In the March issue of Foreign Policy Phillip Longman writes that because people with liberal values are having fewer or no children, and conservatives and fundamentalists are following the Biblical imperative to be fruitful and multiply, secular humanists may be facing extinction. There is a "gradual drift of American culture away from secular individualism and toward religious fundamentalism," writes Longman. "Among states that voted for President Bush in 2004, fertility rates are 12 percent higher than in states that voted for Sen. John Kerry."
The number of lobbyists registered to do business in Washington has more than doubled in the last five years. (2000: 16,342 lobbyists; 2005: 34,785.) As of 2005, there were 65 lobbyists for every member of Congress. The total spent by lobbyists per month on influencing federal officials is nearly $200 million.
You may recall comments made by presidential wife and mother Barbara Bush that after taking a tour of a refugee-relocation center in Houston last September, marveling at the good fortune of the evacuees: "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality. And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." Now the former First Lady has written a check for an undisclosed sum to help Katrina evacuees in Houston, the Houston Chronicle reported on March 23. There's only one catch—the money must be spent on education, in particular with a specific educational software company, Ignite Learning, which is running "curriculum-on wheels" programs in the Houston school district. The company is owned by Barbara Bush's son Neil
Mark Mershon, the top FBI official in New York City, confided to the editorial board of the Daily News on March 21 that budget constraints are forcing some New York-based FBI agents to operate without e-mail accounts. "As ridiculous as this might sound, we have real money issues right now, and the government is reluctant to give all agents and analysts dot-gov accounts," said Mershon.
On March 19, the third anniversary of the Iraq war, former prime minister Ayad Allawi—once the darling of the Bush administration—told the BBC that Iraq had descended into civil conflict. "It is unfortunate that we are in civil war. We are losing each day 50 to 60 people through the country, if not more," said Allawi. "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is." Commenting on Allawi's comments, Vice-President Cheney said that civil war had been the goal of the "terrorists" all along, "but my view would be they've reached a stage of desperation from their standpoint."
On the March 17 edition of Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor," R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and host of the daily Christian radio show "The Albert Mohler Program," defended "700 Club" host Pat Robertson's recent claim that Muslims are "motivated by demonic power," and expanded on Robertson's comments, saying: "Well, I would have to say as a Christian that I believe any belief system, any world view, whether it's Zen Buddhism or Hinduism or dialectical materialism for that matter, Marxism, that keeps persons captive and keeps them from coming to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, yes, is a demonstration of satanic power."
Former Bush domestic policy advisor Claude Allen, a protégé of Clarence Thomas, was arrested on March 9 and charged with stealing thousands of dollars in merchandise from Target and other stores on at least 25 occasions in late 2005 and early 2006. Allen is charged with buying items, bringing them out to his car, then returning to the store, grabbing identical items and returning them for cash with a receipt. Allen, who resigned from the administration on February 9, claiming he wanted to spend more time with his family, has denied the charges, saying there is a mix-up with his credit card.
CH Energy Group, formerly Central Hudson, the utility that supplies natural gas and electricity to most of the Mid-Hudson Valley, has petitioned the Public Service Commission—the state agency that sets rates for public utilities—to increase its rates for gas and electric. According to CH Energy Group spokeswoman Denise Van Buren, the last time the utility raised its rates was in 1993. CH Energy Group is seeking to increase their electric rates by 17 percent, and their gas rates by 16 percent. The average residential user should expect increases of $120 a year for electricity and $240 for gas. Van Buren said inflationary pressures, along with the need to make improvements to the delivery system, are driving the need for the rate increase.
County legislators Joel Tyner and Brian Shapiro, of Dutchess and Ulster counties respectively, have both criticized the rate hike, citing the fact that CH Energy Group reported profits of over $40 million in each of the past two years.
The Public Service Commission held a series of sparsely attended (and poorly advertised) public-comment hearings in mid-March. The Commission will be accepting written comments until April 17. A decision on the rate hike request is expected later this spring.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned a clean-air regulation on March 17 issued by the Bush administration that would have created a loophole for aging power plants, factories, and refineries, allowing them to avoid installing expensive new pollution controls to offset increased costs caused by replacement or repair of existing equipment. "Indeed," the court wrote, "EPA's interpretation would produce a 'strange,' if not an 'indeterminate' result: a law intended to limit increases in air pollution would allow sources operating below applicable emission limits to increase significantly the pollution they emit without government review." The provision of the Clean Air Act at issue—"new source review"—governs the permits required at 1,300 coal-fueled power plants around the country and 17,000 factories, refineries, and chemical plants that release millions of tons of pollution into the air each year.
The judge presiding over the prosecution of an Afghan man, facing death for converting from Islam to Christianity said on March 23 that he would resist any outside interference in the case as international condemnation mounts. The defendant, Abdul Rahman, converted to Christianity 15 years ago, and his case highlights a central contradiction of the compromise Constitution that Afghanistan adopted following the US invasion. While one passage declares Islam Afghanistan's supreme law, another grants its citizens religious freedom. Certain crimes, however, are to be handled by religious judges. One such crime is converting from Islam to another religion. Under conservative interpretations, a convert can be sentenced to death. No lawyer in Kabul is willing to represent Rahman.
Asked to comment on a resolution Sen. Russ Feingold wanted to introduce censuring President Bush for instituting a warrantless spying program and then misleading the country about its existence at his daily briefing on March 13, White House press secretary Scott McClellan responded: "I think that raises the question, 'How do you fight and win the war on terrorism?' And if Democrats want to argue that we shouldn't be listening to al-Qaeda communications, it's their right and we welcome the debate. We are a nation at war." For the record: To date, no member of Congress, Democrat or Republican, including Feingold, has suggested that "we shouldn't be listening to al-Qaeda communications."
(In case you are wondering if the NSA had listened in on any of your overseas calls or e-mails, The People for the American Way have created an easy-to-use Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request form—www.foiarequest.org—where you can formally ask the government to provide all records about you in their possession. Under FOIA, anyone has the right to request information from the government. FOIA gives citizens a tool to demand transparency from their government, and take it to court if necessary.)