Observations on current events

Practicing Democracy:

NY Times Editorial: Who Tests Voting Machines?
"Whenever questions are raised about the reliability of electronic voting machines, election officials have a ready response: independent testing. There is nothing to worry about, they insist, because the software has been painstakingly reviewed by independent testing authorities to make sure it is accurate and honest, and then certified by state election officials. But this process is riddled with problems, including conflicts of interest and a disturbing lack of transparency. Voters should demand reform, and they should also keep demanding, as a growing number of Americans are, a voter-verified paper record of their vote."

The Politics of Fear:

Charles Cutter: If Fear Fails, What's Next?

Reuters: "Cunning" WMD Campaign Suckered The New York Times

The Federal Budget:

Palm Beach Post: Democrats rip Bush's outline for cuts in 2006 domestic programs

Energy:

The Guardian (UK) - The oil connection

Iraq:

Paul Krugman: To Tell the Truth

Bob Herbert: A Speech That's No Joke
"It has always been easy to make fun of Al Gore. But if there's any truth to the thunderous criticism he's turned loose on the Bush administration this week, it's time to dispense with the jokes and listen seriously to what the man is saying.
If Mr. Gore is right, the nation is faced with a crisis of leadership that is perilously close to an emergency."

Carl Bernstein: History lesson: GOP must stop Bush

Energy Policy:

Daniel Gross: The Prius and the Olive Tree - Why are conservatives supporting higher gas taxes?

Iraq:

The Guardian (UK) - Chalabi 'boasted of Iranian spy link': "Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi leader accused by the CIA of passing US secrets to Tehran, claimed to have close links with Iranian intelligence seven years ago, according to a former UN weapons inspector."

Robert Fisk: Follow torture trail at Abu Ghraib

War Profiteering:

CorpWatch: Houston, We Have a Problem
" 'Houston, We Have A Problem' is an in-depth, hard-hitting report [in PDF] that provides a detailed look at Halliburton's military and energy operations around the world as well as its political connections. It includes a series of recommendations for the company and its shareholders as well as for the United States policymakers. Halliburton is one of the 10 largest contractors to the U.S. military, with several lucrative deals in Iraq. It earned $3.9 billion from the armed forces in 2003, a whopping 680 percent more than in 2002, when the company brought in just $483 million from the military."

The Environment:

The Wilderness Society: New Information Documents Bush Administration's Land-Management Shift
"Although Federal law requires that public lands be managed to balance environmental protection and commercial exploitation, new information released today by The Wilderness Society (TWS) shows that the Bush administration has used a series of arcane and interrelated administrative decisions, and the settlement of a key 'friendly' lawsuit, to make oil and gas development the dominant use of federal public lands."

The White House & Pentagon's favorite Iraqi:

Sidney Blumenthal: The Bush orthodoxy is in shreds
"At a conservative thinktank in downtown Washington, and across the Potomac at the Pentagon, FBI agents have begun paying quiet calls on prominent neoconservatives, who are being interviewed in an investigation of potential espionage, according to intelligence sources. Who gave Ahmed Chalabi classified information about the plans of the US government and military?
The Iraqi neocon favourite, tipped to lead his liberated country post-invasion, has been identified by the CIA and Defence Intelligence Agency as an Iranian double-agent, passing secrets to that citadel of the "axis of evil" for decades. All the while the neocons cosseted, promoted and arranged for more than $30m in Pentagon payments to the George Washington manque of Iraq. In return, he fed them a steady diet of disinformation and in the run-up to the war sent various exiles to nine nations' intelligence agencies to spread falsehoods about weapons of mass destruction. If the administration had wanted other material to provide a rationale for invasion, no doubt that would have been fabricated. Either Chalabi perpetrated the greatest con since the Trojan horse, or he was the agent of influence for the most successful intelligence operation conducted by Iran, or both.
The CIA and other US agencies had long ago decided that Chalabi was a charlatan, so their dismissive and correct analysis of his lies prompted their suppression by the Bush White House..."

Iraq:

The Guardian (UK) - Timothy Garton Ash: The fall of the vulcans

Al Gore: "George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world."

Rebuke of Federal Authority:

NY Times: Ruling Upholds Oregon Law Authorizing Assisted Suicide
"A federal appeals court yesterday upheld the only law in the nation authorizing doctors to help their terminally ill patients commit suicide. The decision, by a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, said the Justice Department did not have the power to punish the doctors involved. The majority used unusually pointed language to rebuke Attorney General John Ashcroft, saying he had overstepped his authority in trying to block enforcement of the state law, Oregon's Death With Dignity Act..."

