Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Mr. Bush, Ever The Foolish Optimist:
New York Times Editorial - President Bush's Speech About Iraq
"President Bush told the nation last night that the war in Iraq was difficult but winnable. Only the first is clearly true. Despite buoyant cheerleading by administration officials, the military situation is at best unimproved. The Iraqi Army, despite Mr. Bush's optimistic descriptions, shows no signs of being able to control the country without American help for years to come. There are not enough American soldiers to carry out the job they have been sent to do, yet the strain of maintaining even this inadequate force is taking a terrible toll on the ability of the United States to defend its security on other fronts around the world.
We did not expect Mr. Bush would apologize for the misinformation that helped lead us into this war, or for the catastrophic mistakes his team made in running the military operation. But we had hoped he would resist the temptation to raise the bloody flag of 9/11 over and over again to justify a war in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks. We had hoped that he would seize the moment to tell the nation how he will define victory, and to give Americans a specific sense of how he intends to reach that goal - beyond repeating the same wishful scenario that he has been describing since the invasion.
Sadly, Mr. Bush wasted his opportunity last night, giving a speech that only answered questions no one was asking. He told the nation, again and again, that a stable and democratic Iraq would be worth American sacrifices, while the nation was wondering whether American sacrifices could actually produce a stable and democratic Iraq...
...Listening to Mr. Bush offer the usual emotional rhetoric about the advance of freedom and the sacrifice of American soldiers, our thoughts went back to some of the letters we received in anticipation of the speech. One was from the brother of a fallen Marine, who said he did not want Mr. Bush to say the war should continue in order to keep faith with the men and women who have died fighting it. 'We do not need more justifications for the war. We need an effective strategy to win it,' he wrote. Another letter came from an opponent of the invasion who urged the American left to 'get over its anger over President Bush's catastrophic blunder' and start trying to figure out how to win the conflict that exists.
No one wants a disaster in Iraq, and Mr. Bush's critics can put aside, at least temporarily, their anger at the administration for its hubris, its terrible planning and its inept conduct of the war in return for a frank discussion of where to go from here. The president, who is going to be in office for another three and a half years, cannot continue to obsess about self-justification and the need to color Iraq with the memory of 9/11. The nation does not want it and cannot afford it."
New York Times Editorial - President Bush's Speech About Iraq
"President Bush told the nation last night that the war in Iraq was difficult but winnable. Only the first is clearly true. Despite buoyant cheerleading by administration officials, the military situation is at best unimproved. The Iraqi Army, despite Mr. Bush's optimistic descriptions, shows no signs of being able to control the country without American help for years to come. There are not enough American soldiers to carry out the job they have been sent to do, yet the strain of maintaining even this inadequate force is taking a terrible toll on the ability of the United States to defend its security on other fronts around the world.
We did not expect Mr. Bush would apologize for the misinformation that helped lead us into this war, or for the catastrophic mistakes his team made in running the military operation. But we had hoped he would resist the temptation to raise the bloody flag of 9/11 over and over again to justify a war in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks. We had hoped that he would seize the moment to tell the nation how he will define victory, and to give Americans a specific sense of how he intends to reach that goal - beyond repeating the same wishful scenario that he has been describing since the invasion.
Sadly, Mr. Bush wasted his opportunity last night, giving a speech that only answered questions no one was asking. He told the nation, again and again, that a stable and democratic Iraq would be worth American sacrifices, while the nation was wondering whether American sacrifices could actually produce a stable and democratic Iraq...
...Listening to Mr. Bush offer the usual emotional rhetoric about the advance of freedom and the sacrifice of American soldiers, our thoughts went back to some of the letters we received in anticipation of the speech. One was from the brother of a fallen Marine, who said he did not want Mr. Bush to say the war should continue in order to keep faith with the men and women who have died fighting it. 'We do not need more justifications for the war. We need an effective strategy to win it,' he wrote. Another letter came from an opponent of the invasion who urged the American left to 'get over its anger over President Bush's catastrophic blunder' and start trying to figure out how to win the conflict that exists.
No one wants a disaster in Iraq, and Mr. Bush's critics can put aside, at least temporarily, their anger at the administration for its hubris, its terrible planning and its inept conduct of the war in return for a frank discussion of where to go from here. The president, who is going to be in office for another three and a half years, cannot continue to obsess about self-justification and the need to color Iraq with the memory of 9/11. The nation does not want it and cannot afford it."
Saturday, June 25, 2005
Does The Public Even Want To Know?
Is the realization that the White House lied just too impalatable for most to even wish to consdier? Putting our heads in the sand and ignoring the problem leads to the type of thinking where the ends justify the means. Very dangerous thinking for a nation of laws, indeed.
Paul Krugman: The War President
"...The United States will soon have to start reducing force levels in Iraq, or risk seeing the volunteer Army collapse. Yet the administration and its supporters have effectively prevented any adult discussion of the need to get out.
On one side, the people who sold this war, unable to face up to the fact that their fantasies of a splendid little war have led to disaster, are still peddling illusions: the insurgency is in its 'last throes,' says Dick Cheney. On the other, they still have moderates and even liberals intimidated: anyone who suggests that the United States will have to settle for something that falls far short of victory is accused of being unpatriotic.
We need to deprive these people of their ability to mislead and intimidate. And the best way to do that is to make it clear that the people who led us to war on false pretenses have no credibility, and no right to lecture the rest of us about patriotism.
The good news is that the public seems ready to hear that message - readier than the media are to deliver it. Major media organizations still act as if only a small, left-wing fringe believes that we were misled into war, but that 'fringe' now comprises much if not most of the population..."
The Privatization of War:
This link is to the transcript (a link at the top will let you watch the program - broadband required.)
PBS - FRONTLINE: frontline: private warriors
"Over the last two years, America has poured billions of dollars into Iraq. Much of it goes to private contractors. The biggest boom has happened in the security industry...t's a lucrative but deadly business. Tonight [June 21, 2005] on FRONTLINE, correspondent Martin Smith travels to Iraq to see the private side of war..."
Political Influence and Eminent Domain:
NY Times Editorial: The Limits of Property Rights
"...Eminent domain allows governments to take property for a public use, such as building a road. The property owners in New London claimed that handing over private property to a private developer cannot be a public use, even if it is part of a comprehensive plan to turn around a depressed city.
The Supreme Court, by a 5-to-4 vote, sided with the city. The court noted that in past cases it had taken a broad view on this issue, and given governments wide discretion to determine when a taking of property meets this standard. New London, the court held, was within its rights to decide that its development plan was a valid public use. (The New York Times benefited from eminent domain in clearing the land for the new building it is constructing opposite the Port Authority Bus Terminal.)
In a blistering dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor lamented that the decision meant that the government could transfer any private property from the owner to another person with more political influence 'so long as it might be upgraded.' That is a serious concern, but her fears are exaggerated. The majority strongly suggested that eminent domain should be part of a comprehensive plan, and Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing separately, underscored that its goal cannot simply be to help a developer or other private party become richer..."
Star Wars, The Failed $130 Billion Program
NY Times Editorial: Star Wars' Political Bull's-Eye - New York Times
"A Pentagon panel of outside rocketry experts was too polite to use the phrase 'pie in the sky,' but they might as well have in excoriating the rush to deploy an unworkable antimissile system in time for President Bush's re-election campaign. Although clearly bedeviled by test failures and unproven components, the first antimissile stations in this fantastic $130 billion-plus windfall for the defense industry were officially deployed on the West Coast last fall - just in time to cover Mr. Bush's vow in 2000 to have the system up in four years.
Predictably, the re-election was soon followed by more embarrassing test failures along this Potemkin battlement, and the Pentagon asked independent experts to examine the program. According to a Washington Post report on the classified study, the experts concluded that the rush to deployment only compounded long-running technical problems. The badly flawed system remains unable to detect or destroy an incoming missile despite the continuing billions spent on complex problems with booster rocket, radar and satellite systems.
'Manage quality first and then schedule,' the panel emphasized in what is sound advice in most places except the Pentagon, which has pronounced the program in a state of 'evolutionary acquisition.' This means the parts were designed and contracted out first in hopes of actually making them work later. Evolutionary, indeed: where are the intelligent design enthusiasts when we need them?
The panel recommended the generals 'reorient the program' and actually make testing success, not the political calendar, the primary objective. Sound advice again, except the Pentagon, in rushing to deliver on the president's promise, suspended normal accountability standards for this offspring of the military industry's old Star Wars grail.
Dozens of retired admirals and generals have urged the president to cut taxpayer losses and shift money to the more imminent threat of low-tech terrorism at the nation's vulnerable ports, borders and nuclear weapon depots. This advice has been ignored, and even now Congress is dishing up another year's $7.6 billion for missile defense...."
Is the realization that the White House lied just too impalatable for most to even wish to consdier? Putting our heads in the sand and ignoring the problem leads to the type of thinking where the ends justify the means. Very dangerous thinking for a nation of laws, indeed.
Paul Krugman: The War President
"...The United States will soon have to start reducing force levels in Iraq, or risk seeing the volunteer Army collapse. Yet the administration and its supporters have effectively prevented any adult discussion of the need to get out.
On one side, the people who sold this war, unable to face up to the fact that their fantasies of a splendid little war have led to disaster, are still peddling illusions: the insurgency is in its 'last throes,' says Dick Cheney. On the other, they still have moderates and even liberals intimidated: anyone who suggests that the United States will have to settle for something that falls far short of victory is accused of being unpatriotic.
