This week, the Bush administration’s Bureau of Land Management dropped a bombshell: wild horses and burros, supposedly under its protection, may be euthanized. The rationale was familiar — financial problems and the difficulties of controlling wild horse populations . But independent researchers question whether horse populations in the wild are out of control, and the BLM budget for the wild horse and burro program is only $39 million per year, not much in the scheme of federal allocations: It ought to be increased. After all, you can’t really put a price on our heritage (for those who think you can, see my recent Newsweek interview, which offers an easy solution to the BLM’s alleged budget problem).

Since the BLM issued its statement, I’ve been asked by many people if I’m surprised. In one way, I am. For the past eight years, the president has wrapped himself in the flag and then, three days before the Fourth of July, comes a plan that could destroy one of the nation’s greatest symbols. It’s the most unpatriotic thing I’ve ever heard of. Consider this: America was born in the hoof sparks of Paul Revere’s ride (and incidentally, his horse, Brown Beauty, was a descendant of the horses that came to these shores with conquistadors — the foundation stock for today’s mustangs).

On the other hand, I’m not surprised at all. The livestock lobby has been trying to purge public lands of wild horses since 1971, when federal protections for them were enacted. As I said in my op-ed, their efforts have reached a peak under the Bush administration.

The tolling of the bell for mustangs will also please another constituency — those who are clamoring for public lands to build theme parks, extract more minerals, or pump out more oil and gas. Wild horses live on public lands, in protected herd areas. Fewer horses require smaller, or no, protected areas. You get the picture.

Certainly, the BLM knew its announcement would elicit shock, outrage and opposition. As Virginia Parant, campaign director of the American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, told me in an email, in the end, the agency will likely fall back to other options, also disturbing, and present them as more palatable — gelding stalliions in the wild, or “instant titling,” which means immediately awarding mustangs to prospective adopters, instead of the current process that requires the government to check that the horses are cared for properly and not shipped to slaughterhouses, before the deal is finalized.

When he announced the possibility of euthanization, the BLM deputy director Henri Bisson said that the government considered a halt to rounds ups but that would lead to “ecological disaster.” And yet, again as I explained in my Op-Ed, the BLM’s assessments of “appropriate management levels” for the horses and the range are underfunded and often out of date. In fact, wild horses are an integral part of wilderness ecology, and the ecological disaster on the range is the one that stems from over-grazing of cattle, as studies dating back to the Teddy Roosevelt administration have repeatedly shown.

As we gather on July 4th and watch wild horses parade down Main Street in military mounted units — let’s hoist a beer to the animals who helped blaze our trails, fight our wars and settle the West — and then, next week, when the party’s over, let’s contact our representatives and head off the horse thieves at the pass.

— Deanna Stillman

Portland, Oregon, July, 2008

The Declaration of a Citizen of these Fifty United States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political establishment which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the declaration of change.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Presidential Administration and Congress, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Presidential Administrations and Congress long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to change such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Fifty United States; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present President of the United States and his attendant Administration is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute moral and political bankruptcy of these Fifty United States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for in the name of the war on terror.

He has made Judges and District Attorney's dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance, utterly failing them during Katrina and impeding their progress through airports against a foe whose actions cannot be known or controlled - ever.

He has kept among sovereign foreign nations, Standing Armies without the informed Consent of our legislatures and citizens, concocting sham evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject combatants to a pretend due process foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended  patriotic protection:

For quartering large bodies of armed Blackwater Mercenaries abroad:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of Iraq and Afghanistan:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world for biotechnology, afflicting his religious views on our commerce:

For imposing Tax rebates and cuts on us without our informed Consent on surpluses, concealing impending deficits and pushing the reckoning or Social Security integrity to future Presidents and generations further :

For depriving combatants in the "war on terrorism" in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting or rendering combatants beyond Seas to be tried or tortured for offences without habeas corpus:

He has abdicated rational Government here, by declaring us below his Protection and waging idealogical War against us and against his supposed enemies in the guise of terrorism, when it is nothing more that a modern-day continuation of The Crusades.

He has plundered our savings, ravaged our civil liberties, burnt our diplomatic bridges, and destroyed the lives of our people to wage his Modern Crusade.

He is at this time employing large Armies of Blackwater Mercenaries alongside Patriotic and Duty-bound Americans to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny in Iraq and Afghanistan, already begun in the name of Democracy with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation, these Fifty United States of America.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A President and Congress, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, devoid of responsibility to the will of the people it supposes to represent, is unfit to be the government of a free people.

I, therefore, a free Citizen of the fifty united States of America, in, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of my intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the First Amendment Rights, solemnly publish and declare, That the people of these united States are, and of Right ought to be Free of the intolerable acts of the President Administration and Congress, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to an utterly failed and corrupt international and public Policy, and that all political trust and confidence between them and the President Administration and Congress, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent Citizens, we have full Power to be informed and vote, effecting redress for an President Administration and Congress bent of the utter destruction of America's global reputation, financial well-being and leading example of Democracy - And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, I mutually pledge my Life, my Fortunes, and my sacred Honor.