Business Ethics (or the stunning lack thereof):

Over 4,000 doctors face charges in Italian drugs scandal
"One of the biggest inquiries into marketing practices in the drugs industry ended yesterday with Italian police asking for almost 5,000 people to be put on trial, including more than 4,000 doctors and at least 273 employees of the British pharmaceuticals giant, GlaxoSmithKline. Some face up to five years in jail if tried and convicted.
Italy's revenue guard, the Guardia di Finanza, said in a statement that GlaxoSmith- Kline and its predecessor firm had spent €228m (£152m) on 'sweeteners' for doctors, chemists and others over four years. The alleged bribes ranged from cameras, computers and holidays to outright cash payments..."

The Politics of Revenge:

The Guardian (UK) - Israel holds British journalist
"Israeli police yesterday arrested a visiting British journalist who, in 1986, exposed the Jewish state's most sensitive military secrets in an interview with the nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu."

History:

The Guardian (UK) - What they could not tell Heath: Nixon was blotto
"In October 1973, when the Arab-Israeli war threatened to erupt into a cold war confrontation, Richard Nixon was too drunk to take a call from Edward Heath, according to telephone transcripts cleared for release yesterday."

Iraq:

Finally, the New York Times pleads 'mea culpa' and corrects its pre-war reporting, though not mentioning Judith Miller by name: The Times and Iraq

William Rivers Pitt: The Iranian Spy in the House of Bush
"George W. Bush is running for a second term on the basis of his performance in the defense of our national security. Vice President Cheney has flatly stated that if Bush loses in 2004, the terrorists win. In truth, however, the national security of the United States of America has been raped by these people. 'Rape' is a strong word, but in truth, is not strong enough to describe what has taken place. This disaster can be summed up in one name: Ahmad Chalabi.
Chalabi was the head of the Iraqi National Congress, a dissident group organized for the purpose of overthrowing the regime of Saddam Hussein. Chalabi was a beloved ally of Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney before they came to power with this administration; Chalabi and his group were the impetus behind the passage of the Iraqi Liberation Act in 1998, legislation advocated loudly by Rumsfeld, Cheney and the neo-conservatives who now occupy this government.
Rumsfeld personally groomed Chalabi to take control of Iraq once Hussein was removed. This, despite the fact that Chalabi was convicted of 32 counts of bank fraud in Jordan and sentenced in absentia to 22 years in prison, despite the fact that Chalabi had not set foot in Iraq since he was a teenager, despite the fact that he had no power base and no credibility in the Middle East. Because the neo-cons loved him, however, Chalabi saw his opening. More than anything, he lusted after the oil revenues available from an Iraq he controlled..."

The Guardian (UK) - US intelligence fears Iran duped hawks into Iraq war

NY Times: Scientist Jailed by Hussein Is Favored for Premier's Post

The So-Called War on Terror:

NY Times Editorial: The F.B.I. Messes Up
"The Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation ought to hang their heads in shame over the mistaken arrest and jailing of a Muslim lawyer in Oregon who was supposed to be a material witness in the Madrid train bombing case. The arrest turned out to be based on a faulty fingerprint identification by F.B.I. 'experts.' That finding was ultimately retracted when more careful Spanish investigators concluded that the fingerprint had actually been left by a different man. Federal authorities apologized for the error and the unjustified jail time, but they still have a lot of explaining to do."

Business Ethics:

NY Times Editorial: Chasing Mr. Grasso's Millions
"Given the amounts involved, and the weight of the evidence, Eliot Spitzer really had no choice but to sue Richard Grasso, the former chairman and chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange, for more than $100 million in compensation that Mr. Grasso is alleged to have pocketed improperly."

The Environment:

NY Times: U.S. Brings New Set of Charges Against Pipe Manufacturer
"McWane Inc., a major pipe maker and one of the nation's most persistent violators of workplace safety and environmental laws, faced a new round of criminal charges last night after a federal grand jury in the company's hometown, Birmingham, Ala., issued a 25-count indictment alleging illegal dumping and other environmental crimes."

Iraq:

NY Times Editorial: The President's Speech
"It's regrettable that this president is never going to admit any shortcomings, much less failure. That's an aspect of Mr. Bush's character that we have to live with. But we cannot live without a serious plan for doing more than just getting through the June 30 transition and then muddling along until the November elections in the United States. Mr. Bush has yet to come up with a realistic way to internationalize the military operation and to get Iraq's political groups beyond their current game of jockeying for power and into a real process of drafting a workable constitution."

