Observations on current events

What Always The Low Price Really Means:

Robert Reich: Don't Blame Wal-Mart
"...The fact is, today's economy offers us a Faustian bargain: it can give consumers deals largely because it hammers workers and communities.
We can blame big corporations, but we're mostly making this bargain with ourselves. The easier it is for us to get great deals, the stronger the downward pressure on wages and benefits. Last year, the real wages of hourly workers, who make up about 80 percent of the work force, actually dropped for the first time in more than a decade; hourly workers' health and pension benefits are in free fall. The easier it is for us to find better professional services, the harder professionals have to hustle to attract and keep clients. The more efficiently we can summon products from anywhere on the globe, the more stress we put on our own communities.
But you and I aren't just consumers. We're also workers and citizens. How do we strike the right balance? To claim that people shouldn't have access to Wal-Mart or to cut-rate airfares or services from India or to Internet shopping, because these somehow reduce their quality of life, is paternalistic tripe. No one is a better judge of what people want than they themselves..."


Transportation That Runs On What We'd Otherwise Throw Away:

NY Times: Renting a Green Car: French Fries, Anyone?
"Last October, Suzy Smith was looking for a rental car with good mileage for a weeklong vacation in Maui. She searched for 'rental cars on Maui' on Google and found Maui Bio-Beetle, a company that rents cars that run on biodiesel fuel. She didn't know what to expect from a vehicle that used fuel made solely from recycled vegetable oil, but decided to give it a chance.
'It was fun!' said Ms. Smith, who owns a conference-call business in Seattle. She ended up renting a Volkswagen Golf from Bio-Beetle for the week. 'The car had 'This vehicle powered by vegetable oil' written all over it, and people would stop and look and ask a million questions,' she said. 'Every now and again when we stopped at a stoplight, we'd get a whiff of something like burned French fries, but other than that it was like driving a regular car.'
Bio-Beetle is part of a growing trend in environmentally friendly rental cars and other forms of for-hire transportation. In several places across the nation, it is possible to rent - by the hour, the day or the week - hybrid gasoline-electric cars or cars that run on electricity, natural gas or, as in the case of Bio-Beetle's VW, vegetable oil.
Fueling the car, Ms. Smith found, proved to be fairly easy, with a Pacific Biodiesel station in a convenient location near Kahului Airport in Maui. And it was cheaper, too. 'When we refueled to go back to the airport, the price of biodiesel was quite a bit less,' Ms. Smith said, about $2.30 a gallon versus $2.69 on average for regular unleaded..."

Bush's Priorities: Fund The Military Component of the So-Called War on Terror While Screwing The Poor:

Molly Ivins: The $200 Million Disinformation Campaign
"Among those still interested in fiscal sanity, and that includes quite a few Republicans, I bring your attention to two tax cuts that should be repealed right now for the sound reason that they are perfectly nuts.
A whopping 54 percent of the two cuts goes to the two-tenths of one percent of Americans who make more than $1 million a year. And 97 percent of the cuts goes to the 4 percent of the population with incomes over $200,000. (All figures from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Joint Committee on Taxation.)
The two cuts were not part of President Bush's original tax-cut proposals, they were slipped in by Congress in 2001 and will be fully effective only in 2010. One repeals a provision that scales back the magnitude of itemized deductions taken by high-income taxpayers. The other repeals a provision under which the personal exemption is phased out for households with very high incomes.
The Joint Committee estimates that these two cut tax cuts will reduce the government's income by $9 billion in 2010 and $16 billion in 2015. The center points out that the cost of cuts is significantly understated because the estimates do not assume relief from the alternative minimum tax, a measure popular on Capitol Hill this year.
The center's report says, 'If these two tax cuts were to be cancelled ... Congress and the president could avert cuts in areas like health care, child care, housing assistance and food stamp assistance for low-income working families.'
It is a rather clear choice of moral values..."

Billions for HAL:

Reuters: Halliburton Wins in Iraq with $9.6 Billion and More
"Halliburton, under scrutiny for its contracts in Iraq, would receive an extra $1.5 billion as part of the Bush administration's additional war spending proposal for fiscal 2005, a senior US Army budget official said.
Halliburton, once led by Vice-President Dick Cheney, is the largest corporate contractor in Iraq and has drawn fire for its no-bid contracts there, with auditors charging its Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) unit overcharged for some work.
The Army's portion of a $81.9 billion supplemental spending package earmarked the extra funding for KBR under its LOGCAP (Logistics Civil Augmentation Programme) contract to provide a wide range of services to US troops in Iraq, the official said. The contract covers food and laundry services, trash collection, mail delivery and other support services.
If approved by Congress, that would bring the total spending under KBR's LOGCAP contract to about $6 billion in fiscal year 2005, about the same amount spent a year earlier, said the offical..."


The Envionment:

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility; More Than a Thousand Whistleblower Cases Dumped
"The U.S. Special Counsel has dismissed more than 1,000 whistleblower cases in the past year,according to a letter from the Bush-appointed Special Counsel released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The Special Counsel appears to have taken action in very few, if any, of these cases and has yet to represent a single whistleblower in an employment case.
In a letter dated February 14, 2005 and addressed to U.S. Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), Special Counsel Scott Bloch defends his stormy 13 months in office by pointing to a sharp drop in backlogged whistleblower cases.
'Everyone agrees that backlogs and delays are bad but they are not as bad as simply dumping the cases altogether,' stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that this letter is the first account that Bloch has released of his tenure and that his office's report for FY 2004, which ended in October, is overdue. 'If the Office of Special Counsel under Scott Bloch is not helping whistleblowers then there is no reason for the office to continue to exist,'..."

BushGreenwatch.org - Bush Team Readying Backdoor to Drill Arctic Refuge
"Having been thwarted repeatedly in its effort to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling for oil, the Bush Administration and its Congressional leadership have come up with a plan for a sneak attack on the issue.
Rather than holding a straightforward vote on the Senate floor, where strong public opposition halted drilling in the past few years, House and Senate members are quietly planning instead to attach the drilling measure to upcoming budget legislation, where it would be all but impossible to stop (budget bills are exempt from filibuster or extended debate)..."


Media and Holding Leaders to Account:

The Washington Post: Bush Gets Stoned by World Media
"President Bush all but admits to illicit drug use for the first time.
Overseas it's the stuff of headlines. At home, the U.S. press has generally downplayed the story.
The divergent coverage of Bush's apparent drug use is a textbook study in the difference between the international online media and their American counterparts. On the issue of youthful illicit drug use, most U.S. news editors - liberal, conservative or other - defer to Bush in a way that their foreign counterparts do not..."


Reporters Under Fire:

Reporters Without Borders: Two Murders and a Lie
"Reporters Without Borders called today for the reopening of the enquiry into who was really responsible for the US Army's 'criminal negligence' in shooting at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on 8 April 2003 and causing the death of two journalists - Ukrainian cameramen Taras Protsyuk (of Reuters news agency) and Spaniard José Couso (of the Spanish TV station Telecinco).
The call came in a report of the press freedom organisation's own in-depth investigation of the incident, which gathered evidence from journalists in the hotel at the time, from others 'embedded' with US Army units and from the US military soldiers and officers directly involved.
The report said US officials at first lied about what happened and then, in an official statement four months later, exonerated the US Army from any mistake or error of judgement. The report provides only some of the truth about the incident, which needs to be further investigated to establish exactly who was responsible..."


On Torture:

The Independent (UK) - I saw Americans kill terror suspects, says Guantanamo Briton
"One of the four Britons released from Guantanamo Bay last month said he was tortured by the Americans at a separate holding camp and spent many hours trussed like an animal with a bag over his head.
Moazzam Begg, 37, who was released by the Metropolitan Police without charge and reunited with his wife and four children after three years' imprisonment, also accuses his American captors of beating two detainees to death at the Bagram air base near Kabul in Afghanistan. In his first interview since his release, he told Channel 4 News he 'witnessed two people get beaten so badly I believe it caused their deaths,'..."

The Road to War:

Philippe Sands: How could attorney general support a weak argument


Bush's Politics of Distraction:

Paul Krugman: Wag-the-Dog Protection
"The campaign against Social Security is going so badly that longtime critics of President Bush, accustomed to seeing their efforts to point out flaws in administration initiatives brushed aside, are pinching themselves. But they shouldn't relax: if the past is any guide, the Bush administration will soon change the subject back to national security.
The political landscape today reminds me of the spring of 2002, after the big revelations of corporate fraud. Then as now, the administration was on the defensive, and Democrats expected to do well in midterm elections.
Then, suddenly, it was all Iraq, all the time, and Harken Energy and Halliburton vanished from the headlines.
I don't know which foreign threat the administration will start playing up this time, but Bush critics should be prepared for the shift. They must curb their natural inclination to focus almost exclusively on domestic issues, and challenge the administration on national security policy, too.
I say this even though many critics, myself included, would prefer to stick with the domestic issues. After all, domestic issues, particularly Social Security, are very comfortable ground for moderates and liberals. The relevant facts are all in the public domain, voters clearly oppose the administration's hard-right agenda, and Mr. Bush's attack on Social Security stumbled badly out of the gate. It's understandable, then, that critiques of the administration's national security policy have faded into the background in recent months..."