Clark Haass

If nobody's ever made the aesthetic case for redistricting, I'm making it now: Spaghetti spills are more elegant than the shape of the 31st Congressional District.

In the past I've found Rep. Becerra to be a very statist figure, to the point that I've wondered whether he believes in a private sector at all. But there's something about being in a roomful of truly exercised lefties on a hot Saturday afternoon that can make an elected official suddenly seem like a model of small-government reasonableness. To every Angeleno (including me) who has complained about how far to the left our local delegation is, I say maybe we're getting the government we've asked for.

The biggest applause line of the day came when somebody suggested that oil company executives be criminally prosecuted.

In a real Cruiser moment, a high school student got up to express his concern about being drafted when he turns 18 next year.

One constituent told Becerra he'd better keep pushing for impeachment of President Bush, and the congressman said it wasn't off the table.

Thanks to Becerra and his staff for the excellent coffee and pastries!

In South Korea, President Bush and President Lee will discuss regional and global security issues as well as their commitment to getting their respective legislatures to ratify the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement, which will bring important benefits to workers, farmers, ranchers, and entrepreneurs in both the United States and Korea. The President will then travel to Thailand to celebrate 175 years of the U.S.-Thailand relationship and to discuss issues bilateral and regional issues with Prime Minister Samak. In China, the President looks forward to seeing President Hu and other senior Chinese leaders for discussions on a wide range of issues including the way ahead on North Korean denuclearization. The President and Mrs. Bush will attend the Opening Ceremonies of the Summer Olympic Games on August 8.

Talk about burying the lede. Presidential candidates, start your condemnations.

The American Family Association probably should have watched that episode befopre entrusting a computer with the Web site of its Christian news outlet, OneNewsNow. According to Washington Post blogger The Sleuth, the site's automated system was set up always to change the word "gay" to "homosexual," which came out rather awkwardly when the subject of one story was a sprinter who had qualified for the Beijing Olympics named Tyson Gay.

[T]he Constitution also doesn't contain any footnotes that say, "Note to our descendants: This Constitution is intended for easy times only. At the first sign of trouble, feed this document to your dog. We won't mind. We only fought a war for it."

This Fourth of July, celebrate by rereading the Declaration of Independence, created by more or less the same crowd who brought us the Constitution, 11 years and one war later. Remember it?....

Wild stuff! To the founders, "all men" have "unalienable rights" -- not just U.S. citizens in the continental United States. (If the founding fathers were around today, Rush Limbaugh and Rudy Giuliani would pillory them as limp-wristed, latte-drinking, soft-on-terror liberals.)

Contributing editor Timothy Garton Ash says to forget us-versus-them and start a conversation on freedom. Columnist Patt Morrison gets patriotic with a viewing of the play "1984" and the Pixar flick "Wall-E." Penn & Teller's Penn Jillette explains why he said "I don't know" when asked about global warming.

The editorial board urges the EPA to stop requiring ethanol production, disagrees with a plan to charge more vehicle fees for state parks, and tells Bush to stop equivocating on an Israeli attack on Iran:

The consequences of an Israeli war with Iran are unpredictable, and it is nearly impossible to assess Iran's ability to make good on its threats to retaliate against the United States, presumably through its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah. The last thing the U.S. needs now is more instability....

On the letters page, readers discuss illegal immigration and family law. Orange's Karl Seppala asks, "Why are we always reading stories about how the choices illegal immigrants make hurt their families, with the presentation twisted to make it look like our laws are unfair?"

*Cartoon by Steve Breen, San Diego Union-Tribune

LIBERADA: Tras seis años en manos de las FARC, Ingrid Betancourt es rescatada junto con otros 14 rehenes VIVIANE SEQUERA

Crisis empeora a los enfermos: La situación es aún más difícil para los indocumentados YURINA RICO

Orange County Register:

RALPHS PULLS GROUND BEEF: Chain removes dubious hamburger from its stores and tells shoppers to check what they've purchased. By NANCY LUNA

Reading in Spanish can help English Focus|IN DEPTH 'NEVER TOO YOUNG' A program helps Latino toddlers learn a love for language before they start school. By AMY TAXIN

Daily News, L.A.:

'08 gang crime in decline: NoHo sees biggest Valley drop; homicides inch up By Rachel Uranga

Layoff threat empty at city: DEFICIT: Just four workers could lose jobs despite warnings by Villaraigosa. By Kerry Cavanaugh

Los Tiempos de Nueva York:

On Campus, the '60s Begin to Fade as Liberal Professors Retire By PATRICIA COHEN

Cost of Driving Does What Law Was Trying To By WILLIAM NEUMAN

OK, that's not exactly the reason, and an official claims the problem was a hinky application:

James Leitz, executive producer of the U.S. Open of Surfing, said the group was denied a booth this year because he said they had misrepresented themselves last year, applying under the guise of another organization.