AP: 2,000 Pages of Army Report on Abuse Missing

The Run Up to War and the Press:

William E. Jackson Jr., in a piece in 'Editor and Publisher,' Raid on Chalabi Puts 'NYT' Even More on the Spot,
says that "...the paper of record has never run a corrective editor's note to clean up the mess that [Judith] Miller made for the Times' integrity," by using Chalabi as her source for the many front-page stories about Iraq's WMDs.

The Economy:

Paul Krugman: Delusions of Triumph

Iraq:

60 Minutes: Gen. Zinni: 'They've Screwed Up': " 'There has been poor strategic thinking in this,' says Zinni. 'There has been poor operational planning and execution on the ground. And to think that we are going to 'stay the course,' the course is headed over Niagara Falls. I think it's time to change course a little bit, or at least hold somebody responsible for putting you on this course. Because it's been a failure.' "

Newsday: Sources say U.S. funded arm of Chalabi's INC was used by Iran
"The Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that a U.S.-funded arm of Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress has been used for years by Iranian intelligence to pass disinformation to the United States and to collect highly sensitive American secrets, according to intelligence sources. 'Iranian intelligence has been manipulating the United States through Chalabi by furnishing through his Information Collection Program information to provoke the United States into getting rid of Saddam Hussein,' said an intelligence source Friday who was briefed on the Defense Intelligence Agency's conclusions, which were based on a review of thousands of internal documents. The Information Collection Program also 'kept the Iranians informed about what we were doing' by passing classified U.S. documents and other sensitive information, he said. The program has received millions of dollars from the U.S. government over several years."

The NY Times has some additional information on the above story: U.S. Steps Up Hunt in Leaks to Iraqi Exile
"Federal investigators now suspect that Mr. Chalabi funneled a wide array of Pentagon and C.I.A. secrets to Iran — much more material than they believe he might have obtained through his political contacts with Americans, they said. "This was not the kind of stuff that he would have gotten by accident," one official said. Intelligence officials have said the investigation centers on a handful of officials in Washington and Iraq who dealt regularly with Mr. Chalabi, and an even smaller number who also had access to the compromised information. Most of them are at the Pentagon, which was Mr. Chalabi's main point of contact with the Bush administration."

NY Times: Afghan Deaths Linked to Unit at Iraq Prison
"A military intelligence unit that oversaw interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was also in charge of questioning at a detention center in Afghanistan where two prisoners died in December 2002 in incidents that are being investigated as homicides."

LA Times: Iraq Setbacks Change Mood in Washington
"President Bush is hearing increasingly bleak warnings that the U.S. occupation of Iraq is heading for failure - from Republican and Democratic members of Congress, current and former officials and even some military officers still on active duty."

Maureen Dowd: Bay of Goats
"So let me get this straight: We ransacked the house of the con man whom we paid millions to feed us fake intelligence on W.M.D. that would make the case for ransacking the country that the con man assured us would be a cinch to take over because he wanted to run it."

The Observer (UK) - Iraqis lose right to sue troops over war crimes
"British and American troops are to be granted immunity from prosecution in Iraq after the crucial 30 June handover, undermining claims that the new Iraqi government will have 'full sovereignty' over the state."

Israeli Occupation:

NY Times: Israeli Official Offers Empathy but Hits a Nerve
"Israel's justice minister, a Holocaust survivor, started a political uproar on Sunday when he attacked an Israeli plan to demolish Palestinian homes in Gaza and said that a suffering Palestinian woman reminded him of his grandmother."

Washington:

NY Times Editorial: The Greening of John McCain
"Six or seven years ago, when he was a conventionally conservative senator from a reliably Republican Western state, John McCain could never have expected to find himself where he is now, all alone in the political catbird seat. One day he's touted as a possible running mate for John Kerry. The next he's assaulted by his own party with the kind of sputtering outrage that makes the target look good and the attacker look silly. House Speaker Dennis Hastert was so flustered by Mr. McCain's criticism of President Bush's wartime tax cuts that he accused the Arizona senator, a former prisoner of war, of knowing nothing about the meaning of sacrifice."

Iraq:

Molly Ivins: How fascism starts
"The problems go all the way back to the administration's refusal to abide by the Geneva Conventions. President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft 'signed off on a secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door to such methods. It was an approach that they adopted in order to sidestep the historical safeguards of the Geneva Convention, which protect the rights of detainees and prisoners of war,' according to Newsweek."

