"Imagine 20 students, each of whom applies to five schools and gets into two. Now imagine if the same students each applied to ten schools and got into two. The outcome for the students is the same: two acceptance letters. But the schools report lower admission rates, and the odds of admission seem worse."

As the first generation of Cuban exiles is passing leadership onto the next, with the Cold War fading out of recent memory, and the prospect of Castro's imminent death, hope for a more sane Cuba policy has begun to poke its head out from beneath the red-baiting, electoral cowardice we've come to know and love. The perennial "sanctions on Cuba are idiotic, counterproductive to democratization, and inhumane" re-assertment of obvious fact might actually gain some traction.

But no. As if to reaffirm its fucked-up priorities in the most blatant, middle-finger to the concept of justice sort of way, the Bush administration has enabled Luis Posada Carriles to walk out of prison. Carriles is a violently anti-Castro paramilitary who parlayed his CIA training into a central role in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner, which killed 73 people. While potentially innocent people remain deprived of legal recourse in Guantanamo, the Bush administration's refusal to extradite or aggressively prosecute Carriles for political sensitivity reasons has let a murderer walk out on bail.

 Earlier today, for lack of compelling reason for continued detention, an appeals court allowed the release of Carriles.

While those of us in the progressive and fact-based community lament press coverage of global warming, conservatives (woeful cries of victimhood notwithstanding) seem to make out pretty well. Despite that well known study showing virtually zero significant dissent among actual scientific experts on the existence of human-induced climate change, every mainstream media outlet (confusing objectivity with equal time) always describes climate change as a contentious theory.

The Drudge Report has found new expert testimony to corroborate conservative denials, though. On his popular website (a link aggregator that appeals to conservatives by sticking Anna-Nicole updates next to calls for immigrant-hunts), Drudge posted this: 6th Graders Vote that Global Warming is not caused by humans...

Yes, those arbiters of wisdom and gods among men in the scientific community otherwise known as pre-teens have weighed in. Score one for Inhofe and Exxon. 

As far as I can tell, this is a new thing. The old system involved free access for students whose University was in a Times Readership program and required some kind of access code, and a 50% discount for other students.

They seem to now be offering completely free access for all university students and faculty. If anybody knows different, please comment. Until then, I'm waiting for my confirmation e-mail, and all the mind-shatteringly insightful overly-simplistic tripe Thomas Friedman can churn out.

Now if they'd only get rid of that damned double-click definition pop-up feature.

59% of Americans believe that, if an undocumented worker has lived and worked in the United States for two years, he/she should be given a chance for legal citizenship rather than be deported.

While this seems like a basic issue of human compassion and smart economics, the number is far higher than I would've guessed. Maybe underneath all that conservative mouth-frothing, Lou Dobbs's Nightly Nativism, and growing economic inequality, Americans have retained a little faith in the American dream.

 NYT/CBS poll, via Atrios 

No, not that N-word.O'Reilly will have to sink a little lower before he finally gets desperate, angry, and flustered enough to truly unleash his inner racist on national television, but he might already be scraping the bottom of the barrel. Responding to Democratic Party accusations that there is a giant pink elephant in the room Fox News is biased, and the canceled Nevada debate, O'Reilly had no choice but to invoke the Nazis.

Think Progress has more (including video):

O’Reilly said that MoveOn, “the Daily Kos or whatever that stupid thing is,” and others “use propaganda techniques perfected by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of information. They lie, distort, defame, all the time.” Progressive activists attack Fox News because “we report on them accurately,” O’Reilly said.

Income inequality? Conservatives say it’s not happening. Libertarians don’t care. Sadly, Reason Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie bucks the trend, seeming to have no problem with deliberate misrepresentation.

Predictably, Gillespie dismisses concern for the financial security of the middle-class as mere politicking. While this may be true to some extent, a closer look at his evidence reveals selectivity and misdirection. He cherry-picks a few self-fulfilling statistics, failing to recognize the inevitably more complex nature of these economic issues, and ignores more pertinent indicators of economic mobility and security.