Robert Scheer: Of, by and for Big Business
"Watching the 109th Congress, one would be forgiven for thinking our Constitution was the blueprint for a government of Big Business, by Big Business and for Big Business. Forget the people - this is Robin Hood in reverse.
Here's the agenda, as laid out by the president and the Republicans who control Congress: First, limit people's power to right wrongs done to them by corporations. Next, force people to repay usurious loans to credit card companies that make gazillions off the fine print. Then, for the coup de grace, hand over history's most successful public safety net to Wall Street.
Of course, the GOP and the White House use slightly different language for this corporate-lobbyist trifecta: 'Tort reform,' 'eliminating abuse of bankruptcy' and 'keeping Social Security solvent' are the preferred Beltway phrasings for messing with the little guy..."


The White House Dreams Up More Ways To Give The Pentagon Control Of Foreign Policy:

Washington Post: Pentagon's Covert Operations Overseas Could Bypass Ambassadors
"The Pentagon is promoting a global counterterrorism plan that would allow Special Operations forces to enter a foreign country to conduct military operations without explicit concurrence from the U.S. ambassador there, administration officials familiar with the plan said.
The plan would weaken the long-standing 'chief of mission' authority under which the U.S. ambassador, as the president's top representative in a foreign country, decides whether to grant entry to U.S. government personnel based on political and diplomatic considerations.
The Special Operations missions envisioned in the plan would largely be secret, known to only a handful of officials from the foreign country, if any.
The change is included in a highly classified 'execute order' - part of a broad strategy developed since Sept. 11, 2001, to give the U.S. Special Operations Command new flexibility to track down and destroy terrorist networks worldwide, the officials said.
'This is a military order on a global scale, something that hasn't existed since World War II,' said a counterterrorism official with lengthy experience in special operations. He and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the proposal is classified.
The Pentagon sees the greater leeway as vital to enabling commando forces to launch operations quickly and stealthily against terrorist groups without often time-consuming interagency debate, said administration officials familiar with the plan. In the Pentagon view, the campaign against terrorism is a war and requires similar freedom to prosecute as in Iraq, where the military chain of command coordinates closely with the U.S. Embassy but is not subject to traditional chief-of-mission authority..."


North Korea:

Scott Ritter: Doomed to Fail: If America Keeps Marching, It Could Very Well Be in the Direction of a Nuclear Apocalypse


The Dollar:

Thomas Friedman: Honey, I Shrunk the Dollar
"I have just one question about President Bush's trip to Europe: Did he and Laura go shopping?
If they did, I would love to have been a fly on the wall when Laura must have said to George: 'George, do you remember how much these Belgian chocolates cost when we were here four years ago? This box of mints was $10. Now it's $15? What happened to the dollar, George? Why is the euro worth so much more now, honey? Didn't Rummy say Europe was old? If we didn't have Air Force One, we never could have afforded this trip on your salary!'
The dollar is falling! The dollar is falling! But the Bush team has basically told the world that unless the markets make the falling dollar into a full-blown New York Stock Exchange crisis and trade war, it is not going to raise taxes, cut spending or reduce oil consumption in ways that could really shrink our budget and trade deficits and reverse the dollar's slide.
This administration is content to let the dollar fall and bet that the global markets will glide the greenback lower in an 'orderly' manner.
Right. Ever talk to someone who trades currencies? 'Orderly' is not always in the playbook..."


How To Make An Extra Half-Million:

LA Times: Company's Work in Iraq Profited Bush's Uncle
"The Iraq war helped bring record earnings to St. Louis-based defense contractor Engineered Support Systems Inc., and new financial data show that the firm's war-related profits have trickled down to a familiar family name - Bush.
William H.T. 'Bucky' Bush, uncle of the president and youngest brother of former President George H.W. Bush, cashed in ESSI stock options last month with a net value of nearly half a million dollars.
'Uncle Bucky,' as he is known to the president, is on the board of the company, which supplies armor and other materials to U.S. troops. The company's stock prices have soared to record heights since before the invasion, benefiting in part from contracts to rapidly refit fleets of military vehicles with extra armor.
William Bush exercised options on 8,438 shares of company stock Jan. 18, according to reports filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He acknowledged in an interview that the transaction was worth about $450,000..."


Killing The Messenger:

Steve Weissman: How the U.S. Military Threatens Journalists
"Do American soldiers purposely kill journalists, as CNN's Eason Jordan supposedly said? Or, could the problem be even worse?"

Bush and the Politics of Fear:

Sidney Blumenthal: The Threat to Bush
"Fear made George W. Bush's presidency, gave him his 'mission' and allowed him to remain in office. Before Sept. 11, 2001, he had drifted to the lowest approval rating ever for a president after just eight months on the job. Throughout the 2004 campaign, Republicans hammered 'Sept. 11,' 'terrorism' and 'Saddam Hussein' like an anvil chorus. Bush's victory, carried by the theme of terrorism, was the smallest win of any second-term president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916, but he acts as if it is the moment of deliverance Republicans have awaited for three generations -- the chance to undo the unnatural world that has been built up since Herbert Hoover lost the White House. Bush's transference of fear from the war on terrorism to the war on the New Deal may not be confusing to him because he remains its conductor. Fear fostered his 'political capital.' Why should it fail him in his attempt to instill social insecurity against Social Security?...
...At his rallies, the crowds cheered his words against terrorism as though they were a nostalgic reenactment of his campaign and then fell into befuddled silence. His convoluted explanations on Social Security were so confusing that Bush confessed, 'Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red. OK, better? I'll keep working on it,'..."


Understanding What the White House Says:

Norman Solomon: What They Really Mean...
"...Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said to an audience at a university in Paris: 'It is time to turn away from the disagreements of the past. It is time to open a new chapter in our relationship and a new chapter in our alliance.'
What she actually meant: 'Stop complaining! We pulled off the invasion of Iraq, our troops are staying, and there's nothing you wimpy French people can do to stop us, so get over it already!'

Rice said: 'America stands ready to work with Europe on our common agenda, and Europe must stand ready to work with America.'
What she meant: 'Don't forget how France and Germany lost out on Iraqi oil deals and other booty after the invasion. Uncle Sam has plenty of big trains leaving stations all over the world. You want to ride or eat our dust?'

President George W. Bush said in a statement about the promotion of his favorite political strategist to deputy chief of staff at the White House: 'Karl Rove is a longtime adviser and trusted member of my team. His hard work and dedication have been invaluable.'
What he meant: 'If it wasn't for Karl, I'd never have been a governor, let alone president. This guy is so smart and mean he makes Lee Atwater and Roger Ailes seem like dumb saints. I haven't had this much fun since I was a kid blowing up frogs with firecrackers.'

Bush said: 'I appreciate Karl's willingness to continue to serve my administration in this new position.'
What Bush meant: 'I owe Karl big time. Thanks to him, my opportunism has triumphed with my administration's policies. No way do I want to lose him.'

President Bush marked Black History Month by welcoming some African-American leaders to the East Room of the White House. He declared: 'Success of freedom on the home front is critical to its success in foreign lands. As I said in my inaugural address, we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time.'
What he meant: 'Republicans need a better image on racial issues. If we can make our percentage of the black vote a little less pitiful, we'll have a better chance of keeping the Democrats out of power in Washington.'

Bush said: 'Americans were still barred by law from hotels and restaurants, made to drink from separate water fountains, forced to sit in the back of a bus - all because of the color of their skin. We need to teach them about the heroes of the civil rights movement, who by their courage and dignity forced America to confront the central defect of our founding.'
What he meant: 'Back in the '50s and '60s, a lot of the mentors of the right-wing politicians I'm now tight with were fighting against desegregation and vilifying the civil rights movement as a sinister force for judicial activism that threatened to undermine the sacred covenant of states' rights. Well, times have changed. Fortunately, the old power base of the Dixiecrats in Congress has been transformed into the country's most solid bedrock of Republican power. Blacks can use those water fountains, but we'll keep slashing social programs and skewing the tax structures so my rich pals can get richer while lots of people will stay near the bottom of the economic ladder. And I'm not just whistling Dixie,'."

Dr. James J. Zogby: Understanding the Speeches


For Bush, Only the Most Extreme Will Do:

LA Times: Bush Renominates 'Extremist Judges'
"President Bush on Monday renominated 20 candidates for federal judgeships, including several whose nominations had been blocked during the last term of Congress by Senate Democrats who branded them as right-wing ideologues.
The president's action, which made good on a promise announced by the White House in December to renominate those who had been blocked by filibusters or whose nominations had not been brought to the floor for a vote, precipitated a flurry of truculent responses from Democratic senators, as well as from environmental and civil liberties groups.
'The President is at it again with extremist judges,' said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). 'Last year, the Senate worked to confirm 204 of the president's judicial nominees and rejected only the 10 most extreme,'..."


The US, Negotiating With Terrorists?

I've always heard rhetoric that this is something the US *never* does...