We need to deprive these people of their ability to mislead and intimidate. And the best way to do that is to make it clear that the people who led us to war on false pretenses have no credibility, and no right to lecture the rest of us about patriotism.
The good news is that the public seems ready to hear that message - readier than the media are to deliver it. Major media organizations still act as if only a small, left-wing fringe believes that we were misled into war, but that 'fringe' now comprises much if not most of the population..."
The Privatization of War:
This link is to the transcript (a link at the top will let you watch the program - broadband required.)
PBS - FRONTLINE: frontline: private warriors
"Over the last two years, America has poured billions of dollars into Iraq. Much of it goes to private contractors. The biggest boom has happened in the security industry...t's a lucrative but deadly business. Tonight [June 21, 2005] on FRONTLINE, correspondent Martin Smith travels to Iraq to see the private side of war..."
Political Influence and Eminent Domain:
NY Times Editorial: The Limits of Property Rights
"...Eminent domain allows governments to take property for a public use, such as building a road. The property owners in New London claimed that handing over private property to a private developer cannot be a public use, even if it is part of a comprehensive plan to turn around a depressed city.
The Supreme Court, by a 5-to-4 vote, sided with the city. The court noted that in past cases it had taken a broad view on this issue, and given governments wide discretion to determine when a taking of property meets this standard. New London, the court held, was within its rights to decide that its development plan was a valid public use. (The New York Times benefited from eminent domain in clearing the land for the new building it is constructing opposite the Port Authority Bus Terminal.)
In a blistering dissent, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor lamented that the decision meant that the government could transfer any private property from the owner to another person with more political influence 'so long as it might be upgraded.' That is a serious concern, but her fears are exaggerated. The majority strongly suggested that eminent domain should be part of a comprehensive plan, and Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing separately, underscored that its goal cannot simply be to help a developer or other private party become richer..."
Star Wars, The Failed $130 Billion Program
NY Times Editorial: Star Wars' Political Bull's-Eye - New York Times
"A Pentagon panel of outside rocketry experts was too polite to use the phrase 'pie in the sky,' but they might as well have in excoriating the rush to deploy an unworkable antimissile system in time for President Bush's re-election campaign. Although clearly bedeviled by test failures and unproven components, the first antimissile stations in this fantastic $130 billion-plus windfall for the defense industry were officially deployed on the West Coast last fall - just in time to cover Mr. Bush's vow in 2000 to have the system up in four years.
Predictably, the re-election was soon followed by more embarrassing test failures along this Potemkin battlement, and the Pentagon asked independent experts to examine the program. According to a Washington Post report on the classified study, the experts concluded that the rush to deployment only compounded long-running technical problems. The badly flawed system remains unable to detect or destroy an incoming missile despite the continuing billions spent on complex problems with booster rocket, radar and satellite systems.
'Manage quality first and then schedule,' the panel emphasized in what is sound advice in most places except the Pentagon, which has pronounced the program in a state of 'evolutionary acquisition.' This means the parts were designed and contracted out first in hopes of actually making them work later. Evolutionary, indeed: where are the intelligent design enthusiasts when we need them?
The panel recommended the generals 'reorient the program' and actually make testing success, not the political calendar, the primary objective. Sound advice again, except the Pentagon, in rushing to deliver on the president's promise, suspended normal accountability standards for this offspring of the military industry's old Star Wars grail.
Dozens of retired admirals and generals have urged the president to cut taxpayer losses and shift money to the more imminent threat of low-tech terrorism at the nation's vulnerable ports, borders and nuclear weapon depots. This advice has been ignored, and even now Congress is dishing up another year's $7.6 billion for missile defense...."
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Why The US Economy Needs Wars:
William Rivers Pitt: The Thing We Don't Talk About
"...the real reasons behind this war, the real reasons for many of our military actions over the years, were never discussed. As with almost everything we deal with today in the foreign policy realm, the real reasons we invaded Iraq harken back to World War II and the Cold War.
When the United States jumped into World War II, President Roosevelt ordered the American economy be put on a wartime footing. This was a sound decision: the country had to speed its industrial capabilities up to a sprint in order to manufacture a huge fighting army out of whole cloth. The action was successful beyond measure. The economy was invigorated, the war was won, and in the process the military/industrial complex, so named by President Eisenhower, was established as a power player in the American economy.
In 1947, President Harry Truman put forth the Truman Doctrine, a broad policy of foreign intervention to combat the feared spread of Communism around the world. The Doctrine was essentially created by a small band of men like Paul Nitze, who were the precursors of what we now call neo-conservatives. Nitze, it should be noted, was the mentor of Paul Wolfowitz, who went on to be the mentor of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.
The establishment of the Truman Doctrine, the establishment of the 'permanent crisis' that was the Cold War, required that the American economy remain on a wartime footing. There it has remained to this day, despite the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the threat of a global communist takeover. Ten thousand books have been written on this subject, on the impact of our wartime economic footing upon domestic policy, the environment, global affairs and politics. In the end, however, the fact that our economy is set on a wartime footing means one simple thing.
We need wars.
Without wars, the economy flakes and falls apart. Without wars, the trillions of dollars spent on weapons systems, military preparedness and a planetary army would dry up, dealing a death blow to the economy as currently constituted. Without wars or the threat of wars, the populace is not so easily controlled and manipulated..."
William Rivers Pitt: The Thing We Don't Talk About
"...the real reasons behind this war, the real reasons for many of our military actions over the years, were never discussed. As with almost everything we deal with today in the foreign policy realm, the real reasons we invaded Iraq harken back to World War II and the Cold War.
When the United States jumped into World War II, President Roosevelt ordered the American economy be put on a wartime footing. This was a sound decision: the country had to speed its industrial capabilities up to a sprint in order to manufacture a huge fighting army out of whole cloth. The action was successful beyond measure. The economy was invigorated, the war was won, and in the process the military/industrial complex, so named by President Eisenhower, was established as a power player in the American economy.
In 1947, President Harry Truman put forth the Truman Doctrine, a broad policy of foreign intervention to combat the feared spread of Communism around the world. The Doctrine was essentially created by a small band of men like Paul Nitze, who were the precursors of what we now call neo-conservatives. Nitze, it should be noted, was the mentor of Paul Wolfowitz, who went on to be the mentor of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.
The establishment of the Truman Doctrine, the establishment of the 'permanent crisis' that was the Cold War, required that the American economy remain on a wartime footing. There it has remained to this day, despite the fall of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the threat of a global communist takeover. Ten thousand books have been written on this subject, on the impact of our wartime economic footing upon domestic policy, the environment, global affairs and politics. In the end, however, the fact that our economy is set on a wartime footing means one simple thing.
We need wars.
Without wars, the economy flakes and falls apart. Without wars, the trillions of dollars spent on weapons systems, military preparedness and a planetary army would dry up, dealing a death blow to the economy as currently constituted. Without wars or the threat of wars, the populace is not so easily controlled and manipulated..."
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Money Well Spent?
Reuters: US Spent Billions of Iraq's Funds Days before Handover
"The United States handed out nearly $20 billion of Iraq's funds, with a rush to spend billions in the final days before transferring power to the Iraqis nearly a year ago, a report said on Tuesday.
A report by Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California, said in the week before the hand-over on June 28, 2004, the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority ordered the urgent delivery of more than $4 billion in Iraqi funds from the U.S. Federal Reserve in New York.
One single shipment amounted to $2.4 billion - the largest movement of cash in the bank's history, said Waxman.
Most of these funds came from frozen and seized assets and from the Development Fund for Iraq, which succeeded the U.N.'s oil-for-food program. After the U.S. invasion, the U.N. directed this money should be used by the CPA for the benefit of the Iraqi people.
Cash was loaded onto giant pallets for shipment by plane to Iraq, and paid out to contractors who carried it away in duffel bags.
The report, released at a House of Representatives committee hearing, said despite the huge amount of money, there was little U.S. scrutiny in how these assets were managed.
'The disbursement of these funds was characterized by significant waste, fraud and abuse,' said Waxman.
An audit by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction said U.S. auditors could not account for nearly $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds and the United States had not provided adequate controls for this money.
'The CPA's management of Iraqi money was an important responsibility that, in my view, required more diligent accountability, pursuant to its assigned mandate, than we found,' said chief inspector Stuart Bowen in testimony.
Auditors found problems safeguarding funds including one instance where a CPA comptroller did not have access to a field safe as the key was located in an unsecured backpack.
Bowen's office has referred three criminal cases to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the past two weeks for misuse of funds. Bowen declined to provide details at the hearing.
In one e-mail released in Waxman's report with the subject line 'Pocket Change,' a CPA official stressed the need to get money flowing fast before the handover.
Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, a Democrat, questioned why so much money had to be transferred so fast.
Senior defense official Joseph Benkert said an infusion of funds was needed to address a wide variety of needs before the new Iraqi government took over.
Part of the challenge in tracking how money was spent was the cash environment and lack of electronic transfers.
Contractors were told to turn up with big duffel bags to pick up their payments and some were paid from the back of pick-up trucks.
One picture shows grinning CPA officials standing in front of a pile of cash said to be worth $2 million to be paid to a security contractor.
Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, a Republican, said the photograph disturbed him. 'It looks a little loose to me,' he said, of the smiling officials.
'I share your concern,' said Bowen.
