"We ought to say to the industry, 'Look, here's where we need to go,'" Chertoff said. "'Now, there are a lot of different roads to get there. And you can choose the road that best fits your particular kind of chemical, or your particular type of operation. We're not going to micromanage. What we do insist, though, is that you get to the place you need to be.'"

Chertoff said he envisioned performance standards, set by the Homeland Security Department, for chemical companies to follow. Those standards would not require specific safeguards, such as gates and guards, but would force the industry to develop adequate security plans at all manufacturing and storage facilities.

Those standards could be validated by private auditors contracted with Homeland Security, Chertoff said.

Congress is considering legislation for federal regulation of the nation's 15,000 privately operated chemical facilities, which counterterror experts have warned are at the top of the list of likely terror targets. Congressional investigators have revealed spotty results in how well the chemical industry is prepared to respond in the event of an attack.

The leading bill, by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., would give Homeland Security authority to shut down plants that fail to submit acceptable security plans.

Large chemical corporations quickly applauded Chertoff's plans, which were mostly aimed at small firms that have resisted installing security because of high costs.

"What we're doing at Dow falls very much in line with what the secretary was talking about," said Tim Scott, chief security officer at Dow Chemical. "We approach security from a risk management perspective, and we try to identify the right level of risk and the right approach to reduce that risk at all of our sites."

Chertoff said he did not think any regulation should require the chemical industry to use certain kinds of substances that would be less dangerous to the public in an attack or accidental release, as environmentalists have demanded.

"We have to be careful not to move from what is a security-based focus, as far as the type of regulation I'm describing, into one that tries to broaden into achieving environmental ends that are unrelated to security," he said.

But with one-fifth of the nation's chemical plants located close to cities and other heavily populated areas, "there isn't any security that would be good enough" against the threat of a hazardous toxic release, said Greenpeace legislative director Rick Hind said Monday. "A small plane or a high powered weapon would bypass any gate or fence."

Good news: The Bush people have put out a new "strategy." The bad news is it's the same as the old one.

The Pentagon's strategic review plan again commits us to promoting democracy hither and yon through such effective means as pre-emptive war, bombing and other good stuff.

This is the same plan we've been working from, with mixed results so far. In the Middle East, the Palestinians had an election and put Hamas in charge. That didn't seem to make anyone happy. Lebanon had an election and put Hezbollah in charge. The theory that democracy would solve all problems is especially dicey in Iraq. The Iraqis have now elected an entire government, but they don't seem to be able to get it to gel. Meanwhile, we are committed to forcing democracies into existence as though they were so many slow spring bulbs.

I do like the idea of supporting democracy, however, and think we should try it -- especially here in the U.S. of A. To this end, a couple of dandy ideas are now circulating, and I think they're worth your support and excitement. For ages, all good reformers have wanted to get rid of the Electoral College and have direct popular election of presidents, instead. The disastrous election in 2000 finally culminated in Bush v. Gore, a Supreme Court decision so bad even the court disowned it at the time.

Every nightmare scenario about just how screwed up things could get with the Electoral College all came true. What a giant mess: a textbook case of why the Electoral College is toxic piffle. But the desire to Do Something about the mess in 2000 burned itself out. The Republicans who took over Congress are just not natural reformers. Trouble is, the system has just about "ruint" presidential elections, which now turn on a handful of swing states, while everyone else is ignored. While millions of dollars, hours of political ads and hordes of politicians descend every four years on the swing states, you can barely tell there's an election going on in the rest of the country. Should you live safely tucked into a solidly red or blue state, your vote is unsought, uncounted and unnecessary -- we know how your state's votes will be cast whether you vote or not.

There is a new move promoted by the Campaign for a National Popular Vote to end-run all the problems normally associated with abolishing the Electoral College. This is a state-by-state effort to instruct each state's electors to vote for whichever candidate gets the most popular votes nationwide. Look at 2004: A switch of 60,000 votes in Ohio would have thrown the entire election to John Kerry, despite the fact that George Bush was 3 million votes ahead nationwide.

National Popular Vote has a dandy new approach. Instead of trying to amend the Constitution through a long, difficult process that can and will be stalled by small sates, the campaign proposes a simpler, elegant solution. According to the Constitution, each state legislature can instruct its own electors to cast their votes however the state decides, usually as winner-take-all for whichever candidate carries the state. But there is no reason a state legislature cannot instruct its electors to vote for whomever wins the popular vote.

Democracy! What a concept! The states can do this one-by-one, subscribing to an interstate compact that would take effect when enough states join to elect the actual winner -- a majority of the 538 electoral votes.

Wouldn't it be fun? Candidates campaigning everywhere -- everyone's vote wanted? Democrats in Texas, Republicans in New York, all sought after, cared about as though we actually matter. Yes, this would make campaigns harder on candidates and probably more expensive, as well. And that in turn makes public campaign financing all the more likely. Yea!