ABC News: Military Punishes Abu Ghraib Key Witness
"Continuing the Cover-Up? Military Takes Action Against Key Witness in Abu Ghraib Abuse Scandal"

The Guardian (UK) - US general linked to Abu Ghraib abuse
"Leaked memo reveals control of prison passed to military intelligence to 'manipulate detainees' "

AP: GOP Sen. Richard Lugar Rips Bush on Iraq, Terrorism

The Environment:

LA Times: EPA Relied on Industry for Plywood Plant Pollution Rule
"Pushing aside new scientific studies of possible health risks, the Environmental Protection Agency approved an air pollution regulation this year that could save the wood products industry hundreds of millions of dollars.
In doing so, the agency relied on a risk assessment generated by a chemical industry-funded think tank, and a novel legal approach recommended by a timber industry lawyer. The regulation was ushered through the agency by senior officials with previous ties to the timber and chemical industries."

The Politics of Smearing Critics:

Washington Post: Reporters Subpoenaed in CIA Leak (com)
"Journalists at Time magazine and NBC News were subpoenaed yesterday to appear before a federal grand jury investigating whether administration officials illegally leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer last summer."

Washington DC:

Eleanor Clift: Panic on the Hill
"Republicans are reassessing Bush's leadership skills and confronting the idea that he could lose the November election"

Politics:

Robert Reich: The Last Word - W.'s Second Term: If you think the first is bad ...

Philip James: The ugly face of power
"Those in Bush's inner circle reconciled themselves to this suspension of morality long ago. They live in a bubble in which everything is permitted militarily and politically in the pursuit of total victory. Their approach to the Iraq campaign is the same as their approach to all things: 'We can do anything we want to win. We can do no wrong. We will brook no dissent.' "

Iraq:

The Guardian (UK) - General Boykin, The religious warrior of Abu Ghraib

NY Times Editorial: An Abu Ghraib Investigation

NY Times: Dogs and Other Harsh Tactics Linked to Military Intelligence
"The role of intelligence officers in the abuse scandal is still under investigation, and the newly disclosed documents provide further details of their involvement in abuses that so far have resulted in formal charges against the prison guards, but not the interrogators."

A Sorry Excuse for an Energy Policy:

Kelpie Wilson: Level the Energy Playing Field
"Last week the Senate gave a victory to Republican efforts to overhaul U.S. energy policy by approving a giant package of energy tax breaks and financial incentives as part of the JOBS bill. The lion's share goes to fossil fuels and nuclear with only a relative pittance for renewables and efficiency."

If the US were taking its energy trade deficit seriously, we'd see many more developments in this vein: Waste-To-Oil Company Selling Oil Commercially

Iraq:

Andrew Cockburn: The Truth About Ahmed Chalabi

US Politics:

Wayne Barrett: The Sex Scandal That Put Bush in the White House
"How GOP operative Roger Stone destroyed the Reform Party in the 2000 presidential campaign"

NY Times: Justice Memos Explained How to Skip Prisoner Rights
"A series of Justice Department memorandums written in late 2001 and the first few months of 2002 were crucial in building a legal framework for United States officials to avoid complying with international laws and treaties on handling prisoners, lawyers and former officials say."

AP: Database Tagged 120,000 as Possible Terrorist Suspects

The Environment:

Washington Post: Four States to Sue Power Plants
"Taking action where the Bush administration would not, four northeastern states said yesterday that they will sue five West Virginia power plants for violating the Clean Air Act's pollution-control rules."

US Politics::

NY Times: White House's Medicare Videos Are Ruled Illegal
"The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said on Wednesday that the Bush administration had violated federal law by producing and disseminating television news segments that portray the new Medicare law as a boon to the elderly.
The agency said the videos were a form of 'covert propaganda' because the government was not identified as the source of the materials, broadcast by at least 40 television stations in 33 markets. The agency also expressed some concern about the content of the videos, but based its ruling on the lack of disclosure."

The Middle East:

BBC: US troops raid Chalabi residence
"Mr Chalabi has become increasingly distanced from the US after openly challenging how much power the coalition was ceding to Iraqis. After the 2003 war, the Iraqi National Congress leader was a favourite of the Pentagon and tipped to lead Iraq. On Wednesday he said in a BBC interview that Iraqis should have complete control over oil, development and property currently in US hands."