Citing documents from the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank in New York, Waxman said the United States flew in nearly $12 billion overall in U.S. currency to Iraq from the United States between May 2003 and June 2004.
This money was used to pay for Iraqi salaries, fund Iraqi ministries and also to pay some U.S. contractors.
In total, more than 281 million individual bills, including more than 107 million $100 bills, were shipped to Iraq on giant pallets loaded onto C-130 planes, the report said."
The Right To Petition Congress:
Did the Founders have this type lobbying in mind?
NY Times: Lobbyist and Partner Bilked Tribes, New Documents Show
"Jack Abramoff and a lobbying partner used tax-exempt groups and phony invoices to bilk tribal clients out of millions of dollars, using a scheme they called ''gimme five'' to divert proceeds to themselves and their pet causes, newly released documents show.
At a hearing Wednesday on Abramoff's activities, Senate Indian Affairs Committee Chairman John McCain urged the Justice Department to take a close look at Abramoff's tribal billings and his movement of the money, suggesting the lobbyist may have committed mail and wire fraud.
'Today's hearing is about more than contempt, even more than greed. It is simply and sadly a tale of betrayal,' said McCain, R-Ariz.
Correspondence between Abramoff and others, released by the committee, outlines a plan Abramoff and lobbying partner Michael Scanlon referred to as ''gimme five'' and used to maximize tribal payments while skimming off a share of the proceeds for themselves.
Eventually, the Mississippi Choctaws' payments to Scanlon's companies reached roughly $15 million, and Scanlon gave Abramoff a $5 million cut, McCain said...
...The documents show continuing efforts by Scanlon and Abramoff to convince tribal officials that their lobbying efforts were far more extensive and expensive than they actually were...
...One e-mail obtained by the Senate committee shows that Abramoff and Scanlon charged the Mississippi Choctaws $7.7 million for projects in 2001. Of that, Scanlon spent $1.2 million on lobbying work, and he and Abramoff split the remaining $6.5 million..."
Reuters: US Spent Billions of Iraq's Funds Days before Handover
"The United States handed out nearly $20 billion of Iraq's funds, with a rush to spend billions in the final days before transferring power to the Iraqis nearly a year ago, a report said on Tuesday.
A report by Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman of California, said in the week before the hand-over on June 28, 2004, the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority ordered the urgent delivery of more than $4 billion in Iraqi funds from the U.S. Federal Reserve in New York.
One single shipment amounted to $2.4 billion - the largest movement of cash in the bank's history, said Waxman.
Most of these funds came from frozen and seized assets and from the Development Fund for Iraq, which succeeded the U.N.'s oil-for-food program. After the U.S. invasion, the U.N. directed this money should be used by the CPA for the benefit of the Iraqi people.
Cash was loaded onto giant pallets for shipment by plane to Iraq, and paid out to contractors who carried it away in duffel bags.
The report, released at a House of Representatives committee hearing, said despite the huge amount of money, there was little U.S. scrutiny in how these assets were managed.
'The disbursement of these funds was characterized by significant waste, fraud and abuse,' said Waxman.
An audit by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction said U.S. auditors could not account for nearly $8.8 billion in Iraqi funds and the United States had not provided adequate controls for this money.
'The CPA's management of Iraqi money was an important responsibility that, in my view, required more diligent accountability, pursuant to its assigned mandate, than we found,' said chief inspector Stuart Bowen in testimony.
Auditors found problems safeguarding funds including one instance where a CPA comptroller did not have access to a field safe as the key was located in an unsecured backpack.
Bowen's office has referred three criminal cases to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the past two weeks for misuse of funds. Bowen declined to provide details at the hearing.
In one e-mail released in Waxman's report with the subject line 'Pocket Change,' a CPA official stressed the need to get money flowing fast before the handover.
Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, a Democrat, questioned why so much money had to be transferred so fast.
Senior defense official Joseph Benkert said an infusion of funds was needed to address a wide variety of needs before the new Iraqi government took over.
Part of the challenge in tracking how money was spent was the cash environment and lack of electronic transfers.
Contractors were told to turn up with big duffel bags to pick up their payments and some were paid from the back of pick-up trucks.
One picture shows grinning CPA officials standing in front of a pile of cash said to be worth $2 million to be paid to a security contractor.
Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, a Republican, said the photograph disturbed him. 'It looks a little loose to me,' he said, of the smiling officials.
'I share your concern,' said Bowen.
Citing documents from the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank in New York, Waxman said the United States flew in nearly $12 billion overall in U.S. currency to Iraq from the United States between May 2003 and June 2004.
This money was used to pay for Iraqi salaries, fund Iraqi ministries and also to pay some U.S. contractors.
In total, more than 281 million individual bills, including more than 107 million $100 bills, were shipped to Iraq on giant pallets loaded onto C-130 planes, the report said."
The Right To Petition Congress:
Did the Founders have this type lobbying in mind?
NY Times: Lobbyist and Partner Bilked Tribes, New Documents Show
"Jack Abramoff and a lobbying partner used tax-exempt groups and phony invoices to bilk tribal clients out of millions of dollars, using a scheme they called ''gimme five'' to divert proceeds to themselves and their pet causes, newly released documents show.
At a hearing Wednesday on Abramoff's activities, Senate Indian Affairs Committee Chairman John McCain urged the Justice Department to take a close look at Abramoff's tribal billings and his movement of the money, suggesting the lobbyist may have committed mail and wire fraud.
'Today's hearing is about more than contempt, even more than greed. It is simply and sadly a tale of betrayal,' said McCain, R-Ariz.
Correspondence between Abramoff and others, released by the committee, outlines a plan Abramoff and lobbying partner Michael Scanlon referred to as ''gimme five'' and used to maximize tribal payments while skimming off a share of the proceeds for themselves.
Eventually, the Mississippi Choctaws' payments to Scanlon's companies reached roughly $15 million, and Scanlon gave Abramoff a $5 million cut, McCain said...
...The documents show continuing efforts by Scanlon and Abramoff to convince tribal officials that their lobbying efforts were far more extensive and expensive than they actually were...
...One e-mail obtained by the Senate committee shows that Abramoff and Scanlon charged the Mississippi Choctaws $7.7 million for projects in 2001. Of that, Scanlon spent $1.2 million on lobbying work, and he and Abramoff split the remaining $6.5 million..."
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
The Whoring of Congress:
NY Review of Books: Selling Washington
"As the criminal investigation of the Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff was underway this spring, a spokesman for the law firm representing him issued a statement saying that Abramoff was 'being singled out by the media for actions that are commonplace in Washington and are totally proper.' Abramoff has since said much the same thing. The lawyer was half right. Like many other lobbyists, Abramoff often arranged for private organizations, particularly nonprofit groups, to sponsor pleasant, even luxurious, trips for members of Congress, with lobbyists like himself tagging along and enjoying the unparalleled 'access' that such a setting provides; i.e., they get to know congressmen and sell them on legislation. They take over skyboxes at sporting events, inviting members of Congress and their staffs.
But Abramoff has differed from other lobbyists in his flamboyance (he owned two Washington restaurants, at which he entertained), and in the egregiously high fees he charged clients, in particular, Indian tribes in the casino business. The Senate Indian Affairs Committee, headed by John McCain, found last year that Abramoff and an associate, Michael Scanlon, a political consultant and former communications director for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, received at least $66 million from six tribes over three years. Abramoff also instructed the tribes to make donations to certain members of Congress and conservative causes he was allied with. And he was careless - for example in putting on his credit card charges for DeLay's golfing trip to the St. Andrews golf course in Scotland in 2000, with a stop in London for a bit of semi-serious business to make the trip seem legitimate. It's illegal for a lobbyist to pay for congressional travel, but Abramoff is reported to have paid for three of DeLay's trips abroad.
A prominent Republican lobbyist told me that the difference between what Abramoff did and what many other lobbyists do was simply 'a matter of degree and blatancy.'
Abramoff's behavior is symptomatic of the unprecedented corruption - the intensified buying and selling of influence over legislation and federal policy - that has become endemic in Washington under a Republican Congress and White House. Corruption has always been present in Washington, but in recent years it has become more sophisticated, pervasive, and blatant than ever. A friend of mine who works closely with lobbyists says, 'There are no restraints now; business groups and lobbyists are going crazy - they're in every room on Capitol Hill writing the legislation. You can't move on the Hill without giving money,'..."
Securing the Homeland?
AP: Government Spied, Lied to Congress
"The federal agency in charge of aviation security collected extensive personal information about airline passengers even though Congress forbade it and officials said they wouldn't do it, according to documents obtained Monday by The Associated Press.
The Transportation Security Administration bought and is storing details about U.S. citizens who flew on commercial airlines in June 2004 as part of a test of a terrorist screening program called Secure Flight, the documents indicate.
'TSA is losing the public's trust,' said Tim Sparapani, a privacy lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. 'They have a repeated, consistent problem with doing one thing and then saying they did another.'
Secure Flight and its predecessor, CAPPS II, have been criticized for secretly obtaining personal information about airline passengers and failing to do enough to protect it.
The TSA and several airlines were embarrassed last year when it was revealed that airlines gave personal information on 12 million passengers to the government without the travelers' permission or knowledge. An inspector general's report found TSA misled the public about its role in acquiring the data..."
Obstacle or Public Servant?
