From Tom Paine
By Isaiah J. Poole

The second of three annual minimum-wage increases enacted by Congress goes into effect today, raising the wage floor to $6.55 an hour. Late Wednesday the Campaign for America’s Future focused on this positive development for workers in its latest issue alert.

As we cheer that increase, it’s important to gear up for the next fight: a permanent indexing of the minimum wage to inflation.

The next Congress will face that decision even as the final stage of the 2007 legislation raises the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour a year from now. Sen. Barack Obama has said that he would propose such an indexing if he becomes president, and the idea has strong support among congressional Democrats. But don’t underestimate the fight that has to be waged to get that accomplished.

Ten states—Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington—have already indexed their minimum wages to the federal government’s consumer price index. But the lower house of the Wisconsin state legislature earlier this year killed legislation that would have indexed that state’s minimum wage. The arguments used against the measure are all of the old arguments conservatives always use when the topic of increasing the minimum wage comes up: low-skilled workers will lose jobs, African-American unemployment will go up, and costs will go up significantly for consumers.

The most credible economic studies prove that the dire predictions by conservative ideologues and business interests have never panned out after previous minimum wage increases. That includes one just released by the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment at the University of California at Berkeley that helps to rebut some of the claims often made that minimum wage increases lead to higher teen-age unemployment.

Read more Minimum Wage

From Salon
By Glenn Greenwald

Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter has an article this week filled with all the standard anti-blogger “pajama” platitudes (along with some praise) and, along the way, Alter writes this:

But we’re finding [blogging] works better for keeping on top of daily flaps than for learning genuinely new information. Bloggers rarely pick up the phone or go interview the middle-level bureaucrats who know the good stuff. It’s a lot easier to chew over breaking stories and bash old media. Where do they get the information with which to bash? Often from, ahem, newspapers.

Leave aside the question of how much “real reporting” bloggers do as compared to newspapers. If one looks at most of the vital disclosures of the last seven years — whereby concealed, legally dubious behavior of one of the most secretive administrations of the modern era is exposed — one finds that such exposure comes overwhelmingly from two sources: (1) conscientious whistle-blowers inside the Government, and (2) advocacy groups such as the ACLU, which have tirelessly waged one litigation battle after the next in order to unearth the Bush administration’s secret, improper conduct.

Today, the ACLU (with whom, as I’ve previously disclosed, I consult on various matters) released three formerly secret Bush administration memos — two from the CIA to the Office of Legal Counsel inside the DOJ, and one from OLC to the CIA — which set forth, in a revoltingly clinical tone that is by now all-too-familiar, extremely permissive standards for what constitutes (and what does not constitute) “torture.” Raw Story’s Nick Juliano has an excellent summary of the memos’ lowlights, including the assertion that treatment of detainees does not constitute “torture” as long as there is no “specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering,” and the claim that interrogators are free to inflict mental harm as long as it falls short of “harm lasting months or even years after the acts were inflicted upon the prisoners.”

Read more Real Journalism

From The Boston Globe
By Ivo Daalder and Anne-Marie Slaughter

As Barack Obama travels abroad this week, he is finding a world that still wants America to be engaged, but no longer necessarily waits for America to take the lead. The challenge for the next president is to understand how much has changed and how America can best pursue its national interests in such a different international environment.

It isn’t just the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have changed the world, nor other aspects of the Bush legacy that have weakened America’s power and position. The world itself has changed. Ours is the era of global interconnectedness. The fate of the average American is increasingly connected to the fate of people around the world creating unparalleled opportunities but also great dangers from which no nation can be immune. Ours is also an era of increasingly diffuse power, as more powers rise to demand influence and a say over global affairs and more actors of many different kinds affect the course of global politics.

Such a world requires a new kind of leadership - one that is clear on how, when, and with whom America leads. Call it strategic leadership. A leadership that understands that while much of the world still believes that international peace and prosperity are most likely to be achieved if Washington plays a significant and constructive role, key actors no longer simply defer to or automatically prefer what America wants. A leadership that focuses on effective action rather than who is in the lead. A leadership that relies on clear judgment as much as demonstrating resolve. A leadership that grasps that however great our power, America cannot meet today’s challenges all on its own.