Another potentially hopeful development lurks in the Texas redistricting case. True, if the Supreme Curt reverses the appalling Texas plan, the guy most likely to benefit is Rep. Tom DeLay (he would get back a slew of Republican voters he gave away), but sest la vye. Gerrymandering congressional districts -- an art form long practiced by both parties -- may have an aged pedigree, but like money in politics, it has gone so far that it is destroying democracy. With computers, districts can be drawn to such perfect political one-sidedness that there is, in fact, no point in holding elections at all. The Supreme Court is highly unlikely to stop this process entirely, but even a check on it would be useful.

There is another simple, elegant solution for this problem. Iowa already uses it -- a nonpartisan redistricting commission. The result is that three of Iowa's four congressional seats are competitive. Politicians actually have to go out and listen to voters in order to get elected.

In most districts, re-election is so automatic it might as well be a hereditary right. When at least 98 percent of Congress gets re-elected every year, one really has to question whether democracy exists at all in this country. Now's our chance -- sign us up for the Pentagon democracy plan.

McPherson is named, along with 18 California county registrars, as defendants in the suit which calls for a ban on the use an new purchase of Diebold voting machines in the state. The suit was filed by VoterAction.org on behalf of 25 California voter/plaintiffs.

-- Here is a complete copy of the lawsuit file today [PDF]

Reuters originally reported on the story an hour or so ago as "Diebold Inc. sued over California voting systems". That headline is, in fact, incorrect. They have now reissued the story with the more accurate headline "California sued over Diebold voting systems".

The lawsuit against Diebold, we imagine, will come later after California is ready to admit how they've been screwed by the company and they try to recover the millions they've lost in betting on the wrong horse.

VoterAction is the non-profit organization who brought the actions that led to both the decertification of Diebold in California in 2004 and, more recently, the ban on the purchase of Sequoia voting machines in New Mexico (which led to a new law in the state requiring a paper ballot for every vote cast.)

We're short on time today, and haven't even been able to review the complete suit yet, so we'll let State Sen. Debra Bowen's press release in regard to the lawsuit, do the reporting for us since she's generally nailed all the factual basis for the complaint and explains exactly how McPherson's certification of Diebold is in violation of several state and federal laws.

Bowen, who is running herself for Sec. of State this year, also presents a very useful timeline in the release, explaining how we got here in the first place, and how it is that McPherson seems to have simply disregarded the law in favor of his good friends at Diebold.

Remember, as goes California (or as Diebold likes to call it, "America's largest voting market") goes, so goes the country...In other words, this suit is much bigger than just California...

It's difficult to get a nationwide total because the protest groups made a conscious decision this year to decentralize the anniversary events - to take the protests into local communities and congressional districts, as the fall elections approach. But, war opponents acknowledge, overall turnout was probably smaller than during the last two anniversaries, at least in the United States. Still, say political scientists and antiwar activists, there is a logic to how polls and protest turnout intersect, and each war has its own trajectory in terms of public opinion.

"It's not as paradoxical as it seems," says war opponent Norman Solomon, author of the book "War Made Easy." "Antiwar sentiment has mainstreamed a lot more quickly [with Iraq] than during the Vietnam War."

With the Iraq war, the numbers of visible protesters were large even before the war. On Feb. 15, 2003, between 375,000 and 500,000 people jammed 40 blocks of Manhattan to protest impending war. With Vietnam, the US had been engaged there for years before the big protests began.

Once the Iraq war started, it took less time for a majority of Americans to turn negative than it did in the two previous major wars the US has fought since World War II: Korea and Vietnam.

Poll questions on Iraq illuminate different angles of the war - and provide a varying view of whether the war has been worth it. In a mid-March poll for Fox News, 59 percent of US voters agreed that the Iraqi people are "better off today because of the military action taken in Iraq by the US-led coalition." And 74 percent agreed that the US and the world are "safer today without Saddam Hussein in power."

But when the questions relate directly to President Bush, the numbers go south. In a mid-March Newsweek poll, Bush's approval rating for his handling of the situation in Iraq has sunk to an all-time low of 29 percent. And looking ahead to the fall congressional elections, 50 percent of voters say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports withdrawal of all US troops from Iraq in the next 12 months, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Thirty-five percent say they would be less likely to vote for such a candidate.

Bush's overall job approval ratings remain at record lows for his presidency; some polls put him as low as 33 percent.

"Bush would be much happier if his poll approvals were higher and the numbers in the streets were higher," as his party heads into the midterms, says Mr. Solomon.

Street protests don't necessarily sway public opinion, says John Mueller, an expert on war and public opinion at Ohio State University. What changes minds is what's happening in Iraq, not what protesters are saying. "There weren't many protests on Korea, and public opinion declined on that as well," he says. "I never thought the Vietnam protests were effective in changing public opinion or policy. They may have been counterproductive ... because, unlike protests now, they were associated with tearing down American values."