Time: U.S. Holds Secret Talks with Iraqi Rebels
"The secret meeting is taking place in the bowels of a facility in Baghdad, a cavernous, heavily guarded building in the U.S.-controlled green zone. The Iraqi negotiator, a middle-aged former member of Saddam Hussein's regime and the senior representative of the self-described nationalist insurgency, sits on one side of the table. He is here to talk to two members of the U.S. military. One of them, an officer, takes notes during the meeting. The other, dressed in civilian clothes, listens as the Iraqi outlines a list of demands the U.S. must satisfy before the insurgents stop fighting. The parties trade boilerplate complaints: the U.S. officer presses the Iraqi for names of other insurgent leaders; the Iraqi says the newly elected Shi'a-dominated government is being controlled by Iran. The discussion does not go beyond generalities, but both sides know what's behind the coded language..."


Iraq:

Reuters: Iraq Occupation Was 'Wild West,' Says Ex-U.S. Official
"The U.S. occupation authority in Iraq had a chaotic, 'Wild West' approach to contracting there which opened up the system to abuse and waste, a former employee from the authority said Monday.
Ex-Coalition Provisional Authority official Franklin Willis cited examples of this 'chaos' at a hearing of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee and said he believed most abuse and waste could have been avoided.
Willis showed a picture of himself and other U.S. officials holding up plastic-wrapped 'bricks' of $100 bills worth $2 million to pay security contractor Custer Battles, which the Defense Department has since suspended due to billing issues.
'The Custer Battles case, which while anecdotal, reflects a general pattern of waste and inefficiencies which could have been avoided,' said Willis of contracting abuses in Iraq.
'In sum, inexperienced officials, fear of decision-making, lack of communications, minimal security, no banks and lots of money to spread around. This chaos I have referred to as a 'Wild West',' Willis, who was a senior aviation official for the CPA, told the hearing.
Democrats have called for a full congressional hearing on what they say is a pattern of contracting abuses in Iraq, from overcharging by lead contractor Halliburton to poor planning and mismanagement.
Audits last month by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction were particularly scathing over the CPA's handling of more than $20 billion of Iraq's own money and said lack of oversight opened up these funds to corruption..."


Oil For Food: The UN Was Not Alone:

Washington Post: U.S. Treasury's Role in Illicit Iraq Oil Sales Cited
"The Treasury Department provided assurances that the United States would not obstruct two companies' plans to import millions of barrels of oil from Iraq in March 2003 in violation of U.N. sanctions, according to an e-mail from one of the companies.
Diplomats and oil brokers have recently said that the United States had long turned a blind eye to illicit shipments of Iraqi oil by its allies Jordan and Turkey. The United States acknowledged this week that it had acquiesced in the trade to ensure that crucial allies would not suffer economic hardships.
But the e-mail, along with others released this week by Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Governmental Affairs panel's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, provides evidence that the Bush administration directly abetted Jordan's efforts to build up its strategic reserves with smuggled Iraqi oil in the weeks before the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003..."


Lebanon:

Robert Fisk: The Killing of 'Mr. Lebanon'


Civil Liberties Under Attack:

Marjorie Cohn: First They Came for Lynne Stewart
"Now they're coming for the lawyers, and we must all speak out.
Last Thursday, after 13 days of deliberations, prominent New York civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart was convicted of conspiracy, providing material support to terrorists, and defrauding the United States government. Her 7-month trial was held in the same federal courthouse where the Rosenbergs were tried for conspiracy to commit espionage more than 50 years ago. Stewart faces between 35 and 45 years in prison.
Stewart was indicted in March 2002. The indictment was based on governmental monitoring of conversations between Stewart and her client, Shiek Omar Abdel Rahman, which occurred two and a half years before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Rahman is serving a life plus 65-year sentence for conspiring to bomb several New York City landmarks and soliciting crimes of violence against the U.S. military and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Beginning in 1997, the Bureau of Prisons, at the direction of the Attorney General, imposed special administrative measures (SAMs) on Rahman, limiting his access to the mail, the media, the telephone and visitors.
Stewart was obliged to sign an affirmation agreeing to be bound by the SAMs, before being allowed to see her client. She agreed 'only to be accompanied by translators for the purpose of communicating with inmate Abdel Rahman concerning legal matters' and not to 'use my meetings, correspondence, or phone calls with Abdel Rahman to pass messages between third parties (including, but not limited to, the media) and Abdel Rahman.'
The government charged that Stewart allowed the Arabic translator to read letters to Rahman regarding Islamic Group matters, and to conduct a discussion with Rahman regarding whether Islamic Group should continue to comply with a cease-fire in Egypt. It also alleged that Stewart concealed those discussions from prison guards, and announced to the media that Rahman had withdrawn his support for the cease-fire, in violation of the SAMs..."


The Environment:

LA Times: Over 200 U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings
"More than 200 scientists employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they have been directed to alter official findings to lessen protections for plants and animals, a survey released Wednesday says.
The survey of the agency's scientific staff of 1,400 had a 30% response rate and was conducted jointly by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
A division of the Department of the Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service is charged with determining which animals and plants should be placed on the endangered species list and designating areas where such species need to be protected.
More than half of the biologists and other researchers who responded to the survey said they knew of cases in which commercial interests, including timber, grazing, development and energy companies, had applied political pressure to reverse scientific conclusions deemed harmful to their business..."

Mr. Rich Hits The Nail On The Head

Frank Rich: When the Real News Debunks Fake News

On The Negroponte Nomination:

Ray McGovern: Negroponte Will Fit Right In
"...The liberties that Gonzales, Chertoff, and Negroponte have taken with human rights are warning signs enough. The increased power that will be Negroponte's under the recent intelligence reform legislation makes the situation still more worrisome.
How many times have we heard the plaintive plea for better sharing of information among the various intelligence agencies? It is important to understand that the culprit there is a failure of leadership, not a structural fault..."


The Rule of Law, Adjusted To Favor Corporate Criminals:

Greg Palast: Bush Tort Reform - Executive Clemency For Executive Killers
"President Bush minutes ago signed the ill-named 'tort reform' bill into law, limiting class action suits. Doubtless, Ken Lay, former Enron CEO, is grinning as are the corporate suite killers at drug maker Merck who are now safer from the widows and orphans of Vioxx victims.
Closing the doors of justice to the ruined and wrecked families of boardroom bad guys is nothing less than executive clemency for executive executioners..."


Mr. Bush, Hypocritical In The So-Called War on Drugs

BBC: Bush hinted at use of marijuana
"Mr Bush said that his refusal to answer questions about illegal drugs might cost him the 2000 election.
The conversations were secretly taped by a former aide to Mr Bush's father who has now released part of them.
The White House has not disputed the authenticity of the tapes but spokesmen refused to comment on the contents..."


On Social Security:

Paul Krugman: Three-Card Maestro
"Alan Greenspan just did it again.
Four years ago, the Fed chairman lent crucial political support to the Bush tax cuts. He didn't specifically endorse the administration's plan, and if you read his testimony carefully, it contained caveats and cautions. But that didn't matter; the headlines trumpeted Mr. Greenspan's support, and legislation whose prospects had previously seemed dubious sailed through Congress.
On Wednesday Mr. Greenspan endorsed Social Security privatization. But there's a difference between 2001 and 2005. In 2001, Mr. Greenspan offered a convoluted, implausible justification for supporting everything the Bush administration wanted. This time, he offered no justification at all.
In 2001, some readers may recall, Mr. Greenspan argued that we needed to cut taxes to prevent the federal government from running excessively large surpluses. Even at the time it seemed obvious from his tortured logic that he was looking for some excuse, any excuse, to help out a Republican administration. His lack of sincerity was confirmed when projected surpluses turned into large deficits, and he nonetheless supported even more tax cuts.
This week, Mr. Greenspan offered no excuse for supporting privatization. In fact, he agreed with two of the main critiques of the administration's plan: that it would do nothing to improve the Social Security system's finances, and that it would lead to a dangerous increase in debt..."


The Environment:

NRDC: EPA Broke Law Making Secret Deals with Industry
"The Environmental Protection Agency is illegally negotiating secret agreements with industry lobbyists over pesticide regulation, according to a lawsuit filed today by [the Natural Resources Defense Council]. The lawsuit specifically cites private agreements between the agency and chemical companies over the regulation of atrazine, one of the most heavily used weed-killers in the country, and DDVP, a highly toxic insecticide. NRDC contends the agreements have undermined public health safeguards by failing to restrict the use of these dangerous chemicals...
...According to government records obtained by NRDC through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, EPA officials met secretly more than 40 times with representatives from atrazine's main manufacturer, Syngenta, while the agency was evaluating the weed-killer's toxicity. Ultimately the agency agreed to allow atrazine to stay on the market even though the chemical has contaminated drinking water sources across the country.
(See January 2004 NRDC backgrounder for more information.) The EPA also has been involved in private negotiations with the chemical company Amvac over the status of the insecticide DDVP (dichlorvos), which it sells under a number of trade names, including 'No-Pest Strips.' These negotiations violate EPA's regulations and federal law, specifically the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, and the Freedom of Information Act, according to NRDC's lawsuit..."