Rick Perlstein: The Jesus Landing Pad - Bush White House checked with rapture Christians before latest Israel move

Le Monde (FR) - Arms Trafficker Lands U.S. Aid for Iraq Services

Reuters: Reuters, NBC Staff Abused by U.S. Troops in Iraq

Business Ethics:

Enron Tapes Hint Chiefs Knew About Power Ploys
"Enron Corp. employees spoke of 'stealing' up to $2 million a day from California during the 2000-01 energy crisis and suggested that their market-gaming ploys would be presented to top management, possibly including Jeffrey K. Skilling and Kenneth L. Lay, according to documents released Monday."

The Economy:

The Daily Mislead: Factory Bush Touted Closes; 1,300 Ohioans Jobless

Iraq:

ABC News:Intelligence Staffer Cites Abu Ghraib Cover-Up
"Dozens of soldiers — other than the seven military police reservists who have been charged — were involved in the abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and there is an effort under way in the Army to hide it, a key witness in the investigation told ABCNEWS."

The 2004 Campaign:

NY Times: White House Is Trumpeting Programs It Tried to Cut
"Like many of its predecessors, the Bush White House has used the machinery of government to promote the re-election of the president by awarding federal grants to strategically important states. But in a twist this election season, many administration officials are taking credit for spreading largess through programs that President Bush tried to eliminate or to cut sharply."

Technology:

The NY Times is reporting that HP and DELL Favor Bigger Recycling Roles. A positive step, but it could have had much more impact ten years ago.

Iraq:

Paul Krugman: The Wastrel Son
"...the tone of the cover letter Mr. Bush sent with last week's budget request can best be described as contemptuous: it's up to Congress to 'ensure that our men and women in uniform continue to have the resources they need when they need them.' This from an administration that, by rejecting warnings from military professionals, ensured that our men and women in uniform didn't have remotely enough resources to do the job.
The budget request itself was almost a caricature of the administration's 'just trust us' approach to governing."

Boston Herald: Powell Aide charges in, cuts camera to Colin's chagrin
"NBC's buttoned-down 'Meet the Press' program yesterday veered wildly off-script - briefly resembling one of those wacky reality TV shows after a press aide to Secretary of State Colin Powell abruptly tried to cut off a taped interview."
(Read the full transcript for the May 16 show here.)

(Finally) Pointing Fingers at the INC:

U.S. to Halt Payments to Iraqi Group Headed by a Onetime Pentagon Favorite
"Mr. Chalabi's group has received at least $27 million in United States financing in the past four years, the Iraqi National Congress official said. This includes $335,000 a month as part of a classified program through the Defense Intelligence Agency, since the summer of 2002, to help gather intelligence in Iraq. The official said his group had been told that financing will cease June 30, when occupation authorities are scheduled to turn over sovereignty to Iraqis.
Internal reviews by the United States government have found that much of the information provided as part of the classified program before American forces invaded Iraq last year was useless, misleading or even fabricated."

Ashcroft's War on the Right to Dissent:

Ashcroft Fishes Out 1872 Law in a Bid to Scuttle Protester Rights
"More than a year after the ship boarding, the Justice Department indicted Greenpeace itself. According to the group's attorneys, it's the first time an organization has been prosecuted for 'the speech-related activities of its supporters.' "

The Environment:

AP: Global Treaty Takes Effect Without U.S.

The so-called War on Terror:

Newsweek: The Roots of Torture
"The road to Abu Ghraib began after 9/11, when Washington wrote new rules to fight a new kind of war."

Washington Post: Knowledge of Abusive Tactics May Go Higher
"Army intelligence officers suspected that a Syrian and admitted jihadist who was detained at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad knew about the illegal flow of money, arms and foreign fighters into Iraq. But he was smug, the officers said, and refused to talk. So last November, they devised a special plan for his interrogation, going beyond what Army rules normally allowed."

NY Times: Some Iraqis Held Outside Control of Top General
"The unusual lines of authority in the detainees' handling are part of a tangled network of authority over prisoners in Iraq, in which the military police, military intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, various military commanders and the Pentagon itself have all played a role."

Pointing Fingers at the INC:

NY Times: Powell Says C.I.A. Was Misled About Weapons
"On Sunday, Mr. Powell hinted at widespread reports of fabrications by an engineer who provided much of the most critical information about the labs. Intelligence officials have since found that the engineer was linked to the Iraqi National Congress, an exile group that was pressing President Bush to unseat Mr. Hussein."

9/11 Commission:

NY Times: 9/11 WTC Tape Has Late Change on Evacuation

Privacy:

NY Times: Panel Urges New Protection on Federal 'Data Mining'
"A federal advisory committee says Congress should pass laws to protect the civil liberties of Americans when the government sifts through computer records and data files for information about terrorists."