Leitz said last year an Anaheim man handed in an application under the vendor name of "Steve's List." The application didn't mention marijuana, according to Leitz and a copy of the document given to the Register.

"Then all of a sudden all of this marijuana stuff goes up in the booth," Leitz said. "That alone right there is not how we play. I don't care who you are… That's a check mark against you."

Steve Lawrence who put in the application for Steve's List said that he spoke to an organizer last year and let her know that his Web site www.steveslist.info was dedicated to the cannibas patient community. The Web site is now defunct.

Maybe because I can imagine a guy just being too stoned to fill out the application properly, I was ready to believe Leitz' explanation, but then he says this:

"I myself personally have to worry about the 8-year-old kid... I have to worry about the message we're sending," Leitz said. "I have to worry about the family-friendly atmosphere. I think OC NORML's message … or what have you is vague. We just don't think it's appropriate for the family-friendly nature of the event."

Vote in the Register's freedomblogging poll on legalization of "M," or "binky," as marijuana eaters themselves call it.

It was probably unintentional, but "The Incredible Hulk" is much more than a summer afternoon's escape; it's clearly a satire, a perfect depiction of Washington's boneheaded belief that firepower can resolve any problem. Although the creature is obviously bulletproof, soldiers shoot him anyway. They get bigger guns, then tanks. He survives. They get cannons. They shoot and shoot. The Hulk sulks for a bit and then is fine.

Unfortunately, combative redundancy is also our strategy for fighting drug trafficking.

Also yesterday, the World Health Organization released a not too surprising study that will allow me to extend the metaphor — just as the government wants to use the very same gamma poisoning that infects the very Hulk it's fighting, it turns out that Americans try drugs much more often than anyone else. Reuters reports:

The researchers said their findings shed light on drug, alcohol and smoking policy.

"The use of drugs seems to be a feature of more affluent countries," they wrote.

"The United States, which has been driving much of the world's drug research and drug policy agenda, stands out with higher levels of use of alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis, despite punitive illegal drug policies, as well as (in many U.S. states), a higher minimum legal alcohol drinking age than many comparable developed countries," they added.

So apparently "Hulk" really is fine, and prescient, satire, not just summer fun. And if you need more satire (and can handle relatively on-the-cheap explosions), I might suggest "War, Inc."

*Photo courtesy Associated Press.

Newsom, who built a national reputation pushing cutting-edge -- and controversial -- policies on same-sex marriage, healthcare and other issues, launched an exploratory bid for governor Tuesday.

His move placed the 40-year-old, two-term mayor out in front of a large Democratic field eyeing the race to succeed Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is barred by term limits from running again in 2010. Newsom said he expected to decide by year's end whether to proceed with a full-fledged candidacy

The City by the Bay's golden boy isn't shining as brightly as he was just a few years ago, though, having admitted to an affair and claimed to have alcohol problems. Then again, neither is our very own Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, whose gubernatorial hopes have also been tarnished by an extramarital relationship. The Times also points out,

The first open-seat governor's race in 12 years is expected to draw a crowded field of Democratic hopefuls, including former governor and current Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, Lt. Gov. John Garamendi and former Controller Steve Westly, who unsuccessfully sought the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2006.

Since it's anyone's race, I have to ask:

Got another candidate in mind? Post your suggestions below.

Fourth place? Our beloved Dodger Dog? It's bad enough that the Dodgers are nearly halfway into another disappointing season (and given the team's 20-year World Series drought, disappointing seasons are coming dangerously close to becoming so common they no longer disappoint). Even worse is when the extras that keep Dodger fans coming back (think the stadium, game-caller Vin Scully and, until recently, the Dodger Dog) get knocked off their perch of excellence. Vin Scully's contract is up at the end of the season; if the 80-year-old announcer doesn't sign on for a few more seasons, what's left for us to call the best?

As for that Washington-based special interest group dedicated to the wiener, I'd apply for a job there just to have my name printed on a business card with the words "National Hot Dog and Sausage Council."

Photo: George Wilhelm/Los Angeles Times

Tolkien obviously isn't Peter Jackson, who directed the franchise, or Liv Tyler or Viggo Mortensen, who starred in it, or New Line Cinema, the studio that financed it, or Miramax, which owned the film rights for a second but couldn't get the movie made, or producer Saul Zaentz, who bought the rights in 1976. He's just the guy who dreamed up the cosmology, the whole shebang of hobbits and dwarfs, orcs, ents, wargs, trolls, whatnot. "Three rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-Lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne." Those were old John Ronald Reuel Tolkien's words.

But he's dead, so why should Hollywood share any of the dough?

In reference to a far less lucrative literary franchise, here's a good reason why not.

I realize this puts me at odds not only with the Times but with the EU, Her Majesty and the U.S. Congress. But I find it offensive to common sense to argue that the heirs of J.R.R. Tolkien (who are as dismayingly numerous as Kennedys in the court filing) are entitled to a shilling for work in which they had no hand and which was completed in 1949.