-          Responding to claims that income inequality is widening, Gillespie admits that the rich are getting richer, but then points to Census data showing that each income group is becoming wealthier. What matters, however, is not income growth itself, but relative rates of income growth. This Census table paints a more accurate picture: the share of aggregate income for the bottom 80% of Americans has declined over the past 30 years. The income levels accessible to the vast majority of Americans clearly do not correspond to the same status within the national economy as they once did.

-          Gillespie points out a study showing that overall economic mobility has not changed much over past decades, that roughly the same percentage of Americans change income quintiles. Underneath this aggregate measure is evidence that mobility no longer means what it once did. A larger percentage stays in the same quintile, while a smaller percentage moves up or down by two quintiles. Furthermore, except for those who enter the fifth quintile, moving up by one quintile no longer corresponds to the same increase in purchasing power.

-          Gillespie notes that more Americans than ever before own homes. There is a flipside, however. With housing especially, the value of these assets is less impressive when debt is taken into account. Though all income groups have increased debt as a percentage of income, the trend is more pronounced with lower income levels. In fact, middle-income families devote the highest percentage of their income to debt payment. Further more, these middle-class homes, as a larger percentage of total assets, make net worth less liquid than in the past.

-          Finally, though it is encouraging that more Americans go on to college, we here at CampusProgress don’t need to rehash that, despite becoming an increasingly important component of upward mobility, obstacles to higher education are mounting.

 
Of course, if libertarians couldn’t engage in gross over-simplification of economics, they wouldn’t have much to go on, would they?

My distaste for the delusions of libertarianism aside, Kerry Howley, an associate editor at Reason, has penned the most insightful refutation of the so-called "sexualization" of young girls and women. Howley juxtaposes the over-reliance on anecdotal evidence of more risque clothing and consumer culture with statistics indicating lower rates of teen pregnancy and sexual violence against women.

Having laid bare the complete lack of proof of this newest episode in the culture wars, Howley concludes by cleverly pointing her finger in the opposite direction:

"Without any mechanism to explain the process by which precocious fashion taste turns to self-loathing, it’s probably safest to assume that the kid's department at Penny's and the darkest recesses of American culture exist a world apart. Girls, as they always have, will alternately embrace the trappings of girlhood and struggle against the mythologies of gender. Parents and soi-disant experts will continue to cluck their tongues, and possibly publish papers. Objecting to the fashion choices of the young is perfectly natural. While girls may be baring more skin than ever, the need to dress disapproval as social science says less about their pathologies than it does about ours."

From the NYT, the Bush administration takes climate change denial and quashing of internal discussion to a new low:

"Internal memorandums circulated in the Alaskan division of the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service appear to require government biologists or other employees traveling in countries around the Arctic not to discuss climate change, polar bears or sea ice if they are not designated to do so."

 The memo is a response to an ongoing suit by environmental groups, pressing the administration to list polar bears as threatened (due to receding sea ice), apparently as leverage towards getting emissions-related regulations put in place.

While the Bush administration has eagerly fired a scapegoat over the appalling conditions at Walter Reed hospital (much like it handled Abu Ghraib by firing Brig. Gen. Karpinski instead of addressing its own pro-torture policy),  the conservative spin machine has swung into full gear.

Instead of blaming the underfunding of the VA, and the poorly anticipated stresses brought on the system by Iraq casualties, quips about so-called "socialized" medicine have begun to pepper the conservative blogosphere. The disgraceful horrors of Walter Reed are "proof" that government-managed healthcare is inherently disastrous.

The truth? The VA is the best health care in America.

The "VA has for six consecutive years received the highest consumer satisfaction ratings of any public or private sector health care system," providing prompt, efficient, and high-quality service.

The VA is capable of doing this in large part because its centralization of authority creates effective oversight, allows swift coordinated response to problems, constantly adapting to reduce costs and improve care. As a Kennedy School study found,

"The VA is...becoming the model for what modern health care management and delivery should look like."

In my earlier post on the matter, I lamented how abstracted this conviction is from the biggest crimes of the administration. While the increasingly right-wing Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal is already fawning for Libby to be pardoned, arguing he shouldn't be punished for the mistakes of the entire administration, other voices are suggesting the administration itself is impacted as a consequence of the verdict. 

