"If you can't convince them, confuse them." --Harry S.Truman

Seemingly, “the beat goes on”. Continuing undercurrents changing the fabric of American democracy are meant to wear down and erode the average American citizen’s resistance to infringements on civil liberties guaranteed by the founding fathers of The Constitution and The Bill of Rights.

So many of our once (albeit, vaguely) trusted government entities are filled with Bush political appointees hell-bent on altering American values so that even more money can be re-routed to the private sector and even more astoundingly greedy rich folks can steal even more money from the poor, the ill-served, the disadvantaged, and the disenfranchised citizens of this country that only a constant reading of the news from all possible varieties of news organizations gives even a little bit of what’s going on in our country and under our very noses. The Internal Revenue Service is guilty of auditing more poor folks than rich folks, and that is just one example of the continuing malfeasance of the current administration.

If you really want to have an eye-opening experience, go to the Congressional Record website, and try to figure out any information at all. You will see that the average person would have a great deal of trouble understanding the convoluted instructions for viewing any information about any Congressional actions. It seems that our government is so far beyond the reach of the average citizen that despite the technological advances of the 21st century and the ease of accessing an unlimited amount of information by way of the internet, the obfuscation of our governmental processes remains clear only to lawyers. One hopes, at least, that lawyers are able to comprehend this mess.

These erosions of democracy and the spirit of American democracy must change, and the sooner the better. Discussions in Congress as to whether these nefarious and detrimental changes are valid are useless and time-wasting. Either our elected officials know right from wrong, or they don’t. If they don’t, it is time to get rid of them and to replace our representatives and senators with folks who do know what’s right and/or wrong for America.

The current administration and each and every political appointee and hanger-on is guilty of treason and betrayal of American democracy. Get rid of them before it is too late to change their hidden agenda to destroy America from within.

Historical comparisons with the McCarthy era and the rise of Nazi-ism in pre-World War II Germany should be warning enough for any fool who has managed to get himself elected to public office by slanting the vote by illegal means and by lying outright to his constituency. This path that these people seem intent on taking can only mean the quick destruction of this country and the ideals that we Americans have espoused for all the years of our history.

Polar bears are starving to death in the Arctic because global warming has made it impossible for them to eat! The Inuit of Alaska are crying out; these native peoples who know the Arctic intimately and who have depended upon it for survival for eons, are telling us that irrevocable climactic change is destroying the Arctic and while this continues on a daily basis to occur, we debate the rights and wrongs of a bunch of self-centered idiots who care only about greed and power.

It is time to get these folks either into the nearest jail or into private life and away from the ability to affect national and international politics. Carrying on this debate is an huge exercise in more wasteful political maneuvering that serves only to delay the pressing need for America to deal effectively with issues that affect our survival.
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January 10, 2006
Editorial

Washington Shuffle

The only surprise about Tom DeLay's decision to finally drop out of the House leadership is that it took so long for Congressional Republicans to realize that they needed to untie that rope from around their collective necks. Mr. DeLay's welcome decision to abandon his effort to remain the House majority leader came just as his colleagues were circulating a petition calling for his ouster.

But it wasn't a sudden fit of ethics that seized the House Republicans. It was last week's guilty plea to corruption charges by Jack Abramoff, the Republican megalobbyist, and fear about which names Mr. Abramoff would drop in cooperating with federal prosecutors.

The remaining questions for Mr. DeLay are whether he will be snared by Mr. Abramoff's net, whether he can beat the other criminal charges pending against him and whether his home district voters will do the rest of the country a favor in November and send Mr. DeLay back to private life.

Republican Congressional leaders are now jousting over whether to support Roy Blunt of Missouri or John Boehner of Ohio for Mr. DeLay's old job - neither of them likely to be the people's champion of bipartisanship or ethics. So mired are the Republicans in Mr. Abramoff's web that Mr. Blunt's and Mr. Boehner's first task will be to convince their colleagues that they won't be the next ones caught up in the scandal.

Meanwhile, Speaker Dennis Hastert announced a plan to review the rules governing lawmakers' dealings with lobbyists - as if there is any legitimate debate left about whether the rules require sweeping changes. David Dreier, the California Republican in charge of this effort, said rather delicately that "recent events" would require the House "to take a closer look at the rules regarding members' interactions with lobbyists."