On Torture:

Let's recall that Rumsfeld offered his resignation to Bush, twice, when this scandal broke, and that Bush rejected it both times.

ACLU: Detainee Coerced Into Dropping Charges of Abuse Before Release
"The American Civil Liberties Union today released files obtained from the Army revealing previously undisclosed allegations of abuse by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the documents are reports that a detainee who was beaten and seriously injured was forced to drop his claims in order to be released from custody.
'The torture of detainees is too widespread and systemic to be dismissed as the rogue actions of a few misguided individuals,' said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. 'The American public deserves to know which high-level government officials are ultimately responsible for the torture conducted in our name,'..."


Is Negroponte the Kind of Man the 9/11 Commission Had In Mind?

Why is a man with diplomatic, rather than intelligence experience being proposed for this post?
Will the Congress again overlook the man's dubious past involvement with human rights abuses?

Democracy Now! - Promoting the 'Ambassador of Torture': Bush Nominates Negroponte for Intel Czar
"Peter Kornbluh: 'Battalion 316 was the Honduran military special forces elite unit. It certainly became a death squad, contrary to what Negroponte said. He must have been well aware that the C.I.A. was working extremely closely with this particular unit, and the U.S. special forces were providing extraordinary aid to this particular unit. The Human Rights Ombudsman in Honduras, Leo Valladares, did a major investigation of the atrocities of this unit and concluded it was mostly responsible for the murders of up to 184 people, one of them an American priest working in Honduras, Father Carney. And the C.I.A. worked very closely with this unit, both to fight the left in Honduras, and to sustain the Contra war. I should say that we have many declassified documents from the Iran-Contra scandal, which do show Negroponte's kind of odd role. He stepped out of being U.S. Ambassador and kind of put on the hat of a C.I.A. station chief in pushing for the Contras to get more arms, in lobbying and meeting with very high Honduran officials to facilitate U.S. support for the Contras and Honduran cooperation, even after the U.S. Congress terminated official support for the Contra war,'...
...John Negroponte misled the Senate in his confirmation hearings about his knowledge of Battalion 316 about his knowledge of death squad activity. The C.I.A. did report to him on various atrocities that took place. There is some evidence in partially declassified C.I.A. Inspector General's report about the Battalion and its atrocities and about the reporting out of the embassy by both the C.I.A. officers and diplomatic attaches there that seems to imply that Negroponte preferred not to see honest, hard reporting going back to Washington on atrocities being committed by our very strong allies in Honduras. People have to remember, and certainly your listeners remember better than anybody, that they - your audience and many others in this country - made Reagan's policy in Central America controversial and managed to get Congress - push Congress to cut off aid to the Contras. So, any negative reporting on our main allies' activities in Honduras would have given further ammunition to the critics of Negroponte's policies, Reagan's policies, et cetera. That's why there are strong indications that he squashed this reporting. He certainly was critical to the Contra war effort. What he had told the sister about not interfering in Honduran affairs is quite frankly laughable, because he was named essentially the Proconsul. He essentially was a fallback to the age of gunboat diplomacy when the U.S. Ambassador ran a Central American country. In the early 1980's, he was in that position in Honduras. I'm holding a declassified White House document which is from 1983, and it's a memo to the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. It begins, 'Ambassador Negroponte, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, has recommended that we increase the number of weapons issued to the F.D.N. forces.' The F.D.N., of course, was the leading contra force and the one most strongly associated with massive human rights violations of civilians in Nicaragua. And in his memo, Negroponte has apparently recommended that the United States send 3,000 additional rifles to the F.D.N. forces, and his recommendation is approved by the President. There are two little R.R.'s, Ronald Reagan, and a yes box under the recommendation in his options memo. So, you get a sense from these declassified records of how important Negroponte was and the type of odd role he played, stepping out of his position as ambassador, a diplomat, and essentially putting on the hat of the C.I.A. station chief and pushing forward the Contra war..."


Energy Policy:

NY Times:Global Warming: The Danger of Tilting at Windmills

The question, of course, is if we'd rather have unsightly windmills near our homes or 'out-of-sight-out-of-mind' production of energy resources in places ruled by despots and the hyprocritical foreign policy that is necessitated by our reliance on them? The logic of those who'd rather choose the latter is beyond me.

"...Greenpeace has backed many installations, but neighbors of proposed wind farms have joined with local chapters of other big conservation groups to fight the huge windmills on environmental grounds, chiefly arguing that they'll destroy the scenic beauty of their areas. In truth, part of me doesn't want to gaze out from the summit of Peaked Mountain and see an industrial project in the distance..."

For Bush, More Nukes Are The Answer:

Salt Lake Tribune: Energy secretary pushes to ramp up U.S. ability to test nuke bombs
"Although scientists continue work on simulating nuclear bomb tests by computer, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Tuesday that the Nevada Test Site's ability to resume actual underground warhead detonations must be enhanced.
The Bush administration's commitment to step up preparations for a potential resumption of nuclear bomb testing in southern Nevada comes less than a week after the Utah Senate unanimously approved a House-passed resolution that urged the federal government not to 'return to the mistakes and miscalculations of the past which have marred many Utahns' and that would create 'a new generation of downwinders.'
Thousands of Utah residents downwind of the Nevada proving ground blame atomic-bomb testing - which began in the 1950s and ended with a 1992 moratorium - for an airborne scourge of disease and death due to radioactive fallout..."


Energy Policy:

Ray McGovern: We Need the Oil, Right? So What's the Problem?

Financial Times: Bush, Iraq and the Hydrogen Economy

For Bush, the hydrogen economy is a nuclear economy. It boggles the mind how some people can refer to nukes as 'renewable energy' or as 'clean.'

NY Times: U.S. Redesigning Atomic Weapons
"Worried that the nation's aging nuclear arsenal is increasingly fragile, American scientists have begun designing a new generation of nuclear arms meant to be sturdier and more reliable and to have longer lives, federal officials and private experts say.
The officials say the program could help shrink the arsenal and the high cost of its maintenance. But critics say it could needlessly resuscitate the complex of factories and laboratories that make nuclear weapons and could possibly ignite a new arms race.
So far, the quiet effort involves only $9 million for warhead designers at the nation's three nuclear weapon laboratories, Los Alamos, Livermore and Sandia. Federal bomb experts at these heavily guarded facilities are now scrutinizing secret arms data gathered over a half century for clues about how to achieve the new reliability goals.
The relatively small initial program, involving fewer than 100 people, is expected to grow and produce finished designs in the next 5 to 10 years, culminating, if approval is sought and won, in prototype warheads. Most important, officials say, the effort marks a fundamental shift in design philosophy..."

NY Times: Electricity Prices Likely to Soar
"The Bush administration called Monday for a major change in the way federal power suppliers charge their customers - basing rates on market prices at the time rather than the cost of producing the electricity.
Western lawmakers from both parties vowed to block the proposal, which they said could raise electric power rates in the Pacific Northwest by as much as 20 percent.
Besides the Portland, Ore.-based Bonneville Power Administration, which supplies power to four states in the Pacific Northwest, the plan also would affect three other regional agencies that supply power to dozens of states: the Colorado-based Western Area Power Administration; Georgia-based Southeastern Power Administration; and Oklahoma-based Southwestern Power Administration.
Overall, the plan could save up to $12 billion over 10 years by removing subsidies and other federal assistance, officials said..."

The Bush's Budget Priorities:

NY Times Editorial: The Importance of Being Earnest
"For all its talk of deficit reduction, President Bush's 2006 budget is a map of reckless economic policies and shows how they have backed the United States into a precarious position in the global financial markets.
Mr. Bush needs to convince foreign investors that he's serious about cutting the budget deficit. Here's why: Each day, the United States must borrow billions of dollars from abroad to finance its enormous budget and trade deficits. Without a steady stream of huge loans, the country would face rising interest rates, higher inflation, a dropping dollar and slower economic growth. The lenders want to see less of a gap between what the government collects in taxes and what it spends, because a lower budget deficit always eases a trade deficit...
...It's not hard to see what brought the United States to this juncture. Mr. Bush's first-term tax cuts were too expensive and too skewed toward top earners to work as effective, self-correcting economic stimulus. Instead, predictably, they've driven the nation deep into the red. Having reduced tax revenue to a share of the economy not seen since 1959, the cuts are a huge factor in the swing from a budget surplus to a $412 billion deficit.
The administration also erred big in deciding to deal with the ballooning trade imbalance by letting the dollar slide. That might have been a winning gambit if it had been paired with a commitment to cut the deficit. Theoretically, a weakening dollar would have begun the process of easing the trade imbalance, while deficit reduction, which takes longer to bring about, would have addressed the gap in a more lasting way. Instead, Mr. Bush has unceasingly pursued deficit-financed tax cuts, even as the weak dollar has failed to fix the trade imbalance. The result is that the country's deficits - and borrowing needs - remain enormous even as dollar-based investments are becoming less attractive.
Lately, Mr. Bush has been talking the deficit reduction talk, but there's no sign that he is willing to walk the walk. In his 2006 budget, he pledges to slash spending, but largely in areas that would have only a small impact on the deficit and where cuts would be politically difficult, not to mention cruel, such as food stamps, veterans' medical care, child care and low-income housing. Meanwhile, he is pounding the table for more deficit-bloating measures - making his first-term tax cuts permanent, at a 10-year cost of as much as $2.1 trillion; putting into effect two high-income tax breaks that were enacted in 2001 but have been on hold, at a 10-year cost of $115 billion; and introducing new tax incentives to allow high earners to shift even more cash into tax shelters, at a cost that would ultimately work out to more than $30 billion a year when investors cashed in their accounts tax-free...
...Congress can avert this crisis-in-waiting by forcing Mr. Bush to be serious about deficit reduction. The first-term tax cuts should be allowed to lapse. Cuts that are not yet in effect should not be allowed to begin. And no new programs should be started that require megaborrowing. If the president doesn't see that he has more important tasks than cutting taxes for the rich and undermining Social Security, Congress should set him straight."