Washington Post: Bolton Obstructed Critical Programs
"For years, a key U.S. program intended to keep Russian nuclear fuel out of terrorist hands has been frozen by an arcane legal dispute. As undersecretary of state, John R. Bolton was charged with fixing the problem, but critics complained he was the roadblock.
Now with Bolton no longer in the job, U.S. negotiators report a breakthrough with the Russians and predict a resolution will be sealed by President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin at an international summit in Scotland next month, clearing the way to eliminate enough plutonium to fuel 8,000 nuclear bombs.
The prospective revival of the plutonium disposal project underlines a noticeable change since Bolton's departure from his old job as arms control chief. Regardless of whether the Senate confirms him as U.N. ambassador during a scheduled vote today, fellow U.S. officials and independent analysts said his absence has already been felt at the State Department.
Without the hard-charging Bolton around, the Bush administration not only has moved to reconcile with Russia over nuclear threat reduction but also has dropped its campaign to oust the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and made common cause with European allies in offering incentives to Iran to persuade it to drop any ambitions for nuclear weapons.
Bolton had also resisted using the so-called New York channel for communications with North Korea, a one-on-one meeting used sporadically through Bush's presidency and most recently revived in May. And fellow U.S. officials said Bolton had opposed a new strategic opening to India offering the prospect of sharing civilian nuclear technology, a move made in March..."
Trying to Change PBS:
NY Times: Public Broadcasting Monitor Had Worked at Center Founded by Conservatives
"A researcher retained secretly by the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to monitor the 'Now' program with Bill Moyers for political objectivity last year, worked for 20 years at a journalism center founded by the American Conservative Union and a conservative columnist, an official at the journalism center said on Monday.
The decision by the chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, to retain the researcher, Fred Mann, without the knowledge of the corporation's board, to report on the political leanings of the guests of 'Now' is one of several issues under investigation by the corporation's inspector general.
At the request of two Democratic lawmakers, investigators are examining whether Mr. Tomlinson has violated any rules as he has sought, he says, to ensure that public television and radio provide greater program balance.
His critics, including some lawmakers and executives of public broadcasting, say he has sought to tilt the corporation, which provides $400 million to radio and television stations and producers, toward a conservative agenda.
One of Mr. Tomlinson's Democratic critics, Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, called on him to resign on Monday...
...Mr. Moyers has been a source of agitation for Mr. Tomlinson and other conservatives. They say that 'Now' under Mr. Moyers (who left the show last year and was replaced by David Brancaccio) was consistently critical of Republicans and the Bush administration.
Last week Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, said that in response to a request, Mr. Tomlinson sent data from Mr. Mann's reports.
Mr. Dorgan said that data concluded in one episode of 'Now' that Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, was a 'liberal' because he questioned the White House policy on Iraq and that a second 'Now' segment on financial waste at the Pentagon was 'anti-Defense.' Mr. Hagel is known as a mainstream conservative member of the Senate and a maverick who has at times been critical of the Bush administration.
The inspector general at the corporation is now looking at steps taken by Mr. Tomlinson to ensure what he calls greater balance in programming, including his decision to approve $14,170 in payments to Mr. Mann without the knowledge of the corporation's board."
NY Review of Books: Selling Washington
"As the criminal investigation of the Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff was underway this spring, a spokesman for the law firm representing him issued a statement saying that Abramoff was 'being singled out by the media for actions that are commonplace in Washington and are totally proper.' Abramoff has since said much the same thing. The lawyer was half right. Like many other lobbyists, Abramoff often arranged for private organizations, particularly nonprofit groups, to sponsor pleasant, even luxurious, trips for members of Congress, with lobbyists like himself tagging along and enjoying the unparalleled 'access' that such a setting provides; i.e., they get to know congressmen and sell them on legislation. They take over skyboxes at sporting events, inviting members of Congress and their staffs.
But Abramoff has differed from other lobbyists in his flamboyance (he owned two Washington restaurants, at which he entertained), and in the egregiously high fees he charged clients, in particular, Indian tribes in the casino business. The Senate Indian Affairs Committee, headed by John McCain, found last year that Abramoff and an associate, Michael Scanlon, a political consultant and former communications director for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, received at least $66 million from six tribes over three years. Abramoff also instructed the tribes to make donations to certain members of Congress and conservative causes he was allied with. And he was careless - for example in putting on his credit card charges for DeLay's golfing trip to the St. Andrews golf course in Scotland in 2000, with a stop in London for a bit of semi-serious business to make the trip seem legitimate. It's illegal for a lobbyist to pay for congressional travel, but Abramoff is reported to have paid for three of DeLay's trips abroad.
A prominent Republican lobbyist told me that the difference between what Abramoff did and what many other lobbyists do was simply 'a matter of degree and blatancy.'
Abramoff's behavior is symptomatic of the unprecedented corruption - the intensified buying and selling of influence over legislation and federal policy - that has become endemic in Washington under a Republican Congress and White House. Corruption has always been present in Washington, but in recent years it has become more sophisticated, pervasive, and blatant than ever. A friend of mine who works closely with lobbyists says, 'There are no restraints now; business groups and lobbyists are going crazy - they're in every room on Capitol Hill writing the legislation. You can't move on the Hill without giving money,'..."
Securing the Homeland?
AP: Government Spied, Lied to Congress
"The federal agency in charge of aviation security collected extensive personal information about airline passengers even though Congress forbade it and officials said they wouldn't do it, according to documents obtained Monday by The Associated Press.
The Transportation Security Administration bought and is storing details about U.S. citizens who flew on commercial airlines in June 2004 as part of a test of a terrorist screening program called Secure Flight, the documents indicate.
'TSA is losing the public's trust,' said Tim Sparapani, a privacy lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. 'They have a repeated, consistent problem with doing one thing and then saying they did another.'
Secure Flight and its predecessor, CAPPS II, have been criticized for secretly obtaining personal information about airline passengers and failing to do enough to protect it.
The TSA and several airlines were embarrassed last year when it was revealed that airlines gave personal information on 12 million passengers to the government without the travelers' permission or knowledge. An inspector general's report found TSA misled the public about its role in acquiring the data..."
Obstacle or Public Servant?
Washington Post: Bolton Obstructed Critical Programs
"For years, a key U.S. program intended to keep Russian nuclear fuel out of terrorist hands has been frozen by an arcane legal dispute. As undersecretary of state, John R. Bolton was charged with fixing the problem, but critics complained he was the roadblock.
Now with Bolton no longer in the job, U.S. negotiators report a breakthrough with the Russians and predict a resolution will be sealed by President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin at an international summit in Scotland next month, clearing the way to eliminate enough plutonium to fuel 8,000 nuclear bombs.
The prospective revival of the plutonium disposal project underlines a noticeable change since Bolton's departure from his old job as arms control chief. Regardless of whether the Senate confirms him as U.N. ambassador during a scheduled vote today, fellow U.S. officials and independent analysts said his absence has already been felt at the State Department.
Without the hard-charging Bolton around, the Bush administration not only has moved to reconcile with Russia over nuclear threat reduction but also has dropped its campaign to oust the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and made common cause with European allies in offering incentives to Iran to persuade it to drop any ambitions for nuclear weapons.
Bolton had also resisted using the so-called New York channel for communications with North Korea, a one-on-one meeting used sporadically through Bush's presidency and most recently revived in May. And fellow U.S. officials said Bolton had opposed a new strategic opening to India offering the prospect of sharing civilian nuclear technology, a move made in March..."
Trying to Change PBS:
NY Times: Public Broadcasting Monitor Had Worked at Center Founded by Conservatives
"A researcher retained secretly by the chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to monitor the 'Now' program with Bill Moyers for political objectivity last year, worked for 20 years at a journalism center founded by the American Conservative Union and a conservative columnist, an official at the journalism center said on Monday.
The decision by the chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, to retain the researcher, Fred Mann, without the knowledge of the corporation's board, to report on the political leanings of the guests of 'Now' is one of several issues under investigation by the corporation's inspector general.
At the request of two Democratic lawmakers, investigators are examining whether Mr. Tomlinson has violated any rules as he has sought, he says, to ensure that public television and radio provide greater program balance.
His critics, including some lawmakers and executives of public broadcasting, say he has sought to tilt the corporation, which provides $400 million to radio and television stations and producers, toward a conservative agenda.
One of Mr. Tomlinson's Democratic critics, Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey, called on him to resign on Monday...
...Mr. Moyers has been a source of agitation for Mr. Tomlinson and other conservatives. They say that 'Now' under Mr. Moyers (who left the show last year and was replaced by David Brancaccio) was consistently critical of Republicans and the Bush administration.
Last week Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, said that in response to a request, Mr. Tomlinson sent data from Mr. Mann's reports.
Mr. Dorgan said that data concluded in one episode of 'Now' that Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, was a 'liberal' because he questioned the White House policy on Iraq and that a second 'Now' segment on financial waste at the Pentagon was 'anti-Defense.' Mr. Hagel is known as a mainstream conservative member of the Senate and a maverick who has at times been critical of the Bush administration.
The inspector general at the corporation is now looking at steps taken by Mr. Tomlinson to ensure what he calls greater balance in programming, including his decision to approve $14,170 in payments to Mr. Mann without the knowledge of the corporation's board."
Monday, June 20, 2005
Bush's Illegal War
The Sunday Times (UK) - British bombing raids were illegal, says Foreign Office
"A sharp increase in British and American bombing raids on Iraq in the run-up to war 'to put pressure on the regime' was illegal under international law, according to leaked Foreign Office legal advice.