Of course, any look at all would be more scrutiny than the House ethics rules have drawn recently. But even this rather meager agenda proved too much for some Republicans. No sooner had Mr. Hastert announced the new plan than some of his colleagues were dumping cold water on it. "Adding more new rules isn't the answer," Mr. Boehner said on the Fox News Channel - an interesting perspective from a man who wants to replace Mr. DeLay.

Mr. Hastert and Mr. Dreier plan to meet with Senator John McCain, as well as a few Democrats, for discussions. It would behoove members of both parties to ignore Mr. Boehner and institute some real reform, fast.

· Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
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January 10, 2006

I.R.S. Is Sued on Failure to Release Tax Data

By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON

Records showing how thoroughly the Internal Revenue Service audits big corporations and the rich, and how much it discounts the additional taxes assessed after audits, are being withheld from the public despite a 1976 court order requiring their disclosure, according to a legal motion filed last week in federal court in Seattle.

For decades, the information was given at no charge to a professor at Syracuse University, Susan B. Long, who made it available on the Internet at trac.syr.edu, with tools for people to conduct their own analyses.

Much of what the public knows about the efficiency, effectiveness and evenhandedness of the revenue service and other big federal agencies is based on the figures that Professor Long collects and posts.

In May 2004, the service told her that it would not provide the information and ordered its statisticians to stop answering her questions. It also advised her that if it ever did make the data public again, the information would cost $12,000 a month to receive electronic copies.

Professor Long, whose suit resulted in the court order in 1976, when she lived in Seattle, asked the federal court there to enforce that order, which instructed that the data be turned over without charge. Eric M. Stahl of Davis Wright Tremaine in Seattle, who is handling the case without charge, said the earliest hearing date would be Jan. 27.

The senior national spokesman for the tax agency, Frank Keith, wrote to Professor Long in June 2004 that he had lawyers examine her assertion that the agency was required to provide the data. After extensive research, Mr. Keith wrote, the lawyers concluded that no court order existed and that "accordingly, the I.R.S. is not in violation of any standing injunctions."

Professor Long responded by sending Mr. Keith a copy of the order. Mr. Keith said no one now at the agency was aware of it.

"We thought we were providing this information voluntarily," he said.

The agency has no plans to release the information, Mr. Keith said Friday. He argued that Professor Long's latest requests went far beyond the order, covering costly detailed information that could inadvertently allow the identification of specific taxpayers.

Professor Long said that was false. "There is no change in what we have asked for, and they know it," she said.

"The I.R.S. simply has no regard for court orders," Professor Long said, adding that other federal agencies whose information she collects are also obstructing her.

Researchers, reporters, lobbyists and others have argued that government agencies have for several decades become less open. That perception accelerated after the Sept. 11 attacks, drawing complaints from, among others, Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas.

President Bush signed an executive order last month "to ensure appropriate agency disclosure of information." In a meeting with newspaper editors last April, the president said, "The presumption ought to be that citizens ought to know as much as possible about the government decision making."

A spokesman for the White House, Trent Duffy, said he was unaware of the problems that Professor Long raised but that he would look into "agency specific complaints."

Mr. Keith said political appointees played no role in the decision to withhold the data.

"Decisions regarding the information to be made available to Professor Long," Mr. Keith said, "have routinely and consistently been made by career employees concerned only with how much of an administrative burden is involved, how much taxpayer money are we spending to meet this."

Among the withheld information are figures on how many hours are devoted to audits of large corporations and rich individuals, a basic measure of the thoroughness of the audits.
Among other findings, Professor Long's information has shown that in 1999 the poor were more likely than the rich to be audited.

David Burnham, co-director with Professor Long of the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which collects raw government data, said the withheld information made it impossible to evaluate the intensity of audits. Mr. Burnham noted that the withheld data included figures that indicated how much auditors say is owed in extra taxes, but that the tax agency lets taxpayers negotiate down.

"It is simply impossible to evaluate the I.R.S. without this data," Mr. Burnham said, "and they know it."

· Copyright 2006The New York Times Company