Bush's More-Of-The-Same Energy Policy:

Thomas Friedman: No Mullah Left Behind
"...the Bush energy policy is: 'No Mullah Left Behind.'
By adamantly refusing to do anything to improve energy conservation in America, or to phase in a $1-a-gallon gasoline tax on American drivers, or to demand increased mileage from Detroit's automakers, or to develop a crash program for renewable sources of energy, the Bush team is - as others have noted - financing both sides of the war on terrorism. We are financing the U.S. armed forces with our tax dollars, and, through our profligate use of energy, we are generating huge windfall profits for Saudi Arabia, Iran and Sudan, where the cash is used to insulate the regimes from any pressure to open up their economies, liberate their women or modernize their schools, and where it ends up instead financing madrassas, mosques and militants fundamentally opposed to the progressive, pluralistic agenda America is trying to promote. Now how smart is that?
The neocon strategy may have been necessary to trigger reform in Iraq and the wider Arab world, but it will not be sufficient unless it is followed up by what I call a 'geo-green' strategy.
As a geo-green, I believe that combining environmentalism and geopolitics is the most moral and realistic strategy the U.S. could pursue today. Imagine if President Bush used his bully pulpit and political capital to focus the nation on sharply lowering energy consumption and embracing a gasoline tax.
What would that buy? It would buy reform in some of the worst regimes in the world, from Tehran to Moscow. It would reduce the chances that the U.S. and China are going to have a global struggle over oil - which is where we are heading...
...President Bush has a better project: borrowing another trillion dollars, which will make us that much more dependent on countries like China and Saudi Arabia that hold our debt - so that you might, if you do everything right and live long enough, get a few more bucks out of your Social Security account. The president's priorities are totally nuts."


Iraq:

The Independent (UK) - Pentagon covers up failure to train and recruit local security forces
"...Training of Iraq's security forces, crucial to any exit strategy for Britain and the US, is going so badly that the Pentagon has stopped giving figures for the number of combat-ready indigenous troops, The Independent on Sunday has learned.
Instead, only figures for troops 'on hand' are issued. The small number of soldiers, national guardsmen and police capable of operating against the country's bloody insurgency is concealed in an overall total of Iraqis in uniform, which includes raw recruits and police who have gone on duty after as little as three weeks' training. In some cases they have no weapons, body armour or even documents to show they are in the police.
The resulting confusion over numbers has allowed the US administration to claim that it is half-way to meeting the target of training almost 270,000 Iraqi forces, including around 52,000 troops and 135,000 Iraqi policemen. The reality, according to experts, is that there may be as few as 5,000 troops who could be considered combat ready.
The gap between troops 'on hand' and the overall target for fully trained and equipped security forces has actually widened in recent months, according to John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington- based think-tank. Between October and November last year, just before the Pentagon quietly stopped giving figures for fully trained troops, the shortfall more than doubled, from 69,400 to 159,000. At current levels, the targets would not be met until next year..."

Naomi Klein: Getting the Purple Finger
"...The election results are in: Iraqis voted overwhelmingly to throw out the US-installed government of Iyad Allawi, who refused to ask the United States to leave. A decisive majority voted for the United Iraqi Alliance; the second plank in the UIA platform calls for 'a timetable for the withdrawal of the multinational forces from Iraq.'
There are more single-digit messages embedded in the winning coalition's platform. Some highlights: 'Adopting a social security system under which the state guarantees a job for every fit Iraqi...and offers facilities to citizens to build homes.' The UIA also pledges 'to write off Iraq's debts, cancel reparations and use the oil wealth for economic development projects.' In short, Iraqis voted to repudiate the radical free-market policies imposed by former chief US envoy Paul Bremer and locked in by a recent agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
So will the people who got all choked up watching Iraqis flock to the polls support these democratically chosen demands? Please. 'You don't set timetables,' George W. Bush said four days after Iraqis voted for exactly that. Likewise, British Prime Minister Tony Blair called the elections 'magnificent' but dismissed a firm timetable out of hand. The UIA's pledges to expand the public sector, keep the oil and drop the debt will likely suffer similar fates. At least if Adel Abd al-Mahdi gets his way--he's Iraq's finance minister and the man suddenly being touted as leader of Iraq's next government.
Al-Mahdi is the Bush Administration's Trojan horse in the UIA. (You didn't think they were going to put all their money on Allawi, did you?) In October he told a gathering of the American Enterprise Institute that he planned to 'restructure and privatize [Iraq's] state-owned enterprises,' and in December he made another trip to Washington to unveil plans for a new oil law 'very promising to the American investors.' It was al-Mahdi himself who oversaw the signing of a flurry of deals with Shell, BP and ChevronTexaco in the weeks before the elections, and it is he who negotiated the recent austerity deal with the IMF. On troop withdrawal, al-Mahdi sounds nothing like his party's platform and instead appears to be channeling Dick Cheney on Fox News: 'When the Americans go will depend on when our own forces are ready and on how the resistance responds after the elections.' But on Sharia law, we are told, he is very close to the clerics..."


Iran Is Next, Of Course:

Washington Post: U.S. Uses Drones to Probe Iran for Arms
"The Bush administration has been flying surveillance drones over Iran for nearly a year to seek evidence of nuclear weapons programs and detect weaknesses in air defenses, according to three U.S. officials with detailed knowledge of the secret effort.
The small, pilotless planes, penetrating Iranian airspace from U.S. military facilities in Iraq, use radar, video, still photography and air filters designed to pick up traces of nuclear activity to gather information that is not accessible by satellites, the officials said. The aerial espionage is standard in military preparations for an eventual air attack and is also employed as a tool for intimidation.
The Iranian government, using Swiss channels in the absence of diplomatic relations with Washington, formally protested the incursions as illegal, according to Iranian, European and U.S. officials, all speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
A U.S. official acknowledged that drones were being used but said the Iranian complaint focused on aircraft overflights by the Pentagon. The United States, the official said, replied with a denial that manned U.S. aircraft had crossed Iran's borders. The drones were first spotted by dozens of Iranian civilians and set off a national newspaper frenzy in late December over whether the country was being visited by UFOs.
The surveillance has been conducted as the Bush administration sharpens its anti-Iran rhetoric and the U.S. intelligence community searches for information to support President Bush's assertion that Tehran is trying to build nuclear weapons.
The Washington Post reported Saturday that the intelligence community is conducting a broad review of its Iran assessments, including a new look at information about the country's nuclear program, according to administration officials and congressional sources. A similar review, called a National Intelligence Estimate, formed an important part of the administration's case for war against Iraq..."

L.A.Times: C.I.A. Operation in Iran Failed When Spies Were Exposed
"Dozens of CIA informants in Iran were executed or imprisoned in the late 1980s or early 1990s after their secret communications with the agency were uncovered by the government, according to former CIA officials who discussed the episode after aspects of it were disclosed during a recent congressional hearing.
As many as 50 Iranian citizens on the CIA's payroll were 'rolled up' in the failed operation, said the former officials, who described the events as a major setback in spying on a regime that remains one of the most difficult targets for U.S. intelligence.
The disclosures underscore the stakes confronting the CIA and its informants as the United States is under pressure to produce better intelligence on Iran and especially its nuclear activities. The Bush administration has indicated that preventing Iran from obtaining an atomic weapon will be a priority of the president's second term.
Like Iraq before the U.S. invasion in 2003, Iran is regarded as a 'denied' territory by U.S. intelligence, meaning that the CIA has no official station inside the country and is largely dependent on recruiting sources outside the Islamic Republic's borders.
Details of the setback were first outlined Feb. 2 by former Pentagon advisor Richard N. Perle in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. During a hearing on security threats, Perle was critical of U.S. intelligence capabilities and cited the crackdown on American sources in Iran as an example of the failures that have beset U.S. espionage in the Mideast.
Perle referred to the 'terrible setback that we suffered in Iran a few years ago when in a display of unbelievable, careless management we put pressure on agents operating in Iran to report with greater frequency and didn't provide improved communications.'
When the CIA's sources stepped up their reporting, 'the Iranian intelligence authorities quickly saw the surge in traffic and, as I understand it, virtually our entire network in Iran was wiped out.'
Former CIA officials familiar with the matter confirmed portions of Perle's account and provided additional details. But they said the incident occurred in the late 1980s or early 1990s, not 'a few years ago,' as Perle suggested, and that it was not clear that the informants were exposed because of any pressure from the agency to file reports more frequently.
The CIA declined to comment, but a U.S. intelligence official rejected Perle's criticism of the agency's record in the Mideast as ill-informed and outdated..."