The president's low job approval and the American public's growing impatience with the war mean that big public protests may be less necessary, at least as a tool to demonstrate the intensity of public feeling to the administration, says Alexander Bloom, a historian at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. "Going into the streets can be a sign that people feel there's no other way to be heard," he says. But in this war, he adds, the polls speak loudly.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The third anniversary of the Iraq invasion unleashed a surge of pessimism at a local farmers' market here, where stalwart Republicans, standing amid aisles of produce and miracle cures, said President Bush has messed up a war that looks more like Vietnam every day.

''It's chaos," said Roger Madaras, who voted twice for Bush. ''How many more people are going to be killed? We were going in to free the people of Iraq, but as far as I'm concerned, a lot of them are worse off today than they were under the dictatorship."

Madaras, the owner of a plumbing company, said he believed Bush when the president declared major combat to be over in May 2003, and is ''disgusted" that Bush's rhetoric was hollow. And he is far from alone.

Support for Bush and his handling of Iraq is sharply eroding across the American heartland, where the overcast skies and the muddy fields of late winter matched a sense of gloom about Bush and the war.

This month, the Indianapolis Star released poll findings that Bush's approval rating among Indiana voters stood at 37 percent -- a drop of 18 points over the past year. The numbers echoed national polls, but were particularly shocking in a state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, and where Democratic presidential contenders often do not bother to campaign.

''A 37 percent approval rating in Indiana for a Republican president is unheard of," said Brian Howey, who runs a newsletter for Indiana state political insiders. ''Those are Bill Clinton or John Kerry numbers in Indiana. So there is something seriously awry going on right now."

In scattered rural diners and small-town restaurants adorned with 9/11-vintage American flag posters, support for the troops remains high. But many in Indiana also say the war has not turned out the way they thought it would three years ago, and they question whether Bush has what it takes to lead the troops into a happy ending.

Standing behind the counter where she sells bird houses and seed at the farmers' market, Beverly Beisel said she is increasingly fearful that Iraq will inevitably fall apart as soon as US soldiers leave -- making a mockery of the deaths sustained until then.

''It's not going well, that's for sure," Beisel said. ''I don't like that fact that we started it. I thought Bush was actually going after the terrorists, wherever they were. We thought they had weapons that they were hiding."

Beisel said she doesn't blame Bush because ''he can only deal with the intelligence he was given" and still supports him because she opposes abortion. But she added that plenty of her friends think ''we should get out of there and they're probably sorry they voted for him."

Drinking coffee at Louie's Café in LaPorte, Ken Schreiber, who commands respect among the regulars because he coached the local high school baseball team to seven state championships, said he doesn't understand why the administration never sent enough troops in to stabilize Iraq's security.

Schreiber said he primarily blames the ''liberal media" and ''partisan politics" for the president's free-falling poll numbers. But he also blames Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for giving Bush ''some bad advice" about how Iraqis would ''kiss our feet" for ridding them of Hussein.

''I'm frustrated like everyone else is frustrated," he said. ''It's a lingering war like Vietnam. But I still don't think it was a mistake to go in."

As more and more Hoosiers find themselves making the comparison that only liberals and antiwar protesters made a year ago -- Iraq is like Vietnam -- some say they are also starting to doubt Bush's competence to protect America from terrorism on the home front.

John Lackman, a retired manager at an aircraft wheels and brakes factory who was eating breakfast at a table near Schreiber, said the slow federal response to the Hurricane Katrina disaster last year gave many pause.

''That New Orleans situation just piled it on top of the Iraq War," Lackman said. ''The security issue is paramount in everyone's mind. If they couldn't respond adequately to that situation, how are they going to respond if there's a dirty bomb?"

Others sharply disagreed, saying local officials were primarily to blame for the New Orleans disaster. But there was nearly unanimous incredulity across Indiana at Bush's support for a deal that would have put a Dubai company in charge of six US ports.

Many connected the Dubai ports row to a state controversy -- Republican Governor Mitch Daniels's efforts to lease the Indiana Toll Road to a foreign firm for the next 75 years. Support for Daniels, a former top aide to Bush, is just as low as it is for the president.

''People don't think Indiana should sell its toll road to foreigners, and they don't want someone with a turban running our ports," said Denny Thomas, a retired trucker sitting near video poker machines at the back of a smoke-filled tobacco bar in LaPorte.

Daniels, who ran in 2004 on the slogan ''My Man Mitch," as Bush once referred to him, has also drawn fire for ramming through a law requiring Indiana to join the rest of the country on daylight saving time. The measure is wildly unpopular in rural areas.

