This day has been long coming.  The graphs have shown it would soon be upon us: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/9872  Now, here we are.  With this new Harris poll, available through the Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114735765551950179-fy1LPeyuG4da_f... , President Bush claims the titlelong held by Richard Nixon: Least Liked President Ever (or at least since there have been polls).  And this data comes to us from before the USA Today reported on Bush's NSA secretly monitoring our phone records http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/10210

Bush's approval rating is now at 29%, and disapproval at an astonishing 71%.  Well, it's astonishing that it took so long to get there.  But it's also record-setting.  The best Nixon could do was 66%.  Nobody else comes close.  Bush is breaking new ground. 

Now that the $100 tax rebate proposed by the Senate Republican leadership as a response to rising gasoline prices has been discarded, it is time to get serious. Any effective response to climbing gas prices must recognize a geological reality, namely that the earth’s oil reserves are shrinking.

The amount of oil pumped has exceeded new discoveries since 1980. And the gap is widening. In 2004, for example, the world pumped nearly 31 billion barrels of oil while discovering fewer than 8 billion barrels of new oil.

Instead of encouraging gasoline use with tax rebates or gas tax holidays, we need a way to reduce gasoline use, one that is practical and politically acceptable. We need a higher gas tax, but the only way to get a gas tax rise large enough to wean us from imported oil is to offset the rise with a reduction in the tax on income.

The gas tax boost should be substantial—a rise that will send a strong, clear signal to consumers—and it should be gradually phased in. A gasoline tax hike of 30¢ a gallon per year for the next 10 years would send the right signal. This eventual increase of $3 per gallon would be offset at

Cindy Sheehan's interviews, essays, and speeches get better with each passing month, as her pain continues, her passion and insight grow, and the war that killed her son goes on – as the president who killed her son goes on being president.  Cindy's latest book, "Dear President Bush," is the best of the three books by or about Cindy Sheehan that I've read.

"Not One More Mother's Child" was Cindy's first collection of essays.  It's a longer book, including her writings from November 2004 to September 2005, along with some beautiful photographs and forwards by John Conyers, Thom Hartmann, and Jodie Evans.  "The Vigil: 26 Days in Crawford, Texas" is a collection of newspaper reports on Camp Casey from the Lone Star Iconoclast, with a forward by Sheehan.  These are both excellent books.  One contains much of Cindy's brilliant and moving voice.  The other comes close to setting the scene of what it was like to be in that place in Crawford last summer surrounded by so much emotion and so much hope.

In the red-hot debate over immigration, myth too often takes the place of truth. It is easier to rouse fears than it is to find common ground. It is time to step back, take a deep breath, and reflect before we react.

The truth is often distorted in ways that feed our divisions. For example, many contrast this generation of immigration with the Europeans who came at the beginning of the last century. That generation, we are told, came legally; whereas this generation of immigrants is coming illegally. That generation learned the language, whereas this one is writing the National Anthem in Spanish. Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s former speechwriter, writes about her Irish family that came over on the boat. “They waited in line. They passed the tests. They had to get permission to come… They had to get through Ellis Island, get questioned and eyeballed by a bureaucrat with a badge.”

The U.S. Government has once again invoked the "state secrets" privilege, arguing that a public trial of a lawsuit against a former head of the Central Intelligence Agency for abducting and imprisoning a German citizen would lead to disclosure of information harmful to U.S. national security.

Once rarely used, the "state secrets" privilege has over the past five years become a routine defense used by the U.S. Government to keep cases from being tried.

The current case involves a suit brought by Khalid El-Masri. El-Masri was on     vacation in Macedonia when he was kidnapped and transported to a CIA-run "black site" in Afghanistan. After several months of confinement in squalid conditions, he was abandoned on a hill in Albania with no explanation. He was never charged with a crime.

El-Masri, who is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is seeking an apology and money damages from the CIA. The first - and perhaps the last -- hearing on the case took place last week before a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.