I'm not evaluating the legal merits of their case, the questionable management of New Line Cinema, or the Tolkiens' contractual rights under a contract that was signed with United Artists in 1969 and passed to New Line (and now to Warner Bros.) by way of Zaentz and Miramax. (Though with these dramatis personnae, it's amazing there's a plug nickel left to fight over.) I am saying current copyright law is well outside the bounds of rationality. There should be no fight over rights on the literary property because on a logical planet, a 59-year-old literary property by a 35-years-dead author would be in the public domain.

Now to Larry Lessig, who proposed a seemingly rational solution back in May:

Following the model of patent law, Congress should require a copyright owner to register a work after an initial and generous term of automatic and full protection.

For 14 years, a copyright owner would need to do nothing to receive the full protection of copyright law. But after 14 years, to receive full protection, the owner would have to take the minimal step of registering the work with an approved, privately managed and competitive registry, and of paying the copyright office $1.

It's not clear how the Tolkien case would play out under this regime. "The Lord of the Rings," as I have heard the story, didn't hit its full popular stride (or is that schritt?) until the 1960s, and it's possible that the author, preoccupied with the commercial potential of "Smith of Wooten Major" or "Farmer Giles of Ham," might have neglected to do the necessary update. Interestingly this would probably have had the effect (all else being equal) of reducing the specific take for Peter Jackson's movies, because they would have been competing with dozens or scores of previous adaptations, not just Ralph Bakshi's.

But more likely, Lessig's proposal would merely move these sorts of battles a few years into the future. I don't see any way around the central problem: Copyright term is simply too long. It needs to be dated for some reasonable period from the date of creation (I've previously said 35 years, so I'll stick with that figure), and then it needs to end. If you're the author or the author's estate, you can keep trying to use your goodwill and/or familiarity with the franchise to keep making money on it, but you've got to fight for it like everybody else.

Which, ironically, Tolkien's heirs have proven quite capable of doing. Back when Peter Jackson was known mostly for "Heavenly Creatures" (his true masterpiece), here's how my old friend Tom Spurgeon described Christopher Tolkien's place in the universe of lucky inheritors:

The Caretaker

Caretakers are all about access. Their basic strategy is to place themselves between a beloved creation and a still-rabid audience and claim their involvement is an extension of the creator's wishes — even if the nature of those desires must be inferred from beyond the grave. Once duly recognized as a keeper of the flame, the caretaker can dispense missives from the promised land with the measured touch of a Mr. Bumble. The perfect situation for the caretaker is to be placed in charge of an open-ended franchise targeted at anal completists. Christopher Tolkien and Brian Herbert are exemplars of this type, with multi-volume releases of first drafts or brand-new novels taken, cross-their-hearts, from papa's real, honest, left-behind notes. If criticized as a profiteer, the caretaker emphasizes his or her connection to the successful parent's life work, particularly if it ends up in a deal for a project celebrating the parent-child relationship, such as a suite of fairy stories or album of lullabies. While embracing the parent's vision is the most reliable way to pursue strategy, offering complementary skills necessary to maintain that legacy can be just as effective. Hugh Hefner popularized the Playboy philosophy by living it; Christy Hefner helped legitimize it because she didn't.

So buy your advance tickets to Ang Lee's "The Silmarillion" now!

Crossposted at Jon Healey's Bit Player.

Christopher Hitchens has himself waterboarded, complete with a safeword and a dead man's switch, for the August issue of Vanity Fair. Read the story here and see the video, which I consider obscene, here. Hitch's conclusion?

I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

No argument here! But just to look on the bright side, it's encouraging to learn that the Hitchens ticker can make it through a brief torture session without failing.

Courtesy of Mike Riggs.

What is that point of view? For starters, we may now wear suits on Wall Street or Main Street, but we know the experience -- personally or from our parents and grandparents -- of working in the fields, on the docks and in the kitchen. We want a job, not a handout. We value opportunity over more government. We are risk takers, willing to bet on ourselves and start a business. We want a society that recognizes and rewards us based on our hard work and ingenuity, not our skin color.

We are unabashedly proud of America, and we are prepared to enlist, fight and die for this country, sometimes even without the right to vote for its leaders.

The Albright Group's Wendy R. Sherman says North Korea negotiations prove that diplomacy works. Selig S. Harrison of the Center for International Policy reminds the U.S. to pay attention to Al Qaeda goings-on in Bangladesh. And writer Karen Stabiner says a backyard garden doesn't lend itself to eco-snobbery, just a good pie.

The editorial board looks at the U.S.'s progress with North Korea, praises the state for releasing hospital error data, and tells the state to get rid of its whale license plate, since the artist is asking for money:

We admire whales as much as anyone. But with all respect to the artist currently known as Wyland, there are other airbrush wielders who can produce a respectable image of a cetacean’s flukes among the waves. Now that the Laguna Beach muralist has revoked California's right to use his artwork on a license plate, the state should happily swim off in a new direction.