Torture and the So-Called War On Terror:

NY Times: C.I.A. Interrogator's Defense to Cite Bush at Brutality Trial
"A contract interrogator for the Central Intelligence Agency, charged with beating an Afghan prisoner who died the next day, is basing his defense in part on statements by President Bush and other officials that called for tough action to prevent terrorist attacks and protect American lives.
Documents unsealed this week in federal court in Raleigh, N.C., show that the interrogator, David A. Passaro, 38, may cite top officials' written legal justifications for harsh interrogation techniques and a Congressional resolution passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon calling on the president 'to use all necessary and appropriate force' to thwart further terrorism.
Mr. Passaro's lawyers contend in court filings that in passing the legislation under which their client is charged, Congress 'cannot have contemplated' the use of the law to 'provide grounds for criminal prosecution of a battlefield interrogation of a suspected terrorist linked to constant rocket attacks.'
Thomas P. McNamara, Mr. Passaro's lead defense lawyer, has officially notified the government that he will pursue a 'public authority defense.' Such a defense involves a claim that the defendant believed, even if incorrectly, that he was acting with the authority and approval of the government..."

The Right to Legal Counsel:

Democracy Now! - Convicted Attorney Lynne Stewart: "You Can't Lock Up the Lawyers"
"Civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart was convicted on all five counts of conspiring to aid terrorists and lying to the government Thursday in a case that reverberated with defense lawyers around the country.
Stewart was convicted of smuggling out messages from her jailed client - Shiekh Omar Abdel Rahman also known as the blind sheikh who is serving a life sentence on terror-related charges. Most notably Stewart was convicted of helping Rahman contact followers in Egypt with messages that could have ended a cease-fire there and ignited violence. She faces up to 35 years in prison.
Stewart's co-defendants Ahmed Sattar, a postal worker who acted as a paralegal for Abdel-Rahman, and Mohammed Yousry, an Arabic translator, were also convicted of all charges against them.
The verdict was a major victory for the Justice Department and one of the country's most closely-watched cases since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Stewart's indictment in April 2002 was personally announced by Attorney General John Ashcroft. It was the first time that the federal government has prosecuted a defense attorney in a terrorism case. Lawyers around the country fear the government's aim is to discourage them from representing unpopular clients... "


Twisting the Numbers, Or Simply Not Being Honest:

NY Times Editorial: When Math Is Worse Than Fuzzy
"Whenever the Bush administration wants to sell a costly new program, look carefully before you accept any numbers it puts out. The math isn't just fuzzy, as the current euphemism would have it - it is often downright misleading, and deliberately so.
The latest example is the newly acknowledged cost of the Medicare prescription drug bill, which the administration bulled through Congress in late 2003 over the objections of conservatives who railed that the price tag would be too high. The number that had deficit hawks choking then was a projection that the drug benefit would cost $400 billion over 10 years, from 2004 through 2013. The administration already had an internal estimate that the cost would exceed $500 billion for that period. But it made sure to suppress that figure as it strong-armed Republicans who had already approved irresponsible tax cuts and an expensive war in Iraq, whose true costs were also being hidden.
Now it turns out that the earlier discrepancy was small beer compared with the latest upsurge in the projected 10-year cost of the drug benefit..."

Paul Krugman: Bush's Class-War Budget
"It may sound shrill to describe President Bush as someone who takes food from the mouths of babes and gives the proceeds to his millionaire friends. Yet his latest budget proposal is top-down class warfare in action. And it offers the Democrats an opportunity, if they're willing to take it.
First, the facts: the budget proposal really does take food from the mouths of babes. One of the proposed spending cuts would make it harder for working families with children to receive food stamps, terminating aid for about 300,000 people. Another would deny child care assistance to about 300,000 children, again in low-income working families.
And the budget really does shower largesse on millionaires even as it punishes the needy. For example, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities informs us that even as the administration demands spending cuts, it will proceed with the phaseout of two little-known tax provisions - originally put in place under the first President George Bush - that limit deductions and exemptions for high-income households.
More than half of the benefits from this backdoor tax cut would go to people with incomes of more than a million dollars; 97 percent would go to people with incomes exceeding $200,000.
It so happens that the number of taxpayers with more than $1 million in annual income is about the same as the number of people who would have their food stamps cut off under the Bush proposal. But it costs a lot more to give a millionaire a break than to put food on a low-income family's table: eliminating limits on deductions and exemptions would give taxpayers with incomes over $1 million an average tax cut of more than $19,000.
It's like that all the way through. On one side, the budget calls for program cuts that are small change compared with the budget deficit, yet will harm hundreds of thousands of the most vulnerable Americans. On the other side, it calls for making tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, and for new tax breaks for the affluent in the form of tax-sheltered accounts and more liberal rules for deductions..."


Bush Had Other Priorities, Despite Being Warned From The Beginning:

The National Security Archive: Bush Administration's First Memo on al-Qaeda Declassified
"The National Security Archive today posted the widely-debated, but previously unavailable, January 25, 2001, memo from counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke to national security advisor Condoleezza Rice - the first terrorism strategy paper of the Bush administration. The document was central to debates in the 9/11 hearings over the Bush administration's policies and actions on terrorism before September 11, 2001. Clarke's memo requests an immediate meeting of the National Security Council's Principals Committee to discuss broad strategies for combating al-Qaeda by giving counterterrorism aid to the Northern Alliance and Uzbekistan, expanding the counterterrorism budget and responding to the U.S.S. Cole attack. Despite Clarke's request, there was no Principals Committee meeting on al-Qaeda until September 4, 2001..."


Who Commits Terror, And What Sort of Response Is Terror?

Boulder Weekly: The man in the maelstrom - Ward Churchill speaks out on his controversial essay, the media frenzy and what the U.S. can do if it really wants to halt terrorism


Wal-Mart Would Rather Close a Store Than Tolerate a Union Shop:

AP: As Union Nears Win, Wal-Mart Closes Store
"Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says it will close one of its Canadian stores, just as some 200 workers at the location are near winning the first-ever union contract from the world's largest retailer.
Wal-Mart said it was shuttering the store in Jonquiere, Quebec, in response to unreasonable demands from union negotiators that would make it impossible for the store to sustain itself.
'We were hoping it wouldn't come to this,' Andrew Pelletier, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Canada, said Wednesday. 'Despite nine days of meetings over three months, we've been unable to reach an agreement with the union that in our view will allow the store to operate efficiently and profitably,'..."


GOP Contempt For The Media 'Filter' Leads To Dubious Tactics In Creating 'News'

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: White House queried on media policy
"In a letter to President Bush yesterday, Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., called for an explanation of how a Talon News reporter who used the pseudonym 'Jeff Gannon' was admitted to White House briefings.
Gannon resigned late Tuesday amid a flurry of accusations about his professional credentials and links to the Republican Party and could not be reached for comment.
'It appears that 'Mr. Gannon's' presence in the White House press corps was merely as a tool of propaganda for your administration,' wrote Slaughter, a senior member of the House Rules Committee who has been active in media fairness and ownership issues.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said he had not seen the letter from Slaughter, but dismissed her suggestion that Gannon was allowed into White House news briefings to help promote Bush's political agenda..."


The Right to Privacy, And The Quiet Corporate/State Trampling Thereof:

Democracy Now! - No Place to Hide: Our Emerging Surveillance Society (interview)
Robert O'Harrow: "Well, the way this works is that as we go through our lives, we leave more and more -- we're like comets in a way, we leave a long trail of data behind us. Most of us won't don't worry about it or think about it, because it's routine and the information seems banal because who cares about us, right? When you use your cell phone, you leave a record of when you made the call, who you called, how long you were on the phone, and where roughly you were at the time. The location of the cell phone is becoming more and more precise. So, in some places, it might be up to a mile in some cities. It might be a few blocks. But there's a general location. When you use your ATM card, you're leaving a record of obviously where you were, when you used it, the fact that it was you. There's often a video camera shot of you at that location, which will get back to in a little bit. But more than that, the banks, as a result of the PATRIOT Act, have a legal mandate. They're required to watch that transaction, and so they are using artificial intelligence to check whether that's really you using it, to check whether you have ties to unsavory people, to look at the patterns of your financial activity to see if maybe you're trying to perpetuate money laundering, or if you have ties to terrorism finance. So if there are any suspicious signs at all, they're sending reports to a very little known branch of the Treasury Department, which is creating a data mine of all of the reports. There are many, many of them now. And they share them with law enforcement across the country, local, state, and federal law enforcement as well at intelligence agencies. When you go to the grocery store and use the discount card when you go through an automatic toll booth; when you call online to get a sweater or pair of jeans; or if you have an adventurous marriage and you buy something fun to use privately with your spouse or your mate, believe it or not, all of that stuff is swept up somewhere, and more and more is available to the information companies to get to know you better, so to speak, or to share or resell. Now, the government doesn't really care about all of that, but it is routinely tapping billions of records about where you have lived in your entire adult life. I mean, I'm talking every house and apartment, all of the phone numbers that you have had, the cars that you have owned. It can find links between you and me, for example. They can show, by looking into these billions of records, how we're related. If we know somebody who knew somebody that shared an apartment with somebody we have in common. And they're using these systems really, I believe, earnestly, to protect us. I have talked to -- I have spent time with Viet Dinh, the author of the PATRIOT Act, John Poindexter, lots of counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence guys, as well as with these private company officials. And I do honestly get the feeling that there's an earnest desire to tap all of this information to protect us. But we all know, we have either heard the great Brandice quote directly or we know this in our guts, which is that we shouldn't necessarily -- we all fear evil-minded ruler, but the real threat in many ways comes from people who are earnest or zealous, but not necessarily completely aware of the ramifications of what they're doing..."


