The White House issued a statement late today saying that President Bush has decided to veto the 2008 Farm Bill if it makes it to his desk in its current form and recommended that Congress pass a one-year extension of current farm policy to bridge the gap until the next Congress and Administration can consider another bill. Almost at the same, the White House said that the president would withdraw his threat to veto an bill containing a provision that would stop the government from filling the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a bid to increase oil supply on the world market and lower prices. Mr. Bush had earlier said that the provision would have no impact on gas prices.

On the Farm Bill, the president said that he was "deeply disappointed" in the compromise legislation reached by the House and Senate. He cited high food prices and increasing farming incomes as his reasons for rejecting the package of incentives and subsidies for the nation's family and commercial farmers.

Today's farm economy is very strong and that is something to celebrate. It is also an appropriate time to better target subsidies and put forth real reform. Farm income is expected to exceed the 10-year average by fifty percent this year, yet Congress' bill asks American taxpayers to subsidize the incomes of married farmers who earn $1.5 million per year. I believe doing so at a time of record farm income is irresponsible and jeopardizes America's support for necessary farm programs.

But any farm bill is popular legislation in Congress, more so in an election year, and the president's veto would seem to be an exercise in futility. Congress will almost certainly vote to override the president quickly.

With oil at a mind-blowing $120 a barrel, the Senate overwhelming approved a measure 97-1, that would stop the shipment of oil to the government's emergency reserve. President Bush opposes letting the reserve, which is 97% full, drop below full capacity.

Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota said, "We are buying the most expensive crude oil in the history of the world and storing it. When American consumers are burning at the stake by high energy prices, the government ought not be carrying the wood." Dorgan acknowledged that this is not the solution to the problem of high gas prices.

The only opposition came from Republican Senator Wayne Allard of Colorado. A House vote on the issue should come later today.

There's some very seemingly underhanded politicking going on in Oregon, but it seems to largely be going unnoticed by the national media, which is distracted with the ongoing Clinton-Obama fight.

Oregon's Democratic presidential primary will be held May 20 - the same day as the state GOP primary, which will decide who will run for the seat of outgoing six-term U.S. House Democratic Rep. Darlene Hooley, who represents the 5th Congressional District. The GOP candidates are Kevin Mannix and Mike Erickson. The Rothenberg Political Report categorizes the race as a "pure tossup."

This week brought new accusations that have the distinct smell of smear.

The Oregonian reports today that Mannix actually sent a direct-mail appeal to 60,000 GOP voters, alleging that Erickson impregnated a woman eight years ago, then paid for her to have an abortion. The Mannix campaign is waving around a 2-year-old e-mail as proof - a message purportedly from a friend of the woman who had an abortion. The campaign sent that e-mail to voters. The Oregonian says the campaign mailing blacked out the last name and e-mail address of the author, identifying her as "Kristi" and her friend as "Tawnya. "

"I am convinced that the story is real," Mannix says in the May 12 mailer. "It is important that you, the voter, be aware of this situation. Rarely have I been confronted with such a difficult decision as to whether to proceed with something of this nature. But what is on the line here is the character of the person who will represent you in Congress.

"Many people have suggested to me that I allow some "other party" to share this information with you so that I can stand by and watch the situation develop. I believe it is important for me to take personal responsibility for sharing this story."

First they took away the green-back, providing we hard-working Americans with a paper currency more reminiscent of "Monopoly" money than the enduring bills-of-olde upon which our great nation was built. Then they tried to usurp the hallowed dollar with a $1 coin, confusing red-blooded American values with the effete preferences of a European coinage class. And now, shame of shames, they are trying to take the copper out of our pennies.

Hath Congress no shame? Might as well they take the bullets from our soldiers' guns. The penny is a foundational, iconic symbol of American purity. It is the alpha of our mighty financial empire. It dates back to the "pfennings" of Charlemagne, showers fortune upon its finder when heads-up and supplies a litany of poetic idioms - penny for your thoughts, I don't have two pennies to rub together, and I need to spend a penny (British parlance meaning, a need to urinate). Since the centennial of his birth, the penny's front has featured the profile of President Abraham Lincoln, while its reverse has born the image of Lincoln Memorial since the sesquicentennial of that great American's birth.

What infernal lure has so seduced Congress that they should entertain such blasphemies as the desecration of the perfect penny?

$100,000 million / year.

Pennies presently cost 1.26 cents to manufacture. By minting steel pennies with a copper plating, the cost would be reduced to .7 cents. The same applies to 7.7 cent-to-mint nickels. Why, being rid of the penny altogether would save the mint billions in material, production and distribution costs.

And yet, we are sentimental about our dear pennies, aren't we? To be, or not to be, thou dear copper penny? That is the question.

The blog Ars Technica reports that Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon advised internet service providers that he would use "every ounce of my energy to protect network neutrality." Wyden made his surprisingly tough comments in front of a group of tech executives in Washington yesterday.

Wyden told providers that may be thinking about charging customers for various forms of access to "think twice." If they did so, Wyden believes that the "very philosophical underpinnings of what we fought for for the last 15 years" would be undermined and such a move would leave Congress with little motivation to protect providers from taxation and regulation.

