Let's talk turkey for a moment, because you might be wondering how you wish to cook yours this year, or how you'll prepare a bird alternative if that's your thing.
One of my colleagues culled a bunch of recipes and info earlier today. Here it is, with a couple of my own additions, in no particular order:
• Head to Mother Earth News for tips on both a vegetarian thanksgiving spread and a sustainable table at large.
Alton Brown talks curiosity in the kitchen, the importance of cooking at home and inspiring conversation through entertainment
Protections erode for those who allege governmental wrongdoing - especially if going public risks state secrets.
Former intelligence officer Russ Tice wants to tell Congress about what he believes were illegal actions undertaken by the National Security Agency in its highly sophisticated eavesdropping programs.
But he can't. He's been warned by the NSA that the information is so highly classified that even members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees - who are charged with overseeing the work of the intelligence community - don't have clearance to hear about them. If Mr. Tice talks at the hearings early next month, he could face criminal prosecution.
Tice is one of an increasing number of whistle-blowers in the national security realm who have come forth and found themselves in a bind.
According to the Government Accountability Office, the number of government employees coming forward to report allegations of wrongdoing within the government increased 46 percent in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. And surveys of government employees, particularly in the intelligence agencies and the Defense Department, show the terror attacks prompted an increase in concern about the competency of bureaucracy at all levels as well as a decline in morale.
So more employees have come forward. But new secrecy regulations and a series of judicial rulings have threatened the limited legal protections that are supposed to prevent retaliation against such whistle-blowers - even if they believe what they want to report is essential to national security.
"The laws on the books give the impression that people have somewhere to turn and they'll be protected, but they don't," says Beth Daley, an investigator for the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a nonprofit organization dedicated to government accountability. "There really isn't a functioning whistle-blower protection program right now."
The Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989 and the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 set out mechanisms for employees to report wrongdoing if they "reasonably believe" there's misconduct. Most whistle-blowers can go to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and the US Office of Special Counsel. Those in the intelligence communities are supposed to go to their agencies' inspectors general or members of the congressional Intelligence Committees.
"Congress needs access to not only the information an agency head is willing to release, but things from the middle and the bottom, and that's whistle-blowing," says Louis Fisher, a senior specialist in the separation of powers at the Congressional Research Service. "In a time of war and emergencies, it's particularly important because when you concentrate power, the chance of abuse and mistakes increases."
Yet some analysts believe it's vital that the executive branch have the prerogative to keep some information secret. "There are some ... programs that are so sensitive that distribution of information should be very limited. It's vital to our national security," says Peter Brookes, a senior fellow for national security at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. "But I also believe there should be some oversight."
In 1999, a federal court ruled that employees can be protected from retaliation only if there is irrefutable evidence of wrongdoing - a standard that government accountability experts say is extremely difficult to meet. Prior to the ruling, 36 percent of whistle-blower cases that went to the MSPB won on the merits, according to the Government Accountability Project, another nonprofit government watchdog group. Since that 1999 ruling, only 7 percent have prevailed. Court rulings have also narrowed the scope of who qualifies as a whistle-blower and limited the MSPB's ability to remedy certain forms of retaliation.
The combination has stripped many employees intent on exposing wrongdoing of their congressionally promised protections, according to Sibel Edmonds, founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, a group of more than 100 employees from the nation's intelligence and defense agencies.
"These are experienced veterans who've been working for these agencies for a long time," says Ms. Edmonds. "The moment they reported wrongdoing, their whole lives changed. They became pariahs overnight."
Most lost their security clearance, were demoted, or lost their jobs altogether. Edmonds has firsthand experience. She was a language specialist in the FBI's Washington Field Office. After she reported another translator was omitting information vital to national security, she was fired. Her case is currently in the courts, but the Bush administration has invoked the state's secrets privilege, which gives it the right to withhold all information on the case from the courts because of national security.
The FBI has declined comment on the case since it is still pending, but in an e-mail FBI spokesman Bill Carter wrote: "FBI Director Mueller has expressed his firm commitment to the protection of employees who report organizational wrongdoing."
Still, as a result of heightened concerns about terrorism, the Bush administration has significantly increased the amount of government material that is, or could be, classified. For instance, the Department of Homeland Security has a regulation that forbids disclosure of any document to the public that is marked "For Official Use Only," or any document that could be labeled that way. An employee who releases such information can be prosecuted.
With congressional deficit reduction efforts largely collapsed, the question remains: What are we going to do about the nation’s long-term budget crisis?
House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, accompanied by fellow committee members, gestures during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington to unveil a "comprehensive reform effort aimed to repair the broken budget process". One option for deficit reduction is a "Value Added Tax," which would would tax about 60 percent of all consumption and about 40 percent of GDP.
With congressional deficit reduction efforts largely collapsed, the question remains: What are we going to do about the nation’s long-term budget mess? Since any realistic deficit reduction plan will require significant new revenues, is a Value-Added Tax a sensible way for government to raise those extra dollars?
In an effort to find out, the Pew Charitable Trusts asked my Tax Policy Center colleagues Eric Toder, Jim Nunns, and Joe Rosenberg to set up something of a cage match: In the blue trunks, a broad-based VAT (think 9-9-9 only much less complicated). In the white trunks, the income tax. And they asked a basic question: What are the pros and cons of using a VAT to cut the deficit compared to an across-the-board hike in income tax rates.
Of course, real deficit reduction would surely involve substantial spending reductions and, in the real world, Congress might raise some new revenues by cutting tax subsidies not just raising rates. But to keep things relatively simple, Eric, Jim, and Joe looked at just two options: raising rates in the existing income tax system or adding a prototype VAT to what we’ve got.