The advice was first provided to senior ministers in March 2002. Two months later RAF and USAF jets began 'spikes of activity' designed to goad Saddam Hussein into retaliating and giving the allies a pretext for war.
The Foreign Office advice shows military action to pressurise the regime was 'not consistent with' UN law, despite American claims that it was.
The decision to provoke the Iraqis emerged in leaked minutes of a meeting between Tony Blair and his most senior advisers — the so-called Downing Street memo published by The Sunday Times shortly before the general election.
Democratic congressmen claimed last week the evidence it contains is grounds for impeaching President George Bush.
Those at the meeting on July 23, 2002, included Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The minutes quote Hoon as saying that the US had begun spikes of activity to put pressure on the regime.
Ministry of Defence figures for bombs dropped by the RAF on southern Iraq, obtained by the Liberal Democrats through Commons written answers, show the RAF was as active in the bombing as the Americans and that the 'spikes' began in May 2002.
However, the leaked Foreign Office legal advice, which was also appended to the Cabinet Office briefing paper for the July meeting, made it clear allied aircraft were legally entitled to patrol the no-fly zones over the north and south of Iraq only to deter attacks by Saddam’s forces on the Kurdish and Shia populations.
The allies had no power to use military force to put pressure of any kind on the regime.
The increased attacks on Iraqi installations, which senior US officers admitted were designed to 'degrade' Iraqi air defences, began six months before the UN passed resolution 1441, which the allies claim authorised military action. The war finally started in March 2003.
This weekend the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Goodhart, vice-president of the International Commission of Jurists and a world authority on international law, said the intensified raids were illegal if they were meant to pressurise the regime.
He said UN Resolution 688, used by the allies to justify allied patrols over the no-fly zones, was not adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which deals with all matters authorising military force.
'Putting pressure on Iraq is not something that would be a lawful activity,' said Goodhart, who is also the Liberal Democrat shadow Lord Chancellor.
The Foreign Office advice noted that the Americans had 'on occasion' claimed that the allied aircraft were there to enforce compliance with resolutions 688 and 687, which ordered Iraq to destroy its weapons of mass destruction.
'This view is not consistent with resolution 687, which does not deal with the repression of the Iraqi civilian population, or with resolution 688, which was not adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, and does not contain any provision for enforcement,' it said.
Elizabeth Wilmshurst, one of the Foreign Office lawyers who wrote the report, resigned in March 2003 in protest at the decision to go to war without a UN resolution specifically authorising military force.
Further intensification of the bombing, known in the Pentagon as the Blue Plan, began at the end of August, 2002, following a meeting of the US National Security Council at the White House that month.
General Tommy Franks, the allied commander, recalled in his autobiography, American Soldier, that during this meeting he rejected a call from Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, to cut the bombing patrols because he wanted to use them to make Iraq’s defences 'as weak as possible'.
The allied commander specifically used the term 'spikes of activity' in his book. The upgrade to a full air war was also illegal, said Goodhart. 'If, as Franks seems to suggest, the purpose was to soften up Iraq for a future invasion or even to intimidate Iraq, the coalition forces were acting without lawful authority,' he said.
Although the legality of the war has been more of an issue in Britain than in America, the revelations indicate Bush may also have acted illegally, since Congress did not authorise military action until October 11 2002.
The air war had already begun six weeks earlier and the spikes of activity had been underway for five months."
Timing is Everything:
Had this come out three weeks ago, the Supreme Court's ruling would have made the continuing classification of cannabis as a Schedule I drug look even more nonsensical...
BBC: Cannabis drug on sale in Canada
"Sativex is a mouth spray for multiple sclerosis (MS) sufferers, who can use it to alleviate pain.
GW Pharmaceuticals said it remains 'committed to securing approval of Sativex across Europe and elsewhere'.
GW Pharmaceuticals has been asked to provide more data to support its application for a UK licence.
Sativex contains the same active ingredients as cannabis - tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol.
GW Pharmaceuticals said the Canadian market launch of Sativex was a 'transforming event' for the company.
It marked 'not only our first successful product launch but the first launch of a cannabis derived prescription medicine anywhere in the world', the Salisbury-based firm said..."
Religion:
Harper's: Inside America's Most Powerful Megachurch
Falsify Intel, Get A Promotion:
Washington Post: Analysts Behind Iraq Intelligence Were Rewarded
"Two Army analysts whose work has been cited as part of a key intelligence failure on Iraq - the claim that aluminum tubes sought by the Baghdad government were most likely meant for a nuclear weapons program rather than for rockets - have received job performance awards in each of the past three years, officials said.
The civilian analysts, former military men considered experts on foreign and US weaponry, work at the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC), one of three US agencies singled out for particular criticism by President Bush's commission that investigated US intelligence.
The Army analysts concluded that it was highly unlikely that the tubes were for use in Iraq's rocket arsenal, a finding that bolstered a CIA contention that they were destined for nuclear centrifuges, which was in turn cited by the Bush administration as proof that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
The problem, according to the commission, which cited the two analysts' work, is that they did not seek or obtain information available from the Energy Department and elsewhere showing that the tubes were indeed the type used for years as rocket-motor cases by Iraq's military. The panel said the finding represented a 'serious lapse in analytic tradecraft' because the center's personnel 'could and should have conducted a more exhaustive examination of the question.'
Pentagon spokesmen said the awards for the analysts were to recognize their overall contributions on the job over the course of each year. But some current and former officials, including those who called attention to the awards, said the episode shows how the administration has failed to hold people accountable for mistakes on prewar intelligence.
Despite sharp critiques from the president's commission and the Senate intelligence committee, no major reprimand or penalty has been announced publicly in connection with the intelligence failures, though investigations are still underway at the CIA. George J. Tenet resigned as CIA director but was later awarded the Medal of Freedom by Bush..."
Global Trade:
David Moberg: Three-Dimensional Economics: CAFTA won't help U.S. workers, and blocking it may help the rest of the world
"If you believe the Bush administration, its free trade agreement with five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic will open 'BIG' (its emphasis) markets to American products, forge an alliance to save domestic textile jobs, 'protect labor and environment,' and, of course, 'strengthen freedom and democracy.'
Judging from their protests, many workers and peasants in those countries disagree. And judging from Bush's reluctance over the past year to bring the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) to a vote, a majority of even this Republican Congress don't believe him. But the push for a vote is now on: The region's leaders are visiting the United States and trade officials are striking special interest deals for support - such as the $500,000 federal grant that tilted The Humane Society to support CAFTA after years of criticizing similar trade pacts.
There are good reasons to doubt the administration claims. Even if they're wide open to American exports, the signatories are small, poor countries - including Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras. The largest, the Dominican Republic, is a market about the size of Bakersfield, California. Even optimistically exaggerated trade with them isn't going to make a dent in the record U.S. trade deficit, which reached $617 billion, or 5.3 percent of the U.S. economy, last year.
CAFTA isn't likely to expand markets by reducing Central American poverty much either. Flooding their markets with subsidized U.S. corn will hurt many of the rural poor. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the model for CAFTA, offers scant inspiration. Over NAFTA's first eight years, Mexico lost 1.3 million jobs and suffered declining real wages, according to the Carnegie Endowment for Internal Peace, and the United States lost 880,000 jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute..."
Election 2004:
Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman: Did Bush Steal 2004 Election?
The Sunday Times (UK) - British bombing raids were illegal, says Foreign Office
"A sharp increase in British and American bombing raids on Iraq in the run-up to war 'to put pressure on the regime' was illegal under international law, according to leaked Foreign Office legal advice.
The advice was first provided to senior ministers in March 2002. Two months later RAF and USAF jets began 'spikes of activity' designed to goad Saddam Hussein into retaliating and giving the allies a pretext for war.
The Foreign Office advice shows military action to pressurise the regime was 'not consistent with' UN law, despite American claims that it was.
The decision to provoke the Iraqis emerged in leaked minutes of a meeting between Tony Blair and his most senior advisers — the so-called Downing Street memo published by The Sunday Times shortly before the general election.
Democratic congressmen claimed last week the evidence it contains is grounds for impeaching President George Bush.
Those at the meeting on July 23, 2002, included Blair, Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, and Sir Richard Dearlove, then chief of MI6. The minutes quote Hoon as saying that the US had begun spikes of activity to put pressure on the regime.
Ministry of Defence figures for bombs dropped by the RAF on southern Iraq, obtained by the Liberal Democrats through Commons written answers, show the RAF was as active in the bombing as the Americans and that the 'spikes' began in May 2002.
However, the leaked Foreign Office legal advice, which was also appended to the Cabinet Office briefing paper for the July meeting, made it clear allied aircraft were legally entitled to patrol the no-fly zones over the north and south of Iraq only to deter attacks by Saddam’s forces on the Kurdish and Shia populations.
The allies had no power to use military force to put pressure of any kind on the regime.
The increased attacks on Iraqi installations, which senior US officers admitted were designed to 'degrade' Iraqi air defences, began six months before the UN passed resolution 1441, which the allies claim authorised military action. The war finally started in March 2003.
This weekend the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Goodhart, vice-president of the International Commission of Jurists and a world authority on international law, said the intensified raids were illegal if they were meant to pressurise the regime.
He said UN Resolution 688, used by the allies to justify allied patrols over the no-fly zones, was not adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which deals with all matters authorising military force.