On the letters page, readers discuss the SAG situation. North Hollywood's Seth Burben says: "As a member of both the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, I find it disingenuous of Sally Field, James Cromwell, Tom Hanks and others to allow themselves to be shills for a less-than-adequate contract."

*Cartoon by Scott Stantis, Birmingham News

The Continental Congress declared American independence on July 2, 1776. What happened on the Fourth of July, then? The document affirming that action -- the Declaration of Independence -- was revised, signed by the whole crowd, and officially adopted. It took several days more for the news to reach the other colonies and General George Washington, and I gather it wasn't until a year later that the formal anniversary was celebrated -- on July 4.

Adams figured the event itself would be the big hullabaloo, not the final signing, and in a letter to his wife, Abigail, on July 3, he wrote "The second day of July, 1776, will be a memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that this will be celebrated by succeeding generations, as the great Anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnixed with pomp, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward forever."

This letter is in "Liberty and Union," an 1888 history book of mine that once belonged to the "Tropico Free Library" -- Tropico being a town that merged into Glendale in the 1920s. At least the book didn't do what I gather some history texts did: pull a "1984" and change the date in the Adams letter to July 4. Because of course the Founding Fathers couldn't be anything but infallible.

I say we split the differerence and start celebrating today. Let cranky old John Adams have one gimme.

Stock Exchange's Former Chief Wins Court Battle to Keep Pay
By Jenny Anderson

In Weighing Death Penalty A Flaw in Fact:
Blog points to a change justices overlooked. By Linda Greenhouse

Helmsley, Dog's Best Friend, Left Them Up to $8 billion By Stephanie Strom

Daily News, Los Angeles:

Firm's bid and lips are sealed:
Silent about LAUSD payroll mess,
Deloitte seeking $1.5 billion state court-case deal
By Troy Anderson

Mobile Clinic checks up on Valley needy:
Health care becomes low priority for many as food, gas costs keep rising.
By Susan Abram

Orange County Register:

FIREWORKS HIT MARKET: In five cities, sale begins of legal varieties.
Police vow crackdown on others.

THE MORNING READ: Autism is treatable, she insists:
O.C. mother leads uprising agains accepted views. By Sam Miller

At CSUF, gender gap is reversed:
Decades after a historic lawsuit, women in sports outnumber men.

Frustrating time for border hawks:
Foes of illegal immigration turn their backs on the presidential election.
By Erin Carlyle

La Opinión:

EnvÍan a la cácel a más migrantes:
Organizaciones critican tendencia del
Departamento de Securidad Interna
JORGE MORALES ALMADA

La atención médica está en riesgo:
Tema del recorte en pago a doctores
hace peligrar la atención a pacientes en el país
MARIBEL HASTINGS

USA TODAY:

Chemical weapons' transport opposed:
Plan to speed disposal in U.S. risky, critics say By Tom VandenBrook

Free-college programs multiply
By Mary Beth Marklein

COLUMN ONE: Interrogation, then revenge: Police told a gang member a girl he knew had identified him as a killer. Soon she was dead. By Joel Rubin and Ari B. Bloomenkatz

Migrant snafus bedevil S.F. : The 'sanctuary city' can no longer escort juvenile immigrants back home — or ship them to Inland Empire: By Maria L. LaGanga, David Kelly and Anna Gorman

Headed for a showdown: Venus Williams and her sister Serena advanced to the semifinals at Wimbledon and could face each other in Saturday's final. Sports, D1

CAMPAIGN '08: Obama focuses on faith: He says he'd expand Bush's program to aid religious charities. By Peter Wallstein and Peter Nicholas

Little avatars behaving badly: Parents find it takes a village to keep kids from preying on one another in virtual worlds: By Alana Semuels

Soaring gas prices put auto sales in the ditch: By Ken Bensinger

Inside the Times

Magazine pioneer Felker dead at 82: The founding editor of New York magazine was a key figure in the birth of New Journalism. Obituaris, B6

600 Starbucks stores to close: People aren't buying fancy coffee like they used to. About 12,000 jobs will be lost in the move. Business, C1

A top-notch twisty thriller: Be glad "Tell No One" is here, says Kenneth Turan. Calendar, E1

Weather: Mostly sunny and warmer. Downtown: 85/66. Page B10

The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore.

— John Adams, July 3, 1776

Read all about it.

According to federal law, two or more people who combine resources to support or oppose a federal candidate become a "political committee" subject to government regulations and limits. But a lawsuit filed Thursday by the group SpeechNow.org, which had planned to air TV spots condemning Sen. Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.) and Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), will reopen the question of how much freedom of speech must be curtailed in the name of legitimate campaign finance reform.