The Environment:

Jan Lundberg: War on Plastic: Rejecting the Toxic Plague
"Plastic as toxic trash is barely an issue with health advocates, environmentalists, and even those of us looking toward the post-petroleum world. Instead, 'recycling' and future 'bioplastics' distract people from keeping plastic out of their lives. As the evidence from our trashed oceans and damage to human health mounts, plastic can no longer be conveniently ignored. The days of naive trust and denial need to be put behind us, and a war on plastics declared now.
Fortunately, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors has before it a first-in-the-nation bag-fee ordinance; the vote is this Tuesday. All major grocery stores would charge customers 17 cents for every shopping bag, plastic as well as paper. Although the logic and the follow through seem well designed, much pressure is being put on the Supervisors to reject the ordinance. (An action alert is at the end of this article.)
Litter bothers all of us, and a smaller number of us worry about petroleum used for dubious purposes in an age of war for oil and global warming caused by fossil fuels. Some of us have learned how the plastic disaster in the middle of the Pacific, for example, has resulted in death for millions of creatures who confuse the toxin-laden plastic particles with krill and plankton. But the cost to humans in general is maybe the bigger story yet to hit.
One recently discovered principle about exposure to toxic chemicals is that very low concentrations can trigger worse damage in many individuals than larger exposures, in part due to the sensitivity of our genes. Also, potency is not possible to predict when various plastics' chemicals combine in our bodies and cause synergistic reactions later on.
Today's extreme dependence on plastics can easily be acknowledged. They are pervasive, cheap, effective, and even 'essential.' The list of plastic types goes far beyond what we can start listing off the top of our heads. If a product or solid synthetic material is not clearly wood or metal, chances are it is plastic - almost entirely from petroleum. Computers, telephones, cars, boats, teflon cookery, toys, packaging, kitchen appliances and tools, and imitations of a multitude of natural items, are but part of the world of plastics. Living without them would seem unthinkable. However, these plastics are essential to what? Answer: essential to a lifestyle that is fleeting - historically speaking.
There are people who say they cannot live without something, and those who yearn to do so. People think it is a matter of choice. However, when the coming petroleum supply crunch hits and cannot be alleviated by more production - world extraction is soon passing its peak - a combination of factors will deprive global consumers of the constant flow of new products now taken for granted..."

Public Not Told Air Marshalls Considered Too Costly Before 9/11:

NY Times: 9/11 Report Cites Many Warnings About Hijackings
"In the months before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal aviation officials reviewed dozens of intelligence reports that warned about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, some of which specifically discussed airline hijackings and suicide operations, according to a previously undisclosed report from the 9/11 commission.
But aviation officials were 'lulled into a false sense of security,' and 'intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/11 did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures,' the commission report concluded.
The report discloses that the Federal Aviation Administration, despite being focused on risks of hijackings overseas, warned airports in the spring of 2001 that if 'the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners, but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable.'
The report takes the F.A.A. to task for failing to pursue domestic security measures that could conceivably have altered the events of Sept. 11, 2001, like toughening airport screening procedures for weapons or expanding the use of on-flight air marshals. The report, completed last August, said officials appeared more concerned with reducing airline congestion, lessening delays, and easing airlines' financial woes than deterring a terrorist attack.
The Bush administration has blocked the public release of the full, classified version of the report for more than five months, officials said, much to the frustration of former commission members who say it provides a critical understanding of the failures of the civil aviation system. The administration provided both the classified report and a declassified, 120-page version to the National Archives two weeks ago and, even with heavy redactions in some areas, the declassified version provides the firmest evidence to date about the warnings that aviation officials received concerning the threat of an attack on airliners and the failure to take steps to deter it...
...The F.A.A. did not see a need to increase the air marshal ranks because hijackings were seen as an overseas threat, and one aviation official told the commission said that airlines did not want to give up revenues by providing free seats to marshals..."


Now, The Other Shoe Drops:

Remember, this is part of the plan to make government so expensive that cuts are inevitable.

NY Times: New White House Estimate Lifts Drug Benefit Cost to $720 Billion
"The Bush administration offered a new estimate of the cost of the Medicare drug benefit on Tuesday, saying it would cost $720 billion in the next 10 years.
That is much more than the $400 billion Congress assumed when it passed legislation creating the benefit in late 2003.
But administration officials said the numbers were not comparable. The original estimate was for the years 2004 to 2013. The new estimate covers the period from 2006, when the drug benefit becomes available, to 2015.
The higher figure, which provides the first glimpse of the true cost of the drug benefit, could touch off a political uproar in Congress, where conservative Republicans were already expressing alarm about the costs of Medicare, including the drug benefit..."

Bush's Crusade Against Social Programs That Work:

The point not being made clearly enough in the debate around SS is that merely recinding the Bush tax cuts for those making over $350,000 a year could solidify Social Security's long-term finances. The debate very deliberately avoids the inclusion of the recommendation of the 1983 Greenspan Commission to raise payroll taxes on the wealthy after 2018. Tax increases of any kind will not even be discussed by the Administration, even though that was part of the deal that kept payroll taxes low until 2018.

Harvey Wasserman: Bush to Social Security: Drop Dead
"...Ever since Franklin Roosevelt installed the most successful social program in US history, far right fanatics of the Bush ilk have been trying to destroy it. They may be on the brink of succeeding.
Fundamentalist conservatives despise any social welfare program that works. Their stark ideological crusade demands the dismantling of any program through which society can exert control over the economy or our common heritage, such as the natural environment.
Their demand is precisely the opposite when it comes to personal and cultural behavior. The fundamentalist right WANTS the government (if they control it) to legislate 'morality' when it comes to sexual choice (gay marriage), recreational preferences (marijuana), women's rights (freedom to choose), free speech (the Patriot Act), free press (censorship), sexual expression (the FCC), religion (official prayer), education (evolution), human rights (Guantanamo), the sanctity of life (the death penalty) and much more.
In other words, in the name of 'family values,' it's fine to insert the government into our personal lives.
But when it comes to the economy, it's survival-of-the-fittest Social Darwinism all the way. The corporate rich are the Elect of God. Any interference with their absolute power is a heathen affront. To aid those less fortunate is to prolong the existence of inferior beings who are predetermined for Divine rejection.
That means dismantling all government programs that might help anyone other than the very rich. Or that stand in the way of destroying the natural environment to pave the way for the return of the Messiah.
It's important to make the rational arguments about why Bush's plan to 'save'
Social Security will result in its destruction.
But it's equally crucial to remember that Bush is not really about saving Social Security. This latest assault is about destroying it -- consciously, willfully, utterly. It's the latest installment in a rightist crusade that's been going on since Social Security was born.
Under normal circumstances, ascribing motive can be a dicey game. But these are not normal people. Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Kenneth Blackwell and the rest of the far fundamentalist right are religious and ideological fanatics that have learned well the rhetoric of Orwell..."

David Corn: Bush's Budget: The Bad Math Is No Secret
"If it's budget time, it must be disinformation time. That's how it goes in the Bush II era. George W. Bush released a budget today that he claims is responsible, honest, and designed to cut the $400 billion-plus deficit in half by 2009. Not so. By now, you probably have heard the obvious criticisms. The budget does not include the $80 billion Bush is asking for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (And that probably won't cover the full tab.) It doesn't account for the $1 trillion to $2 trillion that Bush needs to pay for the private investment accounts he wants to carve out of Social Security. It also doesn't recognize that several hundred billion dollars will disappear from the revenue stream when the government rejiggers the alternative minimum tax--which it must--to prevent this tax (written to apply to corporations that make creative use of loopholes) from hitting middle-class individual tax filers.
There are few secrets about Bush's budgetary shenanigans. While the military gets a hefty boost, housing, education and environmental protection gets hammered. Every advocacy group concerned with federal spending was issuing press releases today. Folks on Capitol Hill were doing the same. Senator Jim Jeffords, the Republican-turned-independent from Vermont, put out a short list of the worst of Bush's proposed cuts..."