Political Wire's Quote of the Day captures it best: 

"The trial has been death by 1,000 cuts for Cheney. It’s hurt him inside the administration. It’s hurt him with the Congress, and it’s hurt his stature around the world because it has shown a lot of the inner workings of the White House. It peeled the bark right off the way they operate."

-- Republican strategist Scott Reed, quoted by the New York Times, on the Scooter Libby trial.

Just breaking news from CNN and the New York Times:

"Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted today of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI in an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was accused of lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.He was acquitted of one count of lying to the FBI.Libby had little reaction to the verdict. He stood expressionless as the jury left the room." 

Libby's specific offenses appear to involve intentional deceit of the federal grand jury investigating the Plame leak, falsely describing his conversation with Tim Russert to FBI agents, perjury over this matter in court, and a second count of perjury regarding conversations with other reporters. The second count of making a false statement, involving Time reporter Matt Cooper, was met with acquittal.

While Libby faces a maximum of 25 years in prison and $1 million in fines, he has in the meantime been released on his own recognizance. Though this is a great victory in beginning to uncover the depth of deception within the Bush administration, it is sad to note that this case is merely tangential to the most significant fraud in recent American history. Stemming from the infamous State of the Union claim that Iraq sought uranium from Niger, this conviction is still so many steps removed from the (unlikely) prosecution of the architects of this war who deliberately misled the American people.

Bizarre. Every time I try to describe what my two days at CPAC were like, I inevitably fall back on “bizarre,” which doesn’t really do it all justice.  The ridiculous array of groups, from Christian Zionists to Muslims for Freedom (who believe Bush is the true savior of their people), protectionists and anarcho-capitalists (they prefer being called Objectivists, but a spade is a spade), curious oxymoronic things like “Young” or “Black” Republicans, was only the tip of the iceberg.

Still, as I sought to make comparisons between conservative conferences and progressive equivalents (after all, any hotel filled with like-minded people is bound to produce a few colorful deviations from reason), I was most struck by the lack of a real progressive alternative. While Campus Progress’s summer student conferences might be the closest approximation, CPAC is a historical legacy, a monolith whose straw poll is expected to actually bear on the primary elections. Reagan’s 12 speeches at CPAC are no small part of their deification of the dullard and worship of his god-awful presidency. Sure, it’s hard to see how our movement would benefit from a 3-day festival of celebrity-mongering idiocy (Rep. Sensenbrenner’s speech was to a nearly empty banquet hall, while hundreds congregated in an absurdly long queue to be in Ms. Coulter’s demonic presence). But, if nothing else, this proximity between everyday “activists” and party-faithful and the biggest names on the right seemed to generate a sense of tangible reward or return for efforts, and undoubtedly helped keep the movement charged up.

(For a summary of the especially surreal moments, scroll down below the jump). 

 The conservative movement showed itself to be, as ever, an un-intellectual (if not deliberately anti-intellectual), but ultimately very savvy, ends-driven political machine. Obviously reeling from the results of the midterm elections, often caught in the same tired defenses of indefensible policies (the media just won’t show the good things that happen in Iraq!), they nonetheless seemed to energize the soldiers and the donors with this tired old tripe. Taxes must be cut, flattened. The War must be won. The sanctity of life and family must be protected. Meanwhile, the tax code is regressive as ever, the middle class suffers, the war is lost, and economic insecurity probably does more to wreck the American family than the gay couple living down the street.

The comfort in all their sadly reality-detached absurdity, I guess, is that this is exactly how conservatives charged to their own defeat in the last election cycle, and it's how they'll probably do it all over again.

Every time I went for a photo-op with some detestable conservative, some hack whose mindless screeds have caused me to take time out my busy day to repudiate, I still managed to keep up the jovial banter.

Laura Ingraham would be the exception. Maybe I was tired, because it was the end of day two, but really, I was just stunned.

"Hi, Ms. Ingraham, I'm Niral Shah, from Dartmouth College. Could I get my picture with you really quickly?"