Strategic leadership requires a commitment to statecraft as both an alternative and a complement to military force. Although diplomacy has its limitations, US strategic interests are often best served by leveraging its potential for enhancing security, reducing tensions, resolving conflicts, achieving peace, and transforming adversarial relationships.

Read more Global Challenge

From The Washington Post
By Karen DeYoung

The U.S. Embassy in Berlin has instructed Foreign Service personnel stationed there not to attend Sen. Barack Obama’s public rally today, which the State Department this week labeled a “partisan political activity” prohibited under its regulations for those serving overseas.

Government employees serving in the United States are permitted to attend such events under the Hatch Act, which bars other partisan activity, such as contributing money or working in behalf of a candidate.

But “we always maintain that no U.S. government Foreign Service person overseas should be seen to be advocating one side or the other,” State Department Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy said, adding that “it has nothing to do with who” the candidate is.

“When a German sees you there, they’re not going to think, ‘Oh, he or she is on their off time.’ It’s ‘Oh, they are a Democrat, a Republican, an independent,’ God knows what,” Kennedy said in an interview.

The American Foreign Service Association, the union of the diplomatic corps, objected to the ruling, calling it an “unnecessarily narrow interpretation” of the Foreign Affairs Manual. “The fact that you are working for the U.S. government overseas should not preclude political activity that you could engage in in the United States,” one retired senior Foreign Service officer said.

Read more Off-Limits

From Der Spiegel

Would he drive to the Chancellery in a motorcade or would he take a helicopter for his visit to Chancellor Angela Merkel? Obama’s charter jet had barely touched down at Berlin’s Tegel Airport, and reporters were already asking the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate how he planned to get around the city.

Then he stepped into a sedan — part of a long motorcade, accompanied by US security vehicles and German police — and began the journey to downtown Berlin, with hundreds of fans standing by as he made his way. Obama briefly greeted a crowd assembled on the street before disappearing into the Chancellery. As she greeted the presidential candidate, Merkel said she was hoping to have a good conversation with Obama.

The talks between the German leader and Obama lasted for about an hour, and the pair reportedly discussed climate protection, global trade and German-American relations. Just after 12 p.m., the Illinois senator and his entourage traveled about a half a mile further to the Adlon Hotel near the Brandenburg Gate before a afternoon meeting planned with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier of the Social Democrats.

Obama finally arrived at the Foreign Ministry a little after 2 p.m. and emerged almost an hour later. Immediately following the meeting, Steinmeier announced: “The atmosphere was open and trusting. We built on our telephone conversation from mid-April.” Steinmeier said he detected parallels in their philosophy of foreign policy. “Cooperation instead of confrontation — that is also his foreign policy aim,” adding that it had been a good conversation.

Read more European Role

From Think Progress

Cenk Uygur notes that “the media missed” a false statement from Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) recent CBS interview where he incorrectly claimed the surge “began the Anbar Awakening.” When asked by Kate Couric about whether the money spent on the surge would have been better spent in Afghanistan, McCain claimed Iraq (not Afghanistan) was the “first major conflict since 9/11“:

McCAIN: The fact is we had four years of failed policy. We were losing. We were losing the war in Iraq. The consequences of failure and defeat of the United States of America in the first major conflict since 9/11 would have had devastating impacts throughout the region and the world.

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From TruthDig
By Ellen Goodman

Is it any wonder that John McCain was feeling a tad neglected? There was Barack Obama on a nine-day trip through eight countries with three network anchors and all John got was a lousy T-shirt. Or to be more exact, all he got was a ride in George H.W. Bush’s golf cart and a rejection slip from The New York Times’ Op-Ed editor.

Even McCain’s inner circle began to get snarky. They keep referring to Obama as “The One” and complain that the maverick boytoy McCain has been replaced in the media’s heart by a new trophy wife named Barack. The straight talker’s Web site even posted a video of “The Media is in Love,” a montage of fawning sound bites against a soundtrack of Frankie Valli singing “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.”

Never mind that Frankie’s “Eyes” was a No. 2 hit in 1967, a year when Obama was 6. For some reason, McCain’s cultural references have a sell-by date of 1970. It’s like the strange “Summer of Love” ad that tries to place Obama in the upheavals of 1968 when he was headed to second grade.

But it wasn’t just Frankie Valli that makes me feel that the Republican is locked into a 40-year-old time frame. It’s the debate about Iraq itself.