SpeechNow selected Landrieu and Burton because of their support of legislation that curtails political participation by public interest groups. The ads the FEC advised against were set up as a test case of the 1974 law, and the resulting Catch-22 tautology -- you can't agitate effectively against political speech regulations because that would require you to oppose politicians who support those regulations, which would violate political speech regulations -- was a result SpeechNow had in mind. The advisory opinion by the commission's general counsel seems well within the language of the law.

And that's the problem. The FEC, and perhaps Congress, need to revisit the overreaching rules on campaign ads. Courts have repeatedly stated that the only compelling state interest in limiting political speech is to avoid corruption or the appearance of corruption in government -- this was the idea when the McCain-Feingold law rightly banned soft-money donations to political parties. But that is very different from a group of unaffiliated citizens trying to have their say. SpeechNow's suit against the FEC turns on complex regulations, but it speaks to something basic: the 1st Amendment right to petition the government for redress of grievances.

A victory for the group would restore some sanity to the campaign finance regulatory structure.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson disagreed, writing:

Plaintiffs’ argument presents a false syllogism that relies on a “crabbed view of corruption, and particularly of the appearance of corruption” that is at odds with Supreme Court precedent...

Second, that SpeechNow cannot literally funnel contributions to candidates, and therefore cannot serve as a vehicle for the direct exchange of dollars for political favors, is not dispositive. The Supreme Court has long acknowledged that “corruption,” in the sense that word is used in campaign finance law, “extends beyond explicit cash-for-votes agreements to ‘undue influence on an officeholder’s judgment.’”...

“Independence” does not prevent candidates, officeholders, and party apparatchiks from being made aware of the identities of large donors, and people who operate independent expenditure committees can have the kind of “close ties” to federal parties and officeholders that render them “uniquely positioned to serve as conduits for corruption,” both in terms of the sale of access and the circumvention of the soft money ban.

Democracy 21 president Fred Wertheimer, who filed a brief against the Speechnow request, is pleased with the decision. The Speechnow-affiliated Center for Competitive Politics is not pleased. Election law blogger Rick Hasen sees an appeal coming.

Just about a year ago, Speechnow's Bradley Smith debated the Brookings Institution's Thomas E. Mann in a Dust-Up on campaign finance.

The bureau of sanitation tells me that, out of the goodness of its heart, it provided me with a 90-gallon green trash bin for yard trimmings, a 90-gallon blue container for recyclables, and a 60-gallon black container for refuse.

And it further tells me that I am "currently utilizing additional capacity beyond the standard allocation."

My, my –- two lies in one mass mailing. Probably not a record, but a good start!

Lie number one –- at every house on my street, and in my neighborhood, the black container for refuse is the same size as the blue container and the green one. Unless the city put a false bottom in the black bin, it’s 90 gallons, just like the other ones.

But lie number one makes lie number two possible –- by telling me that a 90-gallon black container is in fact a 60-gallon container, and expecting me to believe it, the city can decide that I am "utilizing additional capacity beyond the standard allocation."

And by this sleight of hand –- defining 90 gallons as 60 –- the city says it’s going to start charging me another $5 a month.

Abracadabra -- ta daaaa!!

Am I to believe –- with the city laying off employees in a budget crunch –- that multitudes of employees have gone door to door to lift the lids on hundreds of thousands of black refuse bins, and then sent off a mass-mailed letter to those of us who may have had the gall to actually put 90 gallons of trash in the 90-gallon container the city gave us for trash? A container the city now describes as 60 gallons?

[Beyond the Orwellian math, I’m doubly offended. If you try, and I do, it’s possible to put almost nothing in that big 90-gallon black container –-  almost everything anyone throws out can now be recycled or composted.]

Did you get one of these mathematically loopy letters too? If so, call the bureau of sanitation and give ‘em a little arithmetic lesson: 1 800 773 2489. And if they try to charge you $5 for using the official trash container, tell them you can do new math too: if they bill you for "extra" trash use, give them two quarters, and tell them that makes $5. Really.

"There's all kinds of organizations that have spawned from the Minuteman Project and I have to say, some of the people who have gotten into this movement have sinister intentions," he said....

"It's an 'invasion'," Gilchrist said of illegal immigration across the border between the United States and Mexico, "but it's not a war. It is a covert 'Trojan Horse invasion'"....

Sometimes, Gilchrist said he thinks about leaving the debate over illegal immigration and taking on a new issue like urban blight or tax reform. For now, he said he will continue to lobby for more border patrol agents but not from a perch on the border, watching for people trying to cross.

"I have found, after four years in this movement (…) I very well may have been fighting for people with less character and less integrity than the 'open border fanatics' I have been fighting against," he said. "And that is a phenomenal indictment of something I have created."

(On closer inspection, I see the story came out a few days ago, but just made it into the paper today. Interestingly, the single-scare-quotes around the word invasion above have disappeared in the print version.)

