washington’s point man in the Americas.

New and old technologies merge for election dirty tricks
Kenneth Edmund | June 19

El Universal - Anyone who follows Mexico's election campaign knows that the front-running presidential candidates have abandoned issues in favor of personal attacks... Technology has created even more of a minefield for guardians of the fair vote...

Vote-buying has always been an integral part of Mexican election campaigns. To mitigate the temptation to take the money and vote as they pleased, those who received cash for votes were told that the party would know how they voted, though it wasn't explained how. Today the uneducated are told that the party has satellites overhead that monitor voting, and a betrayal vote will bring dire consequences to the voter and his family.

The internet and message-receiving cell phones have registered at least 7 million anonymous messages saying things like, "López Obrador is a danger to Mexico." ...

María de los Angeles Fromow, the head of FEPADE (Special Prosecutor for Electoral Crimes) said recently, "When we speak of new ways to commit a crime we are talking about crimes on the internet."  (more after the jump)

 • June 22: Mexican leftist opens up 5-point lead - poll

Many of you probably know I am no fan of Kay Bailey, one of my Senators from Texas. (But if it were her vs. Cornyn, hell, I'd vote for her without a second thought--but I digress.) Here's the deal: Kay Bailey has the chance to get net neutrality right. She literally has the opportunity to save the internet or give it away to special interests.

She's also running for re-election. And her opponent, Barbara-Ann Radnofsky is on the right, er correct, side of the issue.

So, yesterday on of the Save The Internet Coalition members sent out Barbara Ann's and Kay Bailey's phone numbers, so their members could voice their concern over this critical issue. Of course, the people who called Senator Hutchison got her office and left a message with a staff member. On the other hand, those that called Radnofsky actually talked to her, as the email had accidentally included her personal cell number (oops). But Radnofsky was ecstatic about it. She took over 200 calls from people concerned about net neutrality and how the telco cartel was fighting this in Congress.

Would Kay Bailey do the same thing? More importantly, will she do the right thing?

Call her office in Austin 512-236-8656 or D.C.202-224-5922; 202-224-0776 (FAX): urge her to save the internet and support the Snowe-Dorgan Internet Freedom Preservation proposal.

Take action: Call Congress: 888-355-3588, it"s free Write Congress, Blog it or add the logo to your site, and make it your MySpace best friend!

Last night I highlighted this op-ed by Asia wonks Ashton Carter and William J. Perry. My first reading was pretty breathless, I admit. But then I sat down and re-read it. So many of the assumptions they make in the op-ed seem so wildly off base to me that I don't know where to begin. The first one they made that I laughed at was how "North Korean engineers," after they'd fired off this missile and we shot it down (stifling laughter, I know), as Perry and Carter write,

would already have obtained much of the precious flight test data they are seeking, which they could use to make a whole arsenal of missiles, hiding and protecting them from more U.S. strikes in the maze of tunnels they have dug throughout their mountainous country.

Look, I know the Norks are tunnel builders. I've been in one near the DMZ. But have you ever seen how big a Taepodong missile is? Fooking huge! This one just doesn't pass the laugh test.

You know, we build silos in the soft earth of the Plains States to protect our missiles (which is still wildly expensive) what makes you think the Norks have the money to build, in essence, huge hangars inside mountains? Please.

More after the jump.