'Putting pressure on Iraq is not something that would be a lawful activity,' said Goodhart, who is also the Liberal Democrat shadow Lord Chancellor.
The Foreign Office advice noted that the Americans had 'on occasion' claimed that the allied aircraft were there to enforce compliance with resolutions 688 and 687, which ordered Iraq to destroy its weapons of mass destruction.
'This view is not consistent with resolution 687, which does not deal with the repression of the Iraqi civilian population, or with resolution 688, which was not adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, and does not contain any provision for enforcement,' it said.
Elizabeth Wilmshurst, one of the Foreign Office lawyers who wrote the report, resigned in March 2003 in protest at the decision to go to war without a UN resolution specifically authorising military force.
Further intensification of the bombing, known in the Pentagon as the Blue Plan, began at the end of August, 2002, following a meeting of the US National Security Council at the White House that month.
General Tommy Franks, the allied commander, recalled in his autobiography, American Soldier, that during this meeting he rejected a call from Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, to cut the bombing patrols because he wanted to use them to make Iraq’s defences 'as weak as possible'.
The allied commander specifically used the term 'spikes of activity' in his book. The upgrade to a full air war was also illegal, said Goodhart. 'If, as Franks seems to suggest, the purpose was to soften up Iraq for a future invasion or even to intimidate Iraq, the coalition forces were acting without lawful authority,' he said.
Although the legality of the war has been more of an issue in Britain than in America, the revelations indicate Bush may also have acted illegally, since Congress did not authorise military action until October 11 2002.
The air war had already begun six weeks earlier and the spikes of activity had been underway for five months."
Timing is Everything:
Had this come out three weeks ago, the Supreme Court's ruling would have made the continuing classification of cannabis as a Schedule I drug look even more nonsensical...
BBC: Cannabis drug on sale in Canada
"Sativex is a mouth spray for multiple sclerosis (MS) sufferers, who can use it to alleviate pain.
GW Pharmaceuticals said it remains 'committed to securing approval of Sativex across Europe and elsewhere'.
GW Pharmaceuticals has been asked to provide more data to support its application for a UK licence.
Sativex contains the same active ingredients as cannabis - tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol.
GW Pharmaceuticals said the Canadian market launch of Sativex was a 'transforming event' for the company.
It marked 'not only our first successful product launch but the first launch of a cannabis derived prescription medicine anywhere in the world', the Salisbury-based firm said..."
Religion:
Harper's: Inside America's Most Powerful Megachurch
Falsify Intel, Get A Promotion:
Washington Post: Analysts Behind Iraq Intelligence Were Rewarded
"Two Army analysts whose work has been cited as part of a key intelligence failure on Iraq - the claim that aluminum tubes sought by the Baghdad government were most likely meant for a nuclear weapons program rather than for rockets - have received job performance awards in each of the past three years, officials said.
The civilian analysts, former military men considered experts on foreign and US weaponry, work at the Army's National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC), one of three US agencies singled out for particular criticism by President Bush's commission that investigated US intelligence.
The Army analysts concluded that it was highly unlikely that the tubes were for use in Iraq's rocket arsenal, a finding that bolstered a CIA contention that they were destined for nuclear centrifuges, which was in turn cited by the Bush administration as proof that Saddam Hussein was reconstituting Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
The problem, according to the commission, which cited the two analysts' work, is that they did not seek or obtain information available from the Energy Department and elsewhere showing that the tubes were indeed the type used for years as rocket-motor cases by Iraq's military. The panel said the finding represented a 'serious lapse in analytic tradecraft' because the center's personnel 'could and should have conducted a more exhaustive examination of the question.'
Pentagon spokesmen said the awards for the analysts were to recognize their overall contributions on the job over the course of each year. But some current and former officials, including those who called attention to the awards, said the episode shows how the administration has failed to hold people accountable for mistakes on prewar intelligence.
Despite sharp critiques from the president's commission and the Senate intelligence committee, no major reprimand or penalty has been announced publicly in connection with the intelligence failures, though investigations are still underway at the CIA. George J. Tenet resigned as CIA director but was later awarded the Medal of Freedom by Bush..."
Global Trade:
David Moberg: Three-Dimensional Economics: CAFTA won't help U.S. workers, and blocking it may help the rest of the world
"If you believe the Bush administration, its free trade agreement with five Central American countries and the Dominican Republic will open 'BIG' (its emphasis) markets to American products, forge an alliance to save domestic textile jobs, 'protect labor and environment,' and, of course, 'strengthen freedom and democracy.'
Judging from their protests, many workers and peasants in those countries disagree. And judging from Bush's reluctance over the past year to bring the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) to a vote, a majority of even this Republican Congress don't believe him. But the push for a vote is now on: The region's leaders are visiting the United States and trade officials are striking special interest deals for support - such as the $500,000 federal grant that tilted The Humane Society to support CAFTA after years of criticizing similar trade pacts.
There are good reasons to doubt the administration claims. Even if they're wide open to American exports, the signatories are small, poor countries - including Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras. The largest, the Dominican Republic, is a market about the size of Bakersfield, California. Even optimistically exaggerated trade with them isn't going to make a dent in the record U.S. trade deficit, which reached $617 billion, or 5.3 percent of the U.S. economy, last year.
CAFTA isn't likely to expand markets by reducing Central American poverty much either. Flooding their markets with subsidized U.S. corn will hurt many of the rural poor. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the model for CAFTA, offers scant inspiration. Over NAFTA's first eight years, Mexico lost 1.3 million jobs and suffered declining real wages, according to the Carnegie Endowment for Internal Peace, and the United States lost 880,000 jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute..."
Election 2004:
Bob Fitrakis, Steve Rosenfeld and Harvey Wasserman: Did Bush Steal 2004 Election?
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Media Bias?
t r u t h o u t - Conyers Slams Washington Post
"Friday 17 June 2005
Mr. Michael Abramowitz, National Editor;
Mr. Michael Getler, Ombudsman;
Mr. Dana Milbank
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20071
Dear Sirs:
I write to express my profound disappointment with Dana Milbank's June 17 report, 'Democrats Play House to Rally Against the War,' which purports to describe a Democratic hearing I chaired in the Capitol yesterday. In sum, the piece cherry-picks some facts, manufactures others out of whole cloth, and does a disservice to some 30 members of Congress who persevered under difficult circumstances, not of our own making, to examine a very serious subject: whether the American people were deliberately misled in the lead up to war. The fact that this was the Post's only coverage of this event makes the journalistic shortcomings in this piece even more egregious.
In an inaccurate piece of reporting that typifies the article, Milbank implies that one of the obstacles the Members in the meeting have is that 'only one' member has mentioned the Downing Street Minutes on the floor of either the House or Senate. This is not only incorrect but misleading. In fact, just yesterday, the Senate Democratic Leader, Harry Reid, mentioned it on the Senate floor. Senator Boxer talked at some length about it at the recent confirmation hearing for the Ambassador to Iraq. The House Democratic Leader, Nancy Pelosi, recently signed on to my letter, along with 121 other Democrats asking for answers about the memo. This information is not difficult to find either. For example, the Reid speech was the subject of an AP wire service report posted on the Washington Post website with the headline 'Democrats Cite Downing Street Memo in Bolton Fight'. Other similar mistakes, mischaracterizations and cheap shots are littered throughout the article.
The article begins with an especially mean and nasty tone, claiming that House Democrats 'pretended' a small conference was the Judiciary Committee hearing room and deriding the decor of the room. Milbank fails to share with his readers one essential fact: the reason the hearing was held in that room, an important piece of context. Despite the fact that a number of other suitable rooms were available in the Capitol and House office buildings, Republicans declined my request for each and every one of them. Milbank could have written about the perseverance of many of my colleagues in the face of such adverse circumstances, but declined to do so. Milbank also ignores the critical fact picked up by the AP, CNN and other newsletters that at the very moment the hearing was scheduled to begin, the Republican Leadership scheduled an almost unprecedented number of 11 consecutive floor votes, making it next to impossible for most Members to participate in the first hour and one half of the hearing..."
t r u t h o u t - Conyers Slams Washington Post
"Friday 17 June 2005
Mr. Michael Abramowitz, National Editor;
Mr. Michael Getler, Ombudsman;
Mr. Dana Milbank
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20071
Dear Sirs:
I write to express my profound disappointment with Dana Milbank's June 17 report, 'Democrats Play House to Rally Against the War,' which purports to describe a Democratic hearing I chaired in the Capitol yesterday. In sum, the piece cherry-picks some facts, manufactures others out of whole cloth, and does a disservice to some 30 members of Congress who persevered under difficult circumstances, not of our own making, to examine a very serious subject: whether the American people were deliberately misled in the lead up to war. The fact that this was the Post's only coverage of this event makes the journalistic shortcomings in this piece even more egregious.
In an inaccurate piece of reporting that typifies the article, Milbank implies that one of the obstacles the Members in the meeting have is that 'only one' member has mentioned the Downing Street Minutes on the floor of either the House or Senate. This is not only incorrect but misleading. In fact, just yesterday, the Senate Democratic Leader, Harry Reid, mentioned it on the Senate floor. Senator Boxer talked at some length about it at the recent confirmation hearing for the Ambassador to Iraq. The House Democratic Leader, Nancy Pelosi, recently signed on to my letter, along with 121 other Democrats asking for answers about the memo. This information is not difficult to find either. For example, the Reid speech was the subject of an AP wire service report posted on the Washington Post website with the headline 'Democrats Cite Downing Street Memo in Bolton Fight'. Other similar mistakes, mischaracterizations and cheap shots are littered throughout the article.