Media:

NY Times: A Film to Polarize Along Party Lines

Politics & Religion:
NY Times: At Mass, Politics Squeezes Into the Pews
"Bishop Sheridan said Catholics should not receive communion if they vote for politicians who support abortion rights, stem-cell research, euthanasia or same-sex marriage."

Medicine as Business:

NY Times: Pfizer to Pay $420 Million in Illegal Marketing Case
"Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, pleaded guilty yesterday and agreed to pay $430 million to resolve criminal and civil charges that it paid doctors to prescribe its epilepsy drug, Neurontin, to patients with ailments that the drug was not federally approved to treat."

Business Ethics:

Floyd Norris: Software Company Takes Advantage of I.P.O. Loophole

P.O.W.'s:

Seymour Hersh: THE GRAY ZONE: How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib
"The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror."

The Guardian (UK) - Officials 'knew of beatings at Guantánamo'
"The UK government knew about beatings and abuses at Guantánamo Bay because Britons held there complained to UK interrogators and consular officials on numerous occasions, a lawyer for remaining detainees alleged yesterday."

Iraq:

NY Times: Senators Assail Request for Aid for Afghan and Iraq Budgets
"The new money would be added to the more than $400 billion already sought for military uses worldwide in fiscal 2005. Lawmakers complained that the new request lacked specific details and sought to circumvent the Senate's oversight role."

In a rare about-face, Bush cheerleader Thomas Friedman rethinks his position on the administration's Iraq policy: Dancing Alone

Sidney Blumenthal: America's military coup
Note: The 1992 essay to which Sidney Blumenthal makes reference, 'The Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012' can be read here.

Stability and Energy Markets:

Paul Krugman: A Crude Shock
"...the last time oil prices were this high, on the eve of the 1991 gulf war, there was a lot of spare capacity in the world, so there was room to cope with a major supply disruption if it happened. This time there isn't. The International Energy Agency estimates the world's spare oil production capacity at about 2.5 million barrels per day, almost all of it in the Persian Gulf region."

Campaign Finance:

NY Times Editorial: Craven Referees of Politics
"In a shameful decision that will unleash a fresh torrent of unregulated donations to pollute the presidential election, the Federal Election Commission has declined to control the new "shadow party" attack groups that are evading the campaign finance law."

The so-called War on Terror:

Reuters: General Who Made Anti-Islam Remark Tied to POW Case
"A Senate hearing into the abuse of Iraqi prisoners was told on Tuesday that Lt. Gen. William Boykin, an evangelical Christian under review for saying his God was superior to that of the Muslims, briefed a top Pentagon civilian official last summer on recommendations on ways military interrogators could gain more intelligence from Iraqi prisoners."

Robert Scheer: Thread of Abuse Runs to the Oval Office

NY Times: Harsh C.I.A. Methods Cited in Top Qaeda Interrogations
"...C.I.A. interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as 'water boarding,' in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown."

Politics & The Budget:

NY Times Editorial: Tax Relief Charade

Media & Free speech:

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) - Disney and Mr. Moore

Iraq:

NY Times Editorial: The Abu Ghraib Spin
"The administration and its Republican allies appear to have settled on a way to deflect attention from the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib: accuse Democrats and the news media of overreacting, then pile all of the remaining responsibility onto officers in the battlefield, far away from President Bush and his political team. That cynical approach was on display yesterday morning in the second Abu Ghraib hearing in the Senate, a body that finally seemed to be assuming its responsibility for overseeing the executive branch after a year of silently watching the bungled Iraq occupation."

Salon.com - The Private Contractor/GOP Gravy Train
"From Blackwater to CACI, mercenary companies in Iraq have a warm and cozy relationship with the Republican politicians who are employing them."

Washington Post: Secret World of U.S. Interrogation
"Long History of Tactics in Overseas Prisons Is Coming to Light"


Politics & Media:

Adam Clymer: Lie, and the Voters Will Believe

Iraq:

Ray McGovern: Reinforcements to Vietnam? Oops, I Mean Iraq

Paul Krugman: Just Trust Us
"From the day his administration took office, its slogan has been 'just trust us.' No administration since Nixon has been so insistent that it has the right to operate without oversight or accountability, and no administration since Nixon has shown itself to be so little deserving of that trust. Out of a misplaced sense of patriotism, Congress has deferred to the administration's demands. Sooner or later, a moral catastrophe was inevitable."