They found that, even with one form of rebate, this version of a VAT would impose a larger tax burden on low- and moderate-income households than an across-the-board income tax rate increase. And it would significantly increase compliance and administrative costs, especially at the beginning.
However, a VAT would result in a smaller increase in marginal tax rates on labor than an income tax rate hike. And it would intrude on fewer economic decisions, especially related to savings and investment.
The goal of the exercise was to reduce the ratio of debt to Gross Domestic Product (a standard way of measuring red ink) to 60 percent. They looked at doing this by 2020, 2025, and 2035. The debt/GDP ratio is about 69 percent today and the Congressional Budget Office predicts it will rise to 187 percent by 2035 if the government keeps doing what it has been doing (maintaining the 2001/2003/2010 tax rates, continuing to protect middle-income families from the Alternative Minimum Tax, etc.).
To hit the 60 percent target by 2020, average after-tax incomes would have to be cut by 8.7 percent under the VAT or 9.3 percent with tax rate hikes, relative to incomes under today’s tax rules. Income for the lowest-earning 20 percent of households would be cut by 1.8 percent under the VAT but only 0.5 percent if Congress raised income tax rates. Middle-income households would see their after-tax income fall by 7.9 percent under the VAT but just 5.5 percent from higher rates. By contrast, the rich would be better off with the VAT. After-tax incomes of the top 1 percent would shrink by 9.6 percent compared to 17.2 percent with a rate hike.
Regular people can probably stop here, but if you are a serious tax wonk, here are some details on this prototype VAT and the income tax alternative:
This VAT has a very broad base (no exemptions for food and clothing, for example). However, it does not tax Medicare and Medicaid payments, spending by non-profits, or state and local sales taxes (yes, Virginia, some VATs do) . Combined, it would tax about 60 percent of all consumption and about 40 percent of GDP.
The VAT would partially protect low-income households with two rebates—one for workers and a second for Social Security recipients and others who get government cash transfers. Assuming current tax policy does not change, they estimate it would take a VAT rate of 22.9 percent in 2015 to meet the debt target in 2020. Because the glide path would be longer, the 2015 rate would only have to be 16.7 percent if the goal is to hit 60 percent by 2035.
To hit the 2020 target though an across-the-board income tax rate increase, rates in 2015 would rise from today’s 10-15-25-28-33-35 to 17.1-25.6-42.6-47.7-56.3-59.7 (yup, that’s a top income tax rate of almost 60 percent). As with the VAT, income tax rates would also be lower if the aim was to reach the 60 percent goal in 2025 or 2035. Rates on capital gains and dividends would also have to rise—to a top rate of 29.4 percent in 2015 if Congress wanted to meet its deficit target by 2020.
Not surprisingly, Eric, Jim, and Joe found flaws in both options. Without entitlement cuts hitting this ambitious debt target forces painful tax hikes either way. And, of course, a differently designed VAT would have yielded a different outcome. But in its cage match with a big income tax rate increase, the VAT at least gets a draw.
Democrats from President Obama on down said Anthony Weiner should resign. But when Bill Clinton went through a similar sex scandal a few years ago, the party closed ranks around him.
US Rep. Anthony Weiner announces his resignation from Congress in Brooklyn Thursday. Weiner said that he cannot continue in office amid the intense controversy surrounding explicit photos and messages he sent online to several women.
Anthony Weiner announced his resignation from the House only a day ago, but already, a backlash is building among Democrats who wonder why their party moved so forcefully to shove aside one of its own.
True, Mr. Weiner’s offense was tawdry. Tweeting pictures of your own person to young women is highly questionable behavior for a married politician. There’s no question Weiner did it, because of ample electronic evidence. And he publicly lied about his actions for days.
But didn’t another Democratic politician do much the same thing a few years ago? Yet the party closed ranks around Bill Clinton.
Weiner, they pitched under the bus. Democrats from Barack Obama on down said the New York lawmaker should seek other employment.
“A politician may resign out of embarrassment, as Representative Anthony Weiner did, but that doesn’t justify other politicians from his own party, including the president himself, calling for his resignation,” writes John B. Judis, a senior editor at The New Republic.
Well, that’s one point of view. But we can think of some reasons that Democrats turned on Weiner, and not on a certain philandering president.
Mr. Clinton was powerful. Weiner wasn’t. Is this too obvious? Clinton held a post that used to be called leader of the free world. Weiner was 1/435th of the House. It would have been a huge deal for the Democratic Party to push out a president, especially one as politically adroit as Clinton. It’s much easier to turn on an embarrassing Democrat who is one vote among many.
Politics is brutal. If the above section sounds a little, well, chilly, then perhaps you have not noticed that politics is a profession for the thick-skinned. Professional loyalty goes only so far, and the direction it usually goes is up. There is little tolerance in Washington for misbehavior in the lower ranks. Everyone who has worked in official D.C. for any length of time knows stories about staffers whose jobs vaporized overnight due to some real or imagined indiscretion. Worker bees are expected to conduct themselves in a manner that’s best for the hive. Perhaps Weiner’s fate should be seen in that context.
Clinton had more friends. Through decades in public life, Clinton had acquired a huge network of personal friends and people who owed him favors. An appearance at a fundraiser here, a note to a financial supporter’s mom there, and suddenly you’ve got a support system that partisan institutions don’t provide. Clinton was great at this. By all accounts, Weiner was not as good. That his colleagues said little positive about him in the days following the incident is telling.
Still, some on the left side of the political spectrum are saying that Weiner resigned too quickly. Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo is one. He argues that the drumbeat of calls for Weiner’s resignation was unprecedented and that Weiner’s offense was silly compared with the thievery and so forth in which the political system abounds.
“[T]hat disconnect – the most insistent and open demands for resignation ever compared to one of the silliest scandals ever – just doesn’t sit right with me,” writes Mr. Marshall in a TPM blog.