Gary Hart once said, “In a way, John is refighting the Vietnam War.” For a long time, the former prisoner of war has believed that Vietnam should have, could have had a different ending. Americans lost the war because they lost their will. He’s thought more about the sorry last chapter of that war than its foolish beginning.

So, too, his attention on Iraq has been less on the war’s origin than on some undefined victorious conclusion. McCain jumped the shark when he accused Obama of wanting to win an election even if it meant losing a war. But even before that intemperate charge, he said something equally damning: “The fact is, if we had done what Sen. Obama wanted to do, we would have lost.”

Read more McCain

From Der Spiegel
By Marc Pitzke

John McCain has attempted to distract from Barack Obama’s tour of the Middle East and Europe by attacking his foreign policy record. But he’s failing to take the shine off the Democratic candidate in the US election. The Republican has a problem.

It was the ultimate humiliation for an author. The submitted essay didn’t provide enough information, the newspaper wrote in its rejection. The article could not be accepted as written, the opinion page editor wrote.

The rejection came on Friday in an e-mail and has only now come to light. The newspaper was the New York Times, and the luckless author was Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

These are hard times for him. Rival Barack Obama is scoring campaign points against McCain on his current international tour — which has turned into the media event of the summer in the US thanks to good PR choreography, a backdrop of strong public support wherever he goes and a favorable news environment.

Obama’s brief visits to Afghanistan and Iraq, the backing of Iraqi premier Nuri al-Maliki (more…) for Obama’s 16-month US troop withdrawal plan and the prospect of a rapturous welcome in Germany (more…) — these are getting top media coverage in America and bestowing superstar status on the Democratic candidate.

Read more Frustration

From The Raw Story
By Nick Juliano

Keeping track of all the scandals and malfeasance that have marked President George W. Bush’s two terms in office can prove rather taxing to even the most vigilant White House watchdog.

Now the online magazine Slate has created a handy visual aide pointing out which administration officials — including Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and scores of others — are implicated in various scandals.

The interactive Venn diagram gives Gonzales top honors as perhaps the most corrupt administration figure. Slate says Gonzales, who was White House counsel before becoming Attorney General, is implicated in all five scandals it studied: coercive interrogation, warrantless wiretapping, Justice Department hiring, Justice Department firing and CIA tapes.

“If this were The Sopranos, he’d be our Silvio,” Slate says, referring to Tony Soprano’s consigliere. (Even within theh White House, Gonzales had his own fictional-mobster-inspired nickname. The president reportedly referred to Gonzales, who had been with Bush since his time as Texas governor, as Fredo, a reference to Michael Corleone’s “weak” and “stupid” younger brother in The Godfather.)

Bush and Cheney were both directly involved in the coercive interrogation, wiretapping and tape-destruction scandals, Slate says. In its entries on each administration official, the magazine lays out the cases for and against prosecuting each of them.

The Slate reporters find reasons to prosecute both Bush and Cheney. For example, “The president, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the military, is responsible for the actions of his subordinates who broke the laws.” And, “The vice president and his office have pushed hard for violation of the law, fought to immunize lawbreakers and obstructed inquiries into lawlessness.”

Read more Gonzales

From The Washington Post
By Dan Froomkin

President Bush’s highest-ranking aides got $4,200 raises this year, bringing their annual salaries to $172,200.

The latest White House staff list is out, and you can browse the whole thing here. There are 447 people on the list, their salaries ranging from $33,400 to $172,200. (Bush makes $400,000 and Vice President Cheney makes $221,200.)

Eighteen people are listed at the uppermost “assistant to the president” level. Some familiar names from previous years are notably missing, among them former Senior Adviser Karl Rove, who left the administration last summer, and former Press Secretary Tony Snow, who died earlier this month.

Indeed, with Joseph Hagin stepping down as deputy chief of staff for operations yesterday, fully half of Bush’s top stratum of advisers have been replaced in the past year. And, as you might expect in the waning days of an administration, most of the new arrivals are unknowns outside the wonkosphere — people like chief strategist Barry Jackson, chief lobbyist Dan Meyer and chief speechwriter Marc Thiessen.

The list, which the White House sends Congress annually, is far from exhaustive, however. It does not include staff members of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, or the numerous military attaches, or the household staff.

Read more Staffer’s Salary