It's tax day. How'd you fare under President Bush? Journalist David Sirota says the middle class took a beating:

Most people got almost nothing from any of the Bush tax cuts, while their state/local taxes/fees went up, their services were slashed, and their wages stagnated. Translation: higher taxes, worse services, less money coming in, all while the White House says we need to cut overtime pay and outsource U.S. jobs. Translation: middle class gets screwed to pad the wallet of George Bush, Dick Cheney and their fat cat friends.

by TChris

Facing growing criticism of his administration's handling of the war in Iraq and unresolved questions about his attention to terrorism prior to 9/11, President Bush will return to the White House to give a prime time press conference tomorrow night. The conference will be held in the East Room, perhaps to underscore the gravity of the questions he is likely to address.

The East Room of the White House is usually reserved for formal events. Only two of Bush's 11 press conferences have been held there -- one on Oct. 11, 2001, in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, and another on March 6, 2003, on the eve of the Iraq invasion, the White House said.

The press conference will begin at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time.

Paternity results are due out tomorrow in the civil lawsuit involving Neil Bush and ex-wife Sharon and his current wife's ex-husband. Background here, here and here.

Update: Neil Bush skates ....he's not the father of the child.

Bush visited south Mississippi late last year to campaign for Republican candidate for Governor Haley Barbour. Promises were made to the City of Gulfport that the costs of the visit to the city for extra police protection and security would be repaid. Now many months later, neither Barbour nor Bush will pay the bill. The Republican Mayor and City Council do not want to force the issue but the local taxpayers are out some $20k. [hat tip to Oliver D.]

From the Journal of Higher Education: A Fascist Philosopher Helps Us Understand Contemporary Politics. It's a little cerebral for us, but not for many of you. Maybe Big Media Matt will weigh in.

by TChris

Presidents claim executive privilege on behalf of their advisers because (they say) their advisers might be discouraged from giving honest and candid advice if the advice could become public. Executive privilege might prevent Congress from asking "What advice did you give to the President?," but it should not be invoked to prevent Congress from asking "Did the administration lie to Congress?"

The Bush administration, having abandoned executive privilege for Condoleezza Rice, is invoking it to keep health-policy adviser Douglas Badger mum. Congress wonders whether Badger gave the President more accurate estimates about the cost of the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit than the President gave Congress.

Several Ways and Means Committee members wanted to know whether Badger suppressed or passed on to senior Bush administration officials figures he obtained in early June indicating that the drug benefit might cost more than $500 billion in its first 10 years. When lawmakers narrowly passed the measure in November, many relied on a $395 billion Congressional Budget Office estimate.

The inquiry follows Richard Foster's disclosure that Medicare administrator Thomas Scully threatened to fire him if he reported the higher estimate to members of Congress.

Common Dreams has the text of the Floor Statement of Sen. Daschle on the Abuse of Government Power. Here's a portion:

There are some things that simply ought not be done – even in politics. Too many people around the President seem not to understand that, and that line has been crossed. When Ambassador Joe Wilson told the truth about the Administration's misleading claims about Iraq, Niger, and uranium, the people around the President didn't respond with facts. Instead, they publicly disclosed that Ambassador Wilson's wife was a deep-cover CIA agent. In doing so, they undermined America's national security and put politics first. They also may well have put the lives of Ambassador Wilson's wife, and her sources, in danger.

When former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill revealed that the White House was thinking about an Iraq War in its first weeks in office, his former colleagues in the Bush Administration ridiculed him from morning to night, and even subjected him to a fruitless federal investigation. When Larry Lindsay, one of President Bush's former top economic advisors, and General Eric Shinseki, the former Army Chief of Staff, spoke honestly about the amount of money and the number of troops the war would demand, they learned the hard way that the White House doesn't tolerate candor.

....Senator McCain, Senator Cleland, Secretary O'Neill, Ambassador Wilson, General Shinseki, Richard Foster, Richard Clarke, Larry Lindsay ... when will the character assassination, retribution, and intimidation end? When will we say enough is enough?

How about now?

Hesiod at Counterspin finds the goods to show the hypocrisy of Bill Frist's criticism of Richard Clarke.

by TChris

Remember when Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and other right wingers dominated the political best sellers list? Those days are gone. Recently, book buyers have been interested in alternatives to the whacky ideas advanced by the Bush administration and its apologists.