 "Oh man, from Dartmouth? Wah hoo wah, way to go man." 

"Wah hoo wah" is a cherished (only by borderline senile white, male alumni, and the Dartmouth Review staffers whose otherwise unread publication is funded by them) cheer, that harkens back to the days of the Dartmouth Injun being the school's unofficial, never-sanctioned though since banned (three decades ago) mascot. The cheer is often accompanied by a rowdy cry of "scalp 'em."

Maybe she assumed I was a review staffer, in which case, an odd mix of racism and false nostalgia (the Indian mascot was discontinued before the Review was even founded) is a totally appropirate way to greet someone. Maybe she's just clinging to that one time she offended enough people to pretend she was part of a meaningful opposition to anything (just like that time in the 80s that she published a list of gay students from a private support-group meeting).

Maybe she tapped into my larger annoyance with her successors on campus, (but they'd have to be somewhat relevant for me to actually be annoyed), maybe she was too much of a joke to indulge myself in conversation (on the other hand, I chatted up Michelle Malkin.) Who knows. Regardless, I just walked away this time.

After being so generously snuck into the Reagan banquet by some people, I turned up the shmooze to levels unheard of - even by the resume-padding, bowtie-wearing Young Conservatives that stalked the earlier career fair.

Once I heard that Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, the disgraced personification of conservative lobbying scandals and perhaps all that is wrong with K Street era DC, was in the room, there was no stopping me. Deftly slipping past some ungracefully-aged and over-botoxed senior Conservative women, through a horde of eager acolytes that actually respected this man, I stepped up and shoved my right hand out.

"Mr. DeLay," (I wasn't going to call him a Congressman) "my name is Niral Shah, from Dartmouth College."

"A real live conservative from Dartmouth College, eh? I didn't know there were any," Mr. DeLay said as he excitedly pumped my hand.

"Well sir, there's not a lot, but there's a few," I said, trying not to wrongly identify myself as one of those seersucker-wearing bastards.

 We chatted for a while, but unfortunately, I had left my camera behind. But then, hours later, as we were leaving the Omni Hotel, we saw Mr. DeLay once again. The crowd this time was smaller, but still, it took some skill to get in there.

"Mr. DeLay, could I get a quick picture with you?"

A 40-something, and reasonably fit woman interjects, explaining that she's a blogger, and defended (the now indicted) DeLay "against all those looney accusations from the left," stepping close to him, pawing at him even, lamenting that "nobody even talks about the ranch." (Actually, people do. His ranch-based charity for children is also under investigation.)

I had to wait a little longer ("always gotta make time for a pretty lady," the ex-Congressman told me)

In the past two days, I have had some of the most surreal interactions in my life. Unfortunately, left out of the pictures are some of the especially great moments. Hopefully, I'll get to those a bit later. Until then, here it is. (More after the jump)

Your former UN Ambassador with your fearless, intrepid, undercover blogger:

I chatted with Michelle Malkin for nearly a half hour yesterday, and for a few minutes today as well. Look for more on this in the near future

When the Romney supporters start chanting "Romney," the Brownback supporters start chanting "flip-flop." Its a charming display of intra-party discourse in action.

So, straight from the lion's den, here are some pictures. (If a Lion's den was a hilariously inconsistent place that handed out pamphlets and used candy as a lure for attention, that is.)

Lonely lonely Tom DeLay. His PAC, despite an unbearably crowded room around it, did not even get a single visitor. It might be that he's disgraced his movement, or that they didn't bring candy

Ideological Consistency: The American Protectionist and The Libertarian Party side by side

More After the Jump! 

This is a story about Elly and Fill, and more marginally, dancing. Their names are changed to protect their confidentiality. Elly is a young, college-aged student organizer. Fill, who looks, talks, and acts like (and might actually be) this character from Syriana, is a generic operative.

Elly: Do you know about Students for Saving Social Security?

Me: I guess, generally.