Economy:

Robert Reich: The Mixed-Up Politics of the Deficit

Media & the Press:

AP: AP president proposes media lobby to fight government secrecy

Civil Liberities:

NY Times Editorial: Lawn vs. Demonstrators
"City Hall may want to declare Manhattan to be a no-free-speech zone for convention week, but critics have a right to gather in the same borough as the conventioneers they are protesting. Making a parade route available in Manhattan is not enough. The demonstrators have a right to a central rallying place in which they can speak and be heard. Depriving them of that would also present a far greater threat of spontaneous protests the police might not be able to control."

Iraq:

Seymour Hersh: CHAIN OF COMMAND: How the Department of Defense mishandled the disaster at Abu Ghraib

The Guardian (UK) - 'Cooks and drivers were working as interrogators'
"Many of the prisoners abused at the Abu Ghraib prison were innocent Iraqis picked up at random by US troops, and incarcerated by under-qualified intelligence officers, a former US interrogator from the notorious jail told the Guardian.
Torin Nelson, who served as a military intelligence officer at Guantánamo Bay before moving to Abu Ghraib as a private contractor last year, blamed the abuses on a failure of command in US military intelligence and an over-reliance on private firms. He alleged that those companies were so anxious to meet the demand for their services that they sent 'cooks and truck drivers' to work as interrogators."

Washington Post: Pentagon Approved Tougher Interrogations
"In April 2003, the Defense Department approved interrogation techniques for use at the Guantanamo Bay prison that permit reversing the normal sleep patterns of detainees and exposing them to heat, cold and 'sensory assault,' including loud music and bright lights, according to defense officials.
The classified list of about 20 techniques was approved at the highest levels of the Pentagon and the Justice Department, and represents the first publicly known documentation of an official policy permitting interrogators to use physically and psychologically stressful methods during questioning."

Latin America:

The Guardian (UK) - Colombian paramilitaries arrested in Venezuela
"Venezuelan police have arrested more than 70 Colombian paramilitary fighters who were allegedly plotting to strike against the government in Caracas, according to the country's president, Hugo Chávez."

The Environment & Politics:

LA Times: Utilities Have Helped Bush, GOP
"The 30 companies that own most of the dirtiest power plants in the country, and their trade association, have raised $6.6 million for President Bush and the Republican National Committee since 1999, and were given relief from pollution regulations that would have cost them billions of dollars, according to a new analysis."

NY Times Editorial: Killing Off Housing for the Poor
"The latest victim appears to be Section 8, the government's main housing program for the poor. The program provides rent subsidies for two million of the country's most vulnerable families and encourages private developers to build affordable housing."

America is horrified and confused by high petroleum prices. If we had done what other western democracies had done after the '73 OPEC embargo and encouraged the production of high-efficiency vehicles, this would be far less of an issue. The question of HOW you do this is obviously up for dabate. Direct taxes on energy worked in Europe. Loophole-ridden CAFE legislation in this country did NOT. Today, in the EU, almost half of the new passenger cars sold are diesels, which can burn biodiesel, a renewable resource. There, one can purchase cars that get between 40 and 80 mpg. Would people be irate over $2.15/gal. gas if we had invested energy taxes in public transit (a real job machine)? or if their car got 50 mpg already? We really only have our own politicians and the campaign finance system we tolerate to blame.



In his opinion piece Crisis of Confidence, David Brooks asserts: "It was U.S. inaction against Al Qaeda that got us into this mess in the first place. It was our tolerance of Arab autocracies that contributed to the madness in the Middle East."

Despite what Mr. Brooks wishes us to believe, it was US action of cooperation with, decades of subsidized armament of, and active military defense of Saudi Arabia that turned Bin Laden on the US in the early 1990's. The circumstances that have necessitated good relationships with Middle East dictators and monarchs are 1) US reliance on cheap Middle East petroleum as the 'irreplaceable' ingredient for US economic expansion and 2) US support of Israel. The extent to which the two are linked routinely fails to be a matter of national dialog.

The path of US reliance on Saudi oil was laid by FDR and Truman. It has been endorsed by every US President ever since, and the current administration continues to promote a fossil-fuel economy, despite the obvious foreign policy, military and fiscal problems it presents. The White House presents choosing a different energy path as undesirable for America, while this view only serves very narrow interests. This view is not truly representative of America's long-term interests as an energy-independent beacon of democracy and freedom. Perhaps if we were to be presented with the bill for our Middle East policy every time we purchase petroleum-based products, a greater sense of urgency would inform the debate about US energy policy objectives. Hiding these costs in the DoD budget is a deliberate impediment to such a discussion, as people react most strongly to daily pocketbook issues.