On Torture:

BBC: CIA prisoners 'tortured' in Arab jails
"...Michael Scheuer, who once headed the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and left the CIA last November after a 22-year career, said the practice, known as 'extraordinary rendition', was seen by the US as a key tactic in its war on terror.
'The bottom line is getting anyone off the streets who is involved in acts of terrorism is a worthwhile activity,' he told the BBC's File On 4 programme.
Mr Scheuer said the operation was authorised at the highest levels of the CIA and the White House and was approved by their lawyers.
'The practice of capturing people and taking them to second or third countries arose because the Executive assigned the job of dismantling terrorist cells to the CIA,'...
...The former CIA officer acknowledged that some of the suspects sent to places such as Egypt could then be tortured.
But he said: 'It wouldn't be us torturing them and I think there is a lot of Hollywood involved with our portrayal of torture in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.'
'Human rights is a very flexible concept... It depends how hypocritical you want to be on a particular day.'
Human rights campaigners, however, find it difficult to reconcile rendition with President Bush's claims of upholding the United Nations convention against torture. It says: 'No state shall expel, return or exradite a person to another state where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.'
Mr Scheuer was among other ex-CIA officers who told File On 4 that as well as sending people to Guantanamo Bay, both the CIA and the US military were sending dozens of others to prisons in countries such as Jordan, Syria and Egypt..."


Iraq:

UPI: Oil companies impatient for 'new Iraq'
"...A possible $3 billion contract to build a new 'super refinery' producing gasoline and other oil products from up to 1 million barrels per day of Iraq crude, said a senior U.S. Embassy official in Baghdad, declining to be named. An announcement could come by the end of the month; building a new refinery could take more than two years.
Companies such as Shell, Exxon and Chevron are offering all sorts of pot sweeteners to get on a refinery short list, the official said. Each one wants a 'one-off' production-sharing agreement that will make it worthwhile to deal with the volatility in Iraq, including a still-changing government.
Instead, U.S. advisers are recommending that the government write a petroleum law to keep things open and transparent. 'One-off' deals create conditions that encourage corruption, the official said.
'If we go contract by contract, other companies will out-bribe the United States companies, and we will lose,' the official said. 'We want an fair, open, equal process, and U.S. companies have better technology,'..."

Is The Constiution Even Still Valid?

Eric Margolis: Paranoia grips the U.S. capital
"...This week, former military intelligence analyst William Arkin revealed a hitherto unknown directive, with the Orwellian name 'JCS Conplan 0300-97,' authorizing the Pentagon to employ special, ultra-secret 'anti-terrorist' military units on American soil for what the author claims are 'extra-legal missions.'
In other words, using U.S. soldiers to kill or arrest Americans, acts that have been illegal since the U.S. Civil War.
This frightening news comes as Washington is gripped by reborn, Cold-War-style paranoia, ominous threats of war against Iran from the real president, Dick Cheney, and a titanic bureaucratic battle just won by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Instead of being fired for the grotesque military-political fiasco in Iraq and the shameful torture scandals, Rumsfeld has just managed to create a new, Pentagon spy/special ops organization, blandly named 'Strategic Support Branch,' that will replace or duplicate many of the CIA's tasks.
The CIA has been sent to the doghouse. Too many CIA veterans criticized or contradicted Bush's and Cheney's phony claims over Iraq and terrorism. So Bush has imposed a new, yes-man director on the agency, slashed its budgets, purged its senior officers, and downgraded CIA to third-class status.
Rumsfeld's new, massively funded SSB will become the Pentagon's CIA, complete with commando units, spies, mercenary forces, intelligence gathering and analysis, and a direct line to the White House. The Pentagon has just effectively taken over the spy business..."


Media Coverage and Democracy:

Norman Solomon: Iraq: Too Much Stenography, Not Enough Curiosity


The Environment:

The Independent (UK) - Global Warming: Scientists Reveal Timetable
"A detailed timetable of the destruction and distress that global warming is likely to cause the world was unveiled yesterday.
It pulls together for the first time the projected impacts on ecosystems and wildlife, food production, water resources and economies across the earth, for given rises in global temperature expected during the next hundred years.
The resultant picture gives the most wide-ranging impression yet of the bewildering array of destructive effects that climate change is expected to exert on different regions, from the mountains of Europe and the rainforests of the Amazon to the coral reefs of the tropics.
Produced through a synthesis of a wide range of recent academic studies, it was presented as a paper yesterday to the international conference on climate change being held at the UK Met Office headquarters in Exeter by the author Bill Hare, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany's leading global warming research institute..."


Odd Fundraiser:

Reuters: School Halts Adopt a Sniper Fund-Raiser
"A U.S. university in Wisconsin has blocked an attempt by Republican students to raise money for a group called 'Adopt a Sniper' that raises money for U.S. sharp-shooters in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The students were selling bracelets bearing the motto '1 Shot 1 Kill No Remorse I Decide,'..."


Enron's Fraud:

NY Times: Tapes Show Enron Caused Rolling Blackouts in California
"In the midst of the California energy troubles in early 2001, when power plants were under a federal order to deliver a full output of electricity, the Enron Corporation arranged to take a plant off-line on the same day that California was hit by rolling blackouts, according to audiotapes of company traders released here on Thursday.
The tapes and memorandums were made public by a small public utility north of Seattle that is fighting Enron over a power contract. They also showed that Enron, as early as 1998, was creating artificial energy shortages and running up prices in Canada in advance of California's larger experiment with deregulation.
The tapes provide new details of market manipulation during the California energy crisis that produced blackouts and billions of dollars of surcharges to homes and businesses on the West Coast in 2000 and 2001.
In one January 2001 telephone tape of an Enron trader the public utility identified as Bill Williams and a Las Vegas energy official identified only as Rich, an agreement was made to shut down a power plant providing energy to California. The shutdown was set for an afternoon of peak energy demand.
'This is going to be a word-of-mouth kind of thing,' Mr. Williams says on the tape. 'We want you guys to get a little creative and come up with a reason to go down.' After agreeing to take the plant down, the Nevada official questioned the reason. 'O.K., so we're just coming down for some maintenance, like a forced outage type of thing?' Rich asks. 'And that's cool?'
'Hopefully,' Mr. Williams says, before both men laugh..."


Rewarding Loyalty, Despite Past Crimial Behavior:

Washignton Post: Iran-Contra Figure to Lead Democracy Efforts Abroad
"Elliott Abrams, who pleaded guilty in 1991 to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-contra affair, was promoted to deputy national security adviser to President Bush.
Abrams, who previously was in charge of Middle East affairs, will be responsible for pushing Bush's strategy for advancing democracy.
The White House also announced yesterday that Faryar Shirzad, a deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, will take on added responsibilities for humanitarian affairs, stabilization and reconstruction efforts.
Prior to joining the NSC staff, Shirzad was assistant secretary for import administration at the Commerce Department. Before that, he was the lead coordinator of international trade policy for the Bush-Cheney transition team.
The White House had earlier tapped J.D. Crouch, the U.S. ambassador to Romania, for the No. 2 job at the National Security Council, under national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley.
Abrams has served as special assistant to the president and senior director for Near East and North African affairs since December 2002. He will continue work on Israeli-Palestinian affairs in concert with Hadley and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Abrams's 1991 plea stemmed from the congressional inquiry into the Iran-contra affair during President Ronald Reagan's administration. On Oct. 10, 1986, Abrams, then a State Department employee, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he did not know that Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North was directing illegal arms sales to Iran and diverting the proceeds to assist the Nicaraguan contras.
Abrams was pardoned by Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush.
His name surfaced last year as part of the investigation into who leaked the name of a CIA operative whose husband publicly disputed Bush administration claims that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Africa. White House spokesman Scott McClellan has said that Abrams denied responsibility."


Gutting Environmental Protections:

Greewatch: Bush Team Prepares to Weaken Clean Air Act at Expense of States
"For several years state attorneys general have been among the most aggressive enforcers of environmental law. In 1999, for example, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and other northeastern attorneys general sued several Midwestern power plants for failure to comply with provisions of the Clean Air Act when they expanded their capacities. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper announced an intent to sue the Tennessee Valley Authority under the same requirement last June.
Now these activist attorneys general have become a target for the Bush administration and its corporate allies. Indeed, Michael Greve of the ultra-conservative American Enterprise Institute has listed 'curbs on state attorneys general' as one of his top three priorities, along with such hot-button issues as tort reform.
The administration's attack is personified in its proposed rewrite of important provisions of the Clean Air Act, euphemistically named the 'Clear Skies' Act. Reintroduced in the Senate last week, Clear Skies would eviscerate two key Clean Air Act provisions that state attorneys general employ to sue polluting power plants.
First, Clear Skies would gut the Clean Air Act's New Source Review (NSR) program. NSR requires power plants to add new pollution controls when they expand their capacity. The Bush plan would reduce the number of situations in which power plants would have to install new pollution control technology..."