The article begins with an especially mean and nasty tone, claiming that House Democrats 'pretended' a small conference was the Judiciary Committee hearing room and deriding the decor of the room. Milbank fails to share with his readers one essential fact: the reason the hearing was held in that room, an important piece of context. Despite the fact that a number of other suitable rooms were available in the Capitol and House office buildings, Republicans declined my request for each and every one of them. Milbank could have written about the perseverance of many of my colleagues in the face of such adverse circumstances, but declined to do so. Milbank also ignores the critical fact picked up by the AP, CNN and other newsletters that at the very moment the hearing was scheduled to begin, the Republican Leadership scheduled an almost unprecedented number of 11 consecutive floor votes, making it next to impossible for most Members to participate in the first hour and one half of the hearing..."
Friday, June 17, 2005
US Forces Weakening of Joint Climate Change Proposal:
Washington Post: U.S. Pressure Weakens G-8 Climate Plan
"Bush administration officials working behind the scenes have succeeded in weakening key sections of a proposal for joint action by the eight major industrialized nations to curb climate change.
Under U.S. pressure, negotiators in the past month have agreed to delete language that would detail how rising temperatures are affecting the globe, set ambitious targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions and set stricter environmental standards for World Bank-funded power projects, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. Negotiators met this week in London to work out details of the document, which is slated to be adopted next month at the Group of Eight's annual meeting in Scotland.
The administration's push to alter the G-8's plan on global warming marks its latest effort to edit scientific or policy documents to accord with its position that mandatory carbon dioxide cuts are unnecessary. Under mounting international pressure to adopt stricter controls on heat-trapping gas emissions, Bush officials have consistently sought to modify U.S. government and international reports that would endorse a more aggressive approach to mitigating global warming.
...One deleted section, for example, initially cited 'increasingly compelling evidence of climate change, including rising ocean and atmospheric temperatures, retreating ice sheets and glaciers, rising sea levels, and changes to ecosystems.' It added: 'Inertia in the climate system means that further warming is inevitable. Unless urgent action is taken, there will be a growing risk of adverse effects on economic development, human health and the natural environment, and of irreversible long-term changes to our climate and oceans.'
Instead, U.S. negotiators substituted a sentence that reads, 'Climate change is a serious long term challenge that has the potential to affect every part of the globe,'..."
The Weapons of War:
The Independent (UK) - US lied to Britain over use of napalm in Iraq war
"American officials lied to British ministers over the use of 'internationally reviled' napalm-type firebombs in Iraq.
Yesterday's disclosure led to calls by MPs for a full statement to the Commons and opened ministers to allegations that they held back the facts until after the general election.
Despite persistent rumours of injuries among Iraqis consistent with the use of incendiary weapons such as napalm, Adam Ingram, the Defence minister, assured Labour MPs in January that US forces had not used a new generation of incendiary weapons, codenamed MK77, in Iraq.
But Mr Ingram admitted to the Labour MP Harry Cohen in a private letter obtained by The Independent that he had inadvertently misled Parliament because he had been misinformed by the US. 'The US confirmed to my officials that they had not used MK77s in Iraq at any time and this was the basis of my response to you,' he told Mr Cohen. 'I regret to say that I have since discovered that this is not the case and must now correct the position.'
Mr Ingram said 30 MK77 firebombs were used by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in the invasion of Iraq between 31 March and 2 April 2003. They were used against military targets 'away from civilian targets', he said. This avoids breaching the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which permits their use only against military targets.
Britain, which has no stockpiles of the weapons, ratified the convention, but the US did not.
The confirmation that US officials misled British ministers led to new questions last night about the value of the latest assurances by the US. Mr Cohen said there were rumours that the firebombs were used in the US assault on the insurgent stronghold in Fallujah last year, claims denied by the US..."
The Revolving Door:
NY Times Editorial: Lobbying From Within
"It was no surprise to learn that Philip Cooney, who resigned last week as chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, will soon take a job at Exxon Mobil. His yeoman work in fighting against limits on greenhouse gas emissions, first as a lawyer for the oil industry's main lobbying group and then at the White House, where he sanitized reports to play down the link between emissions and global warming, clearly earned the reward of a cushy job with Exxon, a leading opponent of curbs on emissions.
Yet it is surely a cause for dismay that the Bush administration has seen fit to embed so many former lobbyists in key policy or regulatory jobs where they can carry out their industry's agenda from within. Whereas the word lobbyist once connoted those who hung around in lobbies to buttonhole powerful politicians when they emerged from the inner sanctums, these modern-day lobbyists occupy the inner sanctums themselves.
Take William Myers III, another former lobbyist who is now being promoted for a high-level judicial post by President Bush. Mr. Myers, a longtime lobbyist for the mining and cattle industries, served as the top lawyer at the Interior Department in Mr. Bush's first administration. In that job, he issued an opinion opening Indian lands to mining degradation and was criticized by his hometown newspaper for acting as an apologist for the cattle industry. Now he has been rewarded with the president's nomination for a seat on a federal appeals court that has a major voice in environmental law in Western states.
Still deeply entrenched is Mark Rey, the under secretary for natural resources and environment in the Agriculture Department, a longtime lobbyist for forest-related industries who has used his post to weaken protections for the national forests. In the past four years, the administration has undercut agreements to preserve old-growth trees and wildlife in major West Coast forests, overturned a roadless rule protecting the most remote areas of forests and announced an overhaul of planning rules governing all national forests. Based on the Myers precedent, it looks as if Mr. Rey may be campaigning for a Supreme Court nomination.
A slightly different, but equally worrisome, kind of conflict emerged last week when the Justice Department prematurely scuttled much of its own case in the final rounds of a civil racketeering trial against the tobacco industry. The decision to reduce the amount of money demanded of the industry from an expected $130 billion to a mere $10 billion was made by Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum Jr. over the strenuous objections of the career lawyers running the case.
Mr. McCallum, a close friend of President Bush from their days as Skull & Bones members at Yale, had not been a lobbyist for the tobacco industry, but he was a partner in a law firm that did legal work for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, and his own legal work included medical malpractice defense, among other specialties. As Eric Lichtblau showed in yesterday's Times, the career lawyers complained in a memo that Mr. McCallum had made a preliminary decision without even reviewing their evidence. They suggested that the department's cave-in stemmed from 'sticker shock' over the amount the industry might have to pay.
The 'revolving door' in which people shuttle back and forth between jobs in government and industry is a sad fixture of Washington life. There are rules, albeit weak ones, that seek to limit what government officials can do when they first return to the private sector. But the public has little protection against the machinations of lobbyists who are invited into government and given the levers of power. In an administration that saw fit to put Vice President Dick Cheney, a former oil industry executive, in charge of drafting its closed-door energy policy, there is little prospect for reining in the special interests. The public will be the loser."
Energy Policy:
Mr. Firedman, with whom I normally do not agree, makes some good points here...
Thomas Friedman: As Toyota Goes ...
"...Having Toyota take over General Motors - which based its business strategy on building gas-guzzling cars, including the idiot Hummer, scoffing at hybrid technology and fighting Congressional efforts to impose higher mileage standards on U.S. automakers - would not only be in America's economic interest, it would also be in America's geopolitical interest.
Because Toyota has pioneered the very hybrid engine technology that can help rescue not only our economy from its oil addiction (how about 500 miles per gallon of gasoline?), but also our foreign policy from dependence on Middle Eastern oil autocrats.
Diffusing Toyota's hybrid technology is one of the keys to what I call 'geo-green.' Geo-greens seek to combine into a single political movement environmentalists who want to reduce fossil fuels that cause climate change, evangelicals who want to protect God's green earth and all his creations, and geo-strategists who want to reduce our dependence on crude oil because it fuels some of the worst regimes in the world.
The Bush team has been M.I.A. on energy since 9/11. Indeed, the utter indifference of the Bush team to developing a geo-green strategy - which would also strengthen the dollar, reduce our trade deficit, make America the world leader in combating climate change and stimulate U.S. companies to take the lead in producing the green technologies that the world will desperately need as China and India industrialize - is so irresponsible that it takes your breath away. This is especially true when you realize that the solutions to our problems are already here..."
The Guardian (UK) - Chairman of Shell: 'The Boat Is Sinking'
"...As our appetite for oil hastens climate change, who will speak out for the alternatives? One possible champion is Lord Ron Oxburgh, the distinguished geologist who also happens to be chairman of Shell. He tells Aida Edemariam why the time for complacency is over..."
The Drive To Eliminate Taxpayer Funded Media That Fails to Tow The GOP Line:
Molly Ivins: Destroying PBS
"...there is a plot to politicize public broadcasting. It is plain as a pikestaff, and it is coming from the Right. It is obvious, undeniable and happening right now. The Bush administration is introducing a political agenda to public broadcasting. They are using the lame pretext that PBS is somehow liberal to justify it into a propaganda organ for the government. That is precisely what the board of CPB was set up to prevent 40 years ago; it is there to be a firewall between public broadcasting and political pressure. Ken Tomlinson is a disgrace to the purpose of that board, he has a political agenda and is engaging in a raw display of ideological bullying. The right-wingers in the House of Representatives are backing his power play with a threat to cut off funding for PBS entirely.