The NY Times: Europeans Like Bush Even Less Than Before:
"Europeans are in general more liberal than Americans, and among Europe's mainstream liberals, rejecting Mr. Bush is a matter of course. But a strange thing seems to have happened to many conservatives, who would ordinarily be the American president's cheerleaders. Even those who favor him seem loath to admit to wholehearted support, tempering their praise with caveats and qualifications....
...In France, [a] poll found, the president had an 85 percent negative rating; in Britain, 57 percent; in Germany 85 percent; and in Russia, 60 percent."

The NY Times: Morning-After-Pill Ruling Defies Norm:
"A top federal drug official said yesterday that he rejected not only the judgment of an advisory panel but also the recommendations of his own staff when he refused to allow a morning-after pill to be sold over the counter."

The NY Times: Shift on Salmon Reignites Fight on Species Law:
"The new plan, which officials have said is expected to be formally announced at the end of the month, closely follows the position that Mr. Rutzick advocated when he represented the timber industry."

AGAIN ?!? : Florida to Purge Felons From Voter Lists

Greg Palast: MUZZLING MICHAEL, MUZZLING ME:
"When the fattened cats at Disney put the kibosh on Michael Moore's new film, 'Fahrenheit 9-11,' they did more than censor an artist. Gagging Moore is only the latest maneuver in suppressing some most uncomfortable facts: the Bush Administration's killing off investigations of Saudi Arabian funding of terror including evidence involving a few members of the bin Laden family in the USA."

The Guardian (UK) - Powell aides go public on rift with Bush
"Chief of staff says secretary of state is fed up with apologising for the administration and is disdainful of 'ideological' hawks"

Steve Weissman: Thank God for the Torturers Part II

NY Times Editorial: Donald Rumsfeld Should Go

Paul Krugman: The Oil Crunch

The Guardian (UK) - Secret German GM crop trials revealed

NY Times: The Cost: White House Asks G.O.P. in Congress to Add $25 Billion

NY Times: F.A.A. Official Scrapped Tape of 9/11 Controllers' Statements

Washington Post: Senate Rebuffs Bush, Blocks New Rules on Overtime Pay

Steve Weissman: Thank God for the Torturers
"All hail America's global torture machine, in which Pvt. Lynndie England played her small part, finding creative and culturally powerful ways to humiliate and break Iraqi captives. We can only wonder what secrets her victims subsequently revealed. But even if what they told led to Saddam's capture, the information would hardly be worth the damage that getting it by torture has now done to the occupation of Iraq, the long-term security of Middle East oil supplies, and the hope for democratic reform anywhere - except perhaps in the United States."

Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Project on Government Secrecy:
Was Army Torture Report Classified to Protect the Guilty?

When free speech conflicts with corporate priorities: Disney Forbidding Distribution of Film That Criticizes Bush:
"The Walt Disney Company is blocking its Miramax division from distributing a new documentary by Michael Moore that harshly criticizes President Bush, executives at both Disney and Miramax said Tuesday. The film, 'Fahrenheit 911,' links Mr. Bush and prominent Saudis - including the family of Osama bin Laden - and criticizes Mr. Bush's actions before and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks."

Joseph Wilson: The Cult that's Running the Country

Dick Meyer: The Gall Of The Chickenhawks

NY Times: Contractors Implicated in Prison Abuse Remain on the Job

Paul Krugman: Battlefield of Dreams

BBC: Italy media boss quits in protest
"Ms Annunziata said she was stepping down in protest at appointments to the company board that she said amounted to an 'occupation'. A leading Rai journalist resigned last week, saying the corporation mainly reflected the views of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi - a media magnate."

CounterSpin, The Radio Show of Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting: Greg Nojeim on Bush & PATRIOT Act
"...the Bush administration is making yet another attempt to sell the public on the Patriot Act. This time around it was George W. Bush himself doing the selling. But did the news media fail to point out the inaccuracies and deception in Bush's pro-Patriot speeches? We'll put that question to Greg Nojeim of the ACLU."
Listen to the half-hour show at the link above (RealMedia or MP3).

Greg Palast: Vanishing Votes

Seymour Hersh: TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB

Michael Hann: What the US papers say
"the air of secrecy and silence surrounding the US media's treatment of George Bush's 'war on terror' "

Sunday Mail (UK) - 30 MORE TORTURE SCANDALS PROBED

NY Times: Cheney's Five Draft Deferments During the Vietnam Era Emerge as a Campaign Issue

KCRA: CA Secretary Of State Bans Electronic Voting

Maureen Dowd: Wolfie's Fuzzy Math