Richard Clarke's new book, Against All Enemies, (discussed in TalkLeft here) was released yesterday. It had an impressive first printing of 300,000 copies, and another 100,000 have already been ordered. And it's not alone among hot sellers that take a critical look at the President.

Against All Enemies was ranked No. 1 on Amazon.com's list of best sellers as of Tuesday afternoon and has raised sales for other works attacking Bush, including Kevin Phillips' American Dynasty and Ron Suskind's The Price of Loyalty, a collaboration with former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.

Anti-Bush books have been popular since last fall, when liberal pundits Al Franken, Joe Conason and Molly Ivins were among those with best sellers. Now the best sellers are being written by historians such as Phillips and former Bush officials such as Clarke.

Neil Nyren, the publisher and editor-in-chief of Putnam, says that conservative books still sell, but that liberal books now occupy the spots that books by the likes of Coulter held during the Clinton administration.

More books that Bush would rather you not read will appear later this year.

Books unfavorable to Bush will continue coming out, including Worse Than Watergate, by John W. Dean, a former aide to President Nixon, and The Politics of Truth, by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, who has criticized the White House's uses of intelligence before the Iraq war.

If he finishes writing it, President Clinton's autobiography will also appear this year.

by TChris

After Janet Jackson brought the free world to the brink of disaster by briefly exposing her nipple during Superbowl halftime, Clear Channel Communications -- the mega-broadcasting company that owns 1,200 radio stations -- implemented a "zero tolerance" policy for explicit discussions of nipples or other titillating subjects on the air. The latest victims of that policy, after Howard Stern and Bubba the Love Sponge, are the Regular Guys on Atlanta's 96rock.

Larry Wachs and Eric Von Haessler were suspended after they accidentally left a microphone on while taping a bit during a commercial.

Over the sound of a Honda truck ad, Lane could be heard describing sexual acts in graphic terms.

The Guys had planned to play the tape backwards during the show to mock the government's campaign against indecency. They cancelled that plan after realizing that the words had been broadcast live.

by TChris

What an embarrassment.

An apparel merchandiser for President Bush's re-election campaign sold fleece pullovers with a Bush-Cheney logo that were made in Myanmar, even though the United States [in legislation signed by George Bush] has banned imports from that country, campaign and company officials said yesterday.

Oops.

Reporters are eagerly waiting to learn the origin of Kerry's campaign apparel. Stay tuned.

There are a lot of reasons to buy the April issue of Vanity Fair, including the article on political bloggers --but the best reason is the article on Neil and Sharon Bush--we could not put it down. Trust us, it's not a soap opera, but a bubble bath. It's not online, and unfortunately, we don't have the energy to retype it. Even Lloyd Grove barely manages to scratch the surface in this Daily Dish column:

• Both Sharon and Neil (who last weekend married Houston socialite Maria Andrews) spoke at length to reporter Vicky Ward about their train wreck of a marriage, the role of the first President Bush in their divorce, and the lawsuit that Andrews' ex-husband, Thomas Andrews, has filed against Sharon for claiming that Maria's young son is actually Neil's. Ward reveals that:

• Neil suggested divorce in a May 2002 E-mail: "We're almost out of money and I've lost my patience for being compared to my brothers, for being put down for my inability to make money, and tired of not being loved."

• A friend of Neil's, Jamal Daniel, bought Sharon and Neil a $380,000 cottage in Maine at Sharon's request: "Neil was embarrassed by Sharon's 'end runs' to friends, to ask for things."

• Sharon exploded when she found Neil and Maria at a smoothie shop, calling the Mexican-born Andrews a "Mexican whore" and "Mexican trash."

• After Sharon pulled some hair out of Neil's head, his lawyers accused her of practicing voodoo. But Sharon shot back: "I pulled Neil's hair out because I wanted to get it tested for cocaine, not because of voodoo."

• The former President Bush refused Sharon's request for a $467,000 loan to keep her Houston mansion, telling her to find something cheaper. "The divorce is final," the elder Bush wrote, "[and] the best thing for you to do is get on with your life. Close the unhappy chapter with Neil, find a job, and look to the future, not the past."

Really, there is so much more in the article, it's more than worth the price of the magazine.