Pouring coffee behind the bar of Allie's Café in South Bend, restaurant owner Chuck Sulok -- a self-declared ''partisan supporter" of both Bush and Daniels -- said he fears what the ''double whammy" of Bush's and Daniels's unpopularity could do in the coming election.

If Democrats can pick up 15 seats, they can retake control of the US House of Representatives for the first time since the Republican tidal wave of 1994, when the GOP picked up 54 seats. Sulok says today's atmosphere in Indiana reminds him of 1994 in reverse.

''The mid-term elections are coming and it scares me to death, speaking as a partisan Republican," he said. ''There's a difference between regular dissatisfaction and a dissent that will move an election. There's that feeling in the air."

Joe Donnelly hopes Sulok's fears are well-founded. Donnelly, a local lawyer, is running for Congress against a Republican incumbent, Chris Chocola, in a rematch from 2004. He lost last time by 9 points -- but that was when the Iraq War was still young.

Donnelly said the drop in support for Bush and his handling of the war could swing the election his way, accusing Chocola of being a ''rubber stamp" for the administration. Chocola, whose campaign netted $600,000 in a Bush-headlined fund-raiser in February, did not respond to an interview request.

''Truly, everyone out here wants the Iraq mission to succeed," Donnelly said. ''But everyone is becoming more concerned and uncomfortable. What we need are Congress people who will ask President Bush tough questions, not be rubber stamps."

John Roos, a political science professor at the University of Notre Dame, said the dissatisfaction with Bush's record in Iraq might hand the 2006 election to Democrats by persuading disgruntled Republicans across the American heartland to stay home.

''It's not that they have become Democrats, and it's not that they have decided the war on Iraq and especially the war on terrorism is wrong," Roos said. ''The people of Indiana just think [Bush] is not very good at being president."

Waiting to be seated at Allie's Café, Lee Connett, a retired automotive engineer, said he wondered about the Iraq War from the beginning. He thought it seemed like a diversion from the hunt for the Al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden.

But he voted for Bush anyway because he couldn't stand Kerry, the Democratic nominee. Now, he said, as it becomes ever more clear that ''Bush doesn't have a plan" for Iraq, he doesn't know what he should do.

''I voted for Bush in 2000 and in 2004 . . . because he seemed like the lesser of two evils as I saw it at the time," Connett said. ''How could anyone know he was going to do what he's done? He's not settled anything in Iraq and we're getting no clue as to what the outcome is going to be."

All the talk lately about Bush and the problems with Iraq bemuses Susan Grimes, a waitress at the South Junction Café, a lonely outpost at the intersection of state roads 6 and 35. Grimes said listening to her customers complain has turned her off politics.

''I hear all these people come in and say: 'That President Bush, we got to get that guy out of there.' But you ask them who they voted for, and they hush up because they were the ones who voted him in. He's their boy."

The Washington Post reported yesterday that McCain had hired Terry Nelson to be a senior advisor to his political committee, the Straight Talk America PAC. Who is Terry Nelson? George W. Bush's national political director in 2004, for one. It's just the latest example of McCain's strategy of taking what he can of Bush's money infrastructure - as the Post reports, he's been busily recruiting Pioneers, Rangers and Super Rangers from '04.

But there's one crucial, telling detail about Terry Nelson that the Post leaves out. And that's his role in the money laundering scheme for which Tom DeLay is being prosecuted down in Texas.

Nelson was the deputy chief of staff of the Republican National Committee in 2002 when the alleged crime occurred. His role was crucial, although he hasn't been charged. He's named right there in the indictment.

DeLay and his money men, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, are accused of trying to get around a Texas law against using corporate money to fund candidates. To do that, they wrote a check to the RNC and had the RNC bounce the money back to the Texas candidates they wanted to fund. According to the indictment, the scheme was laid out to Terry Nelson, and he made sure the RNC carried it out.

So what gives? Sen. McCain, Mr. Campaign Finance Reform, has just hired a man who (allegedly) played a key role in breaking a campaign finance law to advise him on how to spend his PAC's money. Anything to win in '08?

Excerpts from the Roll Call piece follow:
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Seeking to consolidate time as House Members slogged through dozens of proposed amendments to the $91.9 billion emergency spending bill Thursday, Republican leaders resurrected a tactic that hadn't been used in nearly 20 years: speed voting.

House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) revived the strategy Thursday afternoon, seeking a "more efficient" way of dealing with the numerous back-to-back votes expected on the spending bill designating funds for the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as hurricane relief to the Gulf Coast, a spokesman said.

"This way [Members] are not consumed with standing around on the floor and waiting, and they can get back to the bulk of the work they do here in Washington," said Boehner spokesman Kevin Madden.

Under House rules, the Speaker may reduce the minimum time allotted to any successive votes to five minutes, as long as the first vote in the series is held open for 15 minutes...