Elly: See, President Bush put in a thing for having private accounts, and Congress wants to take it out –

(Fill, who I had seen yucking it up at another table minutes before, appears out of nowhere) 

Fill: Hi [looks at nametag] Elly, we haven’t met yet, I’m sorry to interrupt. You can’t say private accounts, you gotta say personal accounts. When you say private, people think corporate, like corporations are gonna control their money, they think of prisons and things in their towns being privatized, and they aren't going to control their money anymore. You gotta say personal accounts.

It's sort of difficult to not give oneself away without lying (I had to remove the Books not Bombs sticker from my laptop), but so far so good. I even found my way into last night's NRA banquet, and have had quite a few interesting (if sort of one-way, I prefer not to answer questions) conversations.

Well, I'd love to stay and chat, but I think its my turn to play Dance Dance Revolution. Anything for the cause! 

It’s the early afternoon, it’s hot in here, and things have devolved into something those of us in the conference-infiltrating profession refer to as a shitshow. After a massive line formed for Gov. Romney’s appearance, the hordes of star-struck conservatives, of every age and (not really) color have been unable to return to normal panel-attending mode. Ann Coulter, who either has not appeared yet or is already doing book signings, has apparently caused a similarly massive line to form. Because of this, I’m missing out on the conservative journalism and blogger awards, sure to be a simultaneously disheartening and hilarious exercise in irony. (Yesterday, Michelle Malkin received an “accuracy in media” award). While I wait to get some idea of the updated schedule, I figure it’s as good a time for some general reflections.

The straw poll: They take this really seriously, each campaign choosing it’s most attractive and bubbly female operatives to hand out stickers, posters, and while flirting, suggest you attend their speech and vote for them. Also, there is one person shrilly screaming something about “John Cox for President.” Nobody knows what to make of it. Similarly, they seem to be inconsolably offended by John McCain’s snub of CPAC.

The Attendees: It seems to be an even split between old folks and students, or maybe a 60/40 split. The students are often found meandering through the halls, the exhibition booths, and the lobby, but are less well-represented in actual panel discussion audiences. In fact, yesterday’s Grover Norquist-headlined flat-tax-fiesta seemed entirely populated by men who could be Dick Cheney’s body doubles.  

Random observations: In a completely packed room full of tables, the Tom DeLay exhibit was sadly desolate and ignored. That girl yelling something about someone named John Cox will be the death of me. It is really difficult to come up with good reasons why one can't sumbit his email address to your crazy list. Mitt Romney is being accused of flip-floppery in increasingly creative ways, first with actual Romney “flip-flops” being handed out, later with a man in a full-body dolphin suit with “Flip Romney” written on it.

Also, while I may mock some of these kids for being star-struck, I have to admit, I’m not above it either. Stay tuned for more photos, but for now, here's a peak (after the jump) at the hip-crowd at the Young Republican's table.

Do we hate all Muslims, or just some of them? The conservative mind today is confronted with difficult and troubling quandaries. With the lock-step obedience within the conservative movement and general ideological uniformity, disagreements among “pundits” on the right are typically rare. When they do occur, the results are bizarre and hilarious.

Dinesh D’Souza, the formerly anti-PC crusader turned pro-Muslim, anti-secularism cultural relativist, was put on a panel against Robert Spencer, author of popular bigotry-fodder book “The Truth About Muhammed.” Pitting these two hacks against each other led to perplexing results, as they each set up straw men of each other’s already ludicrous positions and clawed at them with weak and often contradictory logic.

Not used to having to digest shades of grey and complexity, the audience could not figure out whether to cheer or boo. When D’Souza pointed out that portions of the Koran and the Old Testament are hostile to non-believers, the response was definitely a boo. However, they seemed to agree both with Spencer’s assertion that Islam is inherently violent and Mohammed was himself essentially a terrorist, and D’Souza’s assertion that vilification of all Muslims will radicalize moderate Muslims. They wanted to believe, they want to love the Muslims, but, oh they're just so evil!

With D’Souza’s latest Islamist-apologizing tripe roundly denounced across the political spectrum, and Spencer’s cherry-picked piece of bigotry so poorly argued as to not even warrant serious analysis, perhaps one young attendee’s sentiments, addressed to me in incredulous response to D’Souza, express the confusion best: “but we can’t work with them! They want to shoot us in the face!”