Tomlinson's claim of liberal bias at PBS is based on the program 'NOW with Bill Moyers,' even though Moyers' program frequently featured guests on the Right. Moyers is now retired, and the show has been cut to half an hour. Tomlinson 'balanced' it with a weekly program by the editorial writers of the Wall Street Journal, who don't even bother to pretend to be objective: They are right-wing beyond argument. Tomlinson actually spent $10,000 of the taxpayers' money to pay some consultant to find bias in Moyers' program but has never released the results of that 'study.'
Tomlinson, himself a former head of Voice of America in the Reagan administration and a retired editor Reader's Digest, has been an active right-winger since I first met him in 1974. He is also the Bush-appointed chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and other official arms of the government's propaganda machine. He is a Bush information apparatchik. It is quite clear he believes PBS and NPR should also function as cheerleaders for the government..."
Capitol Politics:
Sidney Blumenthal: Tom DeLay's Broken Body
"...The efforts to suppress the proper workings of the House on inquiries of corruption and to quell uneasy questions about legislation from Democrats are only increasing the public pressure on the Republican leadership. Ever more rigid control is producing sharper and deeper fissures in its façade. The desperation for order fosters greater disorder. Such is the state of democracy in America that the rest of the world is encouraged to emulate."
Washington Post: U.S. Pressure Weakens G-8 Climate Plan
"Bush administration officials working behind the scenes have succeeded in weakening key sections of a proposal for joint action by the eight major industrialized nations to curb climate change.
Under U.S. pressure, negotiators in the past month have agreed to delete language that would detail how rising temperatures are affecting the globe, set ambitious targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions and set stricter environmental standards for World Bank-funded power projects, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. Negotiators met this week in London to work out details of the document, which is slated to be adopted next month at the Group of Eight's annual meeting in Scotland.
The administration's push to alter the G-8's plan on global warming marks its latest effort to edit scientific or policy documents to accord with its position that mandatory carbon dioxide cuts are unnecessary. Under mounting international pressure to adopt stricter controls on heat-trapping gas emissions, Bush officials have consistently sought to modify U.S. government and international reports that would endorse a more aggressive approach to mitigating global warming.
...One deleted section, for example, initially cited 'increasingly compelling evidence of climate change, including rising ocean and atmospheric temperatures, retreating ice sheets and glaciers, rising sea levels, and changes to ecosystems.' It added: 'Inertia in the climate system means that further warming is inevitable. Unless urgent action is taken, there will be a growing risk of adverse effects on economic development, human health and the natural environment, and of irreversible long-term changes to our climate and oceans.'
Instead, U.S. negotiators substituted a sentence that reads, 'Climate change is a serious long term challenge that has the potential to affect every part of the globe,'..."
The Weapons of War:
The Independent (UK) - US lied to Britain over use of napalm in Iraq war
"American officials lied to British ministers over the use of 'internationally reviled' napalm-type firebombs in Iraq.
Yesterday's disclosure led to calls by MPs for a full statement to the Commons and opened ministers to allegations that they held back the facts until after the general election.
Despite persistent rumours of injuries among Iraqis consistent with the use of incendiary weapons such as napalm, Adam Ingram, the Defence minister, assured Labour MPs in January that US forces had not used a new generation of incendiary weapons, codenamed MK77, in Iraq.
But Mr Ingram admitted to the Labour MP Harry Cohen in a private letter obtained by The Independent that he had inadvertently misled Parliament because he had been misinformed by the US. 'The US confirmed to my officials that they had not used MK77s in Iraq at any time and this was the basis of my response to you,' he told Mr Cohen. 'I regret to say that I have since discovered that this is not the case and must now correct the position.'
Mr Ingram said 30 MK77 firebombs were used by the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force in the invasion of Iraq between 31 March and 2 April 2003. They were used against military targets 'away from civilian targets', he said. This avoids breaching the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), which permits their use only against military targets.
Britain, which has no stockpiles of the weapons, ratified the convention, but the US did not.
The confirmation that US officials misled British ministers led to new questions last night about the value of the latest assurances by the US. Mr Cohen said there were rumours that the firebombs were used in the US assault on the insurgent stronghold in Fallujah last year, claims denied by the US..."
The Revolving Door:
NY Times Editorial: Lobbying From Within
"It was no surprise to learn that Philip Cooney, who resigned last week as chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, will soon take a job at Exxon Mobil. His yeoman work in fighting against limits on greenhouse gas emissions, first as a lawyer for the oil industry's main lobbying group and then at the White House, where he sanitized reports to play down the link between emissions and global warming, clearly earned the reward of a cushy job with Exxon, a leading opponent of curbs on emissions.
Yet it is surely a cause for dismay that the Bush administration has seen fit to embed so many former lobbyists in key policy or regulatory jobs where they can carry out their industry's agenda from within. Whereas the word lobbyist once connoted those who hung around in lobbies to buttonhole powerful politicians when they emerged from the inner sanctums, these modern-day lobbyists occupy the inner sanctums themselves.
Take William Myers III, another former lobbyist who is now being promoted for a high-level judicial post by President Bush. Mr. Myers, a longtime lobbyist for the mining and cattle industries, served as the top lawyer at the Interior Department in Mr. Bush's first administration. In that job, he issued an opinion opening Indian lands to mining degradation and was criticized by his hometown newspaper for acting as an apologist for the cattle industry. Now he has been rewarded with the president's nomination for a seat on a federal appeals court that has a major voice in environmental law in Western states.
Still deeply entrenched is Mark Rey, the under secretary for natural resources and environment in the Agriculture Department, a longtime lobbyist for forest-related industries who has used his post to weaken protections for the national forests. In the past four years, the administration has undercut agreements to preserve old-growth trees and wildlife in major West Coast forests, overturned a roadless rule protecting the most remote areas of forests and announced an overhaul of planning rules governing all national forests. Based on the Myers precedent, it looks as if Mr. Rey may be campaigning for a Supreme Court nomination.
A slightly different, but equally worrisome, kind of conflict emerged last week when the Justice Department prematurely scuttled much of its own case in the final rounds of a civil racketeering trial against the tobacco industry. The decision to reduce the amount of money demanded of the industry from an expected $130 billion to a mere $10 billion was made by Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum Jr. over the strenuous objections of the career lawyers running the case.
Mr. McCallum, a close friend of President Bush from their days as Skull & Bones members at Yale, had not been a lobbyist for the tobacco industry, but he was a partner in a law firm that did legal work for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, and his own legal work included medical malpractice defense, among other specialties. As Eric Lichtblau showed in yesterday's Times, the career lawyers complained in a memo that Mr. McCallum had made a preliminary decision without even reviewing their evidence. They suggested that the department's cave-in stemmed from 'sticker shock' over the amount the industry might have to pay.
The 'revolving door' in which people shuttle back and forth between jobs in government and industry is a sad fixture of Washington life. There are rules, albeit weak ones, that seek to limit what government officials can do when they first return to the private sector. But the public has little protection against the machinations of lobbyists who are invited into government and given the levers of power. In an administration that saw fit to put Vice President Dick Cheney, a former oil industry executive, in charge of drafting its closed-door energy policy, there is little prospect for reining in the special interests. The public will be the loser."
Energy Policy:
Mr. Firedman, with whom I normally do not agree, makes some good points here...
Thomas Friedman: As Toyota Goes ...
"...Having Toyota take over General Motors - which based its business strategy on building gas-guzzling cars, including the idiot Hummer, scoffing at hybrid technology and fighting Congressional efforts to impose higher mileage standards on U.S. automakers - would not only be in America's economic interest, it would also be in America's geopolitical interest.
Because Toyota has pioneered the very hybrid engine technology that can help rescue not only our economy from its oil addiction (how about 500 miles per gallon of gasoline?), but also our foreign policy from dependence on Middle Eastern oil autocrats.
Diffusing Toyota's hybrid technology is one of the keys to what I call 'geo-green.' Geo-greens seek to combine into a single political movement environmentalists who want to reduce fossil fuels that cause climate change, evangelicals who want to protect God's green earth and all his creations, and geo-strategists who want to reduce our dependence on crude oil because it fuels some of the worst regimes in the world.
The Bush team has been M.I.A. on energy since 9/11. Indeed, the utter indifference of the Bush team to developing a geo-green strategy - which would also strengthen the dollar, reduce our trade deficit, make America the world leader in combating climate change and stimulate U.S. companies to take the lead in producing the green technologies that the world will desperately need as China and India industrialize - is so irresponsible that it takes your breath away. This is especially true when you realize that the solutions to our problems are already here..."
The Guardian (UK) - Chairman of Shell: 'The Boat Is Sinking'
"...As our appetite for oil hastens climate change, who will speak out for the alternatives? One possible champion is Lord Ron Oxburgh, the distinguished geologist who also happens to be chairman of Shell. He tells Aida Edemariam why the time for complacency is over..."
The Drive To Eliminate Taxpayer Funded Media That Fails to Tow The GOP Line:
Molly Ivins: Destroying PBS
"...there is a plot to politicize public broadcasting. It is plain as a pikestaff, and it is coming from the Right. It is obvious, undeniable and happening right now. The Bush administration is introducing a political agenda to public broadcasting. They are using the lame pretext that PBS is somehow liberal to justify it into a propaganda organ for