And no, I'm not talking about the ongoing soap opera called "Hillary v. Barack." I'm talking about the credit crunch.

Voters in both Indiana and North Carolina last night said the economy was their top concern in deciding who to vote for in the Democratic primary; 67 percent in Indiana and 60 percent in North Carolina. So perhaps they will breathe a sigh of relief to know that the worst of the credit crisis, at least, may be over. There are also signs today that inflation pressures may be easing, and the value of the dollar is also up a bit against other major global currencies.

(However, we still have those pesky dark spots, like The National Association of Realtors today saying pending sales of existing homes fell in March by 1 percent, disappointing the market., and oil prices rising above $122 a barrel, among other concerns.)

The Wall Street Journal reports today that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said financial markets are emerging from the credit crisis. "There's no doubt that things feel better today, by a lot, than they did in March," Paulson said, although he was careful to predict that there would be further "bumps along the road," and that it will take "some months longer" for the market problems to disappear completely.

President Bush again pledged today to veto legislation scheduled for debate in the House today that would see the government buy up $15 billion of abandoned homes and help an estimated 500,000 homeowners facing foreclosure. The bill is expected to receive significant Republican support, but the White House argues the Democrats' plan would open taxpayers to too much risk.

Amidst rising prices and record profits, Congress is set to pass a new round of subsidies and special protections for some of the largest corporations and richest people in the country worth close to $300 billion. But it is not a new energy bill loaded with tax breaks for oil companies, it's a new five-year Farm Bill containing direct payments and price supports for farmers who in many cases have seen their incomes skyrocket in recent years. The bill extends or increases many of the programs enacted in the 2002 version; but this time the White House is threatening a veto.

President Bush triggered howls from conservatives when he signed the 2002 Farm Bill and his Administration is taking advantage of public unease over food prices to try and force Congress to cut the programs popular with farmers. "This is the right time to reform our nation's farm policy by reducing unnecessary subsidies," he said last week. But the bill has bipartisan support from Democrats and Republicans eager to court Mid-Western votes and seems headed for passage. That would set up an election year showdown between the Administration and Congress over the normally mundane topic of agricultural policy with prospects for the Congressional and presidential elections in the balance.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, is warning Congress that the Pentagon will be forced to stop paying soldiers after June 15th if a $108 billion supplemental war-funding measure is not passed soon. He told Roll Call (subscription required) that the uncertainty surrounding the bill creates unnecessary pressure in the military. "It makes it extremely difficult to execute the day-to-day business of the Pentagon without knowing the money is coming," he said.

The Bush Administration and Congressional Republicans have been calling on Congress to pass the supplemental war funding bill before the Memorial Day congressional recess. Democrats have been debating within their own caucus on how to proceed with the funding request. Some Democrats want to pass a bill nearly double the size requested by the White House to cover the remainder of this fiscal year and next in an effort to avoid having to vote on another supplemental funding bill during the fall election season. Others want to limit the amount of aid that the United States would provide the Iraqi government for infrastructure projects due to rising oil prices. The White House has said that the president will veto any bill that exceeds his funding number; and stresses that cutting aid for the Iraqi government could actually prolong the war effort.

In either case, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) sees no need to hurry. "I think we'll do our best to finish this before the Memorial Day break, but if we don't, it's no big deal. There's money there," he said.

In a vote which contemplates a brave new world, Congress has passed a law which prohibits health insurance agencies from "discriminating" on the basis of information revealed through genetic decoding. That is, insurance providers are not allowed to take into consideration a person's genetic predilection for illness (i.e., heart disease, diabetes) in the issuance of terms and policies.

On the one hand, this legislation passed with only a single dissenter in either house. Such uniformity of consent is usually reserved for empty patriotic expressions or vulgar legislative pandering. This vote seems to be the latter. People have a true fear of "genetic discrimination." They see it as a potential path toward a big-brother society divided between classes of genetic superiors and inferiors. Genetic undesirables would lose their health coverage, they would be denied employment, their maledictions would be broadcast to the world so that they could not marry or produce children - they would be condemned from birth to stray on the borders of civilization. (Sounds like a great movie, doesn't it?)

In a new line of argument, the White House cautioned Congress that any funding cuts in aid for Iraq could wind up lengthening the war effort there. This is the first time that the White House has used this reasoning in its annual battle with the Democratic-controlled Congress over war funding and could reflect a new confidence within the Administration about the eventual outcome of the war. In past funding debates, the Administration has focused its lobbying efforts around the strategic argument of completing the mission in Iraq and the moral imperative for Congress to provide resources to troops in harm's way. But with the success of the troop surge both at reducing violence in Iraq and shoring up the Iraqi government, the Administration sees a light at the end of the tunnel and is asking Congress not to throw the war's trajectory off track.

The rising cost of fuel and the Iraqi government's expected windfall of some $70 billion this year from oil exports are driving the Congressional push to recoup some of the costs of operations in Iraq. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) said that there needs to be, "honest-to-goodness pressure," placed on the Iraqi government to convince it that it needs to do more for itself and not continue to rely on the largesse of the United States. But in terms of reconstruction projects, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker told Congress earlier this month that the United States had largely stopped funding large scale projects. "The era of U.S. major infrastructure projects is over," he said.