Last time Opinion L.A. caught up with Gilchrist, he was opining for our "Forty on 40" feature (and whatever you may think of his attitudes, he was the very soul of graciousness on the phone):

The most expedient way to dismantle domestic terrorism in the United States is to repeal all the Special Order 40s around the country. If you repeal Special Order 40 you'll allow law enforcement to protect the citizens of those communities. This rule smacks of special treatment for people who don't deserve any special treatment other than being arrested and deported. I don't blame the police department; I blame the City Council which does nothing but aid and abet the criminal mentality.

A staff member at the Center for New Community, Ward, an African American whose family moved to California over 100 years ago, explains how he went from born citizen to undocumented after losing his passport and social security card in an airport mishap. Lacking a driver's license because of a visual impairment, Ward needed to obtain a copy of his birth certificate. Try to follow along through the (insert your favorite pejorative adjective for bureaucracies) maze:

I contacted the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder and was told that in order to receive my birth certificate, I needed to present a copy of my passport, or driver’s license, to verify I was, in actuality, Eric K. Ward.

Since it was obvious, after twenty minutes of discussion, that I didn’t own a driver’s license, a passport, or a social security card, they told me to fill out the proper forms in front of a notary public in Chicago.... But when I got there, the notary public said I needed a passport, social security card, or driver’s license to receive an official notary seal....

[S]ince I had a number of newspaper articles with photos documenting my identity, the notary public accepted my articles with somewhat dubious satisfaction....

Four weeks later my birth certificate arrived!

But when I arrived at the Post Office to pick it up, the attendant asked me to produce a passport, driver’s license and, most ironically, a copy of my birth certificate to obtain my birth certificate. After waiting an hour and pleading with two supervisors, I‘m proud to say that I now possess a certified birth certificate!

I wish I could say everything went smoothly from this point on....

If you can stomach it, there's more where that came from. But the kicker:

As African Americans we should be deeply concerned about the ongoing attack on immigrants and refugees. Why?

We know what it’s like to be second-class citizens -- and it’s about to happen again.

Thanks to the Immigration Law Professors' Blog for the link.

Twice in about three months, onetime gang-bangers who got multi-million-dollar settlements from police for something the cops did wrong have fallen from the world of millionaires back into the world of felony.

In 2000, a former gang-banger who was shot and paralyzed by a couple of bad Rampart cops got a $15 million settlement. Over the weekend, Javier Francisco Ovando allegedly ran a couple of red lights in Glendale, then led cops on a merry chase for an hour, sometimes flooring it to 90 mph before he got stopped and busted for felony evading. At least he went out classy: driving his 2001 Hummer. [He must have bought it right after he was busted that same year in his Cadillac Escalade for ferrying coke to Vegas, maybe the desert version of coals to Newcastle. He had to give up the Caddy, his gun and $50K to stay out of prison.]

More pathetically, in April, a onetime Anaheim gang-banger lived up, alas, to his nickname – Dopey. Three years ago, Jose Luis Munoz was badly hurt as he surrendered to the cops who were chasing him, and a police car hit him. The $2.5 million settlement coulda, shoulda been his ticket out of trouble once and for all. The authorities tried to keep him on the straight and narrow, told him to call if he felt himself backsliding, kept urging him to move out of temptation’s neighborhood. But on April 10, he was caught hanging out with gang members, and on April 11, he was back in prison. (One reader was quick to e-mail my colleague, reporter Gil Reza, that "you can take the [guy] out of the gang but you can’t take the gang out of the [guy].")

The backsliding champ, though, has to be Rodney King. With $3.8 million of Los Angeles taxpayers’ money [minus his lawyers’ hefty cut] and a virtual get-out-of-jail-free card –- who would want to be the cop who busts the radioactive Mr. King? –- he kept getting into trouble, again and again. Once he was busted three times in two months. In the mythic arrest that led to the beating and the trials and the riots, he was stopped in 1991 for supposedly hitting 115 mph on the freeway. In 2003, he was going 100 in his SUV when he crashed into a house.

One more of these, and we'll have the makings of a new celebrity reality show: "Who Wants to Bust a Millionaire?"

A hundred years later, we're still vulnerable to near-Earth objects, and only Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) is willing to do anything about it.

My question: If the rock never hit the ground, why don't we have mini-Tunguska events every time the Space Shuttle re-enters? That is, was it the explosion of the rock or the friction of the entry that caused the detonation?

Update: I spoke too soon. This morning the Kulaks of California got a 100th-anniversary fireball of their very own.

[I]f only a fraction of what [Bush] had to say was remotely accurate, then the conventional bleats about unilateralism, war lust and cowboyishness will go down in history as the excessive caterwauling of an imaginative and hyper-partisan opposition.

Indeed, President Bush's reputation is not as solidified as his detractors and fans think.

If Iraq becomes a stable and democratizing nation, his presidency will look much better than it does today. But if Iraq Balkanizes or Lebanon-izes, then Democratic rhetoric about the "worst foreign policy blunder in U.S. history" will gain descriptive heft. Only time will tell.

Contributing editor Ian Buruma says soccer fans' rabid nationalism is transforming into a European spirit. Author Benny Morris says Israel's swap of live terrorists for dead soldiers might embolden terrorist groups. And author Dinah Lenney ponders what to tell her daughter as she graduates from high school.

The editorial board notes that today California will start ticketing drivers talking on cell phones without headsets, and warns everyone to look out for drivers fiddling with said headsets. The board also urges China to help save the dwindling wild tiger population, and says eight years and billions of dollars have done little to reverse coca production in Colombia:

It was probably unintentional, but "The Incredible Hulk" is much more than a summer afternoon's escape; it's clearly a satire, a perfect depiction of Washington's boneheaded belief that firepower can resolve any problem. Although the creature is obviously bulletproof, soldiers shoot him anyway. They get bigger guns, then tanks. He survives. They get cannons. They shoot and shoot. The Hulk sulks for a bit and then is fine.

Unfortunately, combative redundancy is also our strategy for fighting drug trafficking.

On the letters page, readers discuss the Supreme Court's ruling on the D.C. gun ban. La Habra's Bobby Florentz is surprised: "Well, what do you know. Someone has forced a slim majority of the Supreme Court to listen to a reading of the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution."

*Cartoon by Matt Davies, The Journal News

To his credit, Weingarten breaks the story himself, but some commenters are saying, "fiddlesticks!" One demands he give back the prize, and commenter lhooq46 has a critique I can really agree with:

What was more unoriginal than the article was the selection of music that Joshua Bell played. I'm sorry, but I would not have stopped to listen for "Thais" or "Ave Maria" no matter how well they were performed - I've heard these pieces hundreds of times & I'm beyond sick and tired of them!!!

But for my money, the best analysis of the original busking stunt came in this vehement and contemptuous article by Richard Taruskin:

All concerned knew perfectly well that people at rush hour are preoccupied with other things than arts and leisure, and would not break their stride. But the fulfillment of the self- fulfilling prophecy gave Weingarten the pretext he sought, in an article titled "Pearls Before Breakfast," to cluck and tut, to quote Kant and Tocqueville, and to carry on as if now we knew what really happened at Abu Ghraib.

Bloggers took up the refrain. Notice, wrote one, that "all the children wanted to stop and listen. They knew. But their parents kept them moving on. Sadly it reminds me of an occasion when children wanted to stop and listen to Christ but his disciples didn't let them." Saddest for me was that the weblist of the American Musicological Society, my professional organization, added its meed of clucking and cackling. Scholars are supposed to be skeptical of spin and pose, but here we were piling on. My hat goes off to one Ben H., a netizen who saw through it all. "Perhaps the Post could do a whole series of articles about philistines ignoring Joshua Bell's sublime music-making in different locations," he suggested:

1. Outside a burning building (not one fireman stopped to listen!)

2. At a car crash site (one paramedic actually pushed him aside!)

3. During a graduation exam (shushed by the invigilators!)

4. At a school play (thrown out by angry parents!)

5. On an airport runway (passing jet liners seemed oblivious!)

CAMPAIGN '08: McCain energy record is on/off: He's flip-flopped on nuclear power, ethanol and offshore drilling. By Noam N. Levey

Phone rangers: Rule enforcement will vary. By Hector Becerra and David Pierson

COLUMN ONE: Keeping the ball in play: In a dim Vegas arcade, a man's love for a faded pastime is alive and pinging. Behold the Pinball Hall of Fame. By Ashley Powers

Surprise video puts an end to drug trial By Jack Leonard

China plays hardball on pre-Games visas: As the Olympics near, foreigners are less welcom. Big losers are business and tourism. By Barbara Demick.

Inside Today's Times

IndyMac says it's not failing: Depositors have been pulling money from the thrift.

Put to the test: Two schools that are part of the mayor's reform plan open today.

Even costlier gas predicted: Analysts say Californians may soon be paying $5 a gallon.

Now they just want to sing: The female finalists of "American Idol" are going on tour.

But wait, you say. If we just voted on Propositions 98 and 99 on June 3, why don't we get Proposition 100 in November?

Ballot measure numbering runs on a 10-year cycle, and that cycle began in November 1998, so it just ran out and is starting over. If the Legislature adds more propositions, lawmakers can decide whether to add them to the end (Propositions 12, 13, etc.) or to the beginning (Proposition 1A, 1B, etc.).

Those are just the statewide measures. We could still get an MTA sales tax from the county, and on Tuesday the City Council could add a parcel tax to fight gang violence.

What will those be called on the ballot? We don't yet know. They are lettered instead of numbered, and are designated by the registrar-recorder.

Backers of tax measures believe the November election is their best shot at victory. The thinking goes like this: Los Angeles voters will be coming out in droves to vote for Barack Obama, or against a Republican of any stripe, and against the ban on gay marriage (Proposition 8).

The ballot is still growing. To keep up, check in regularly at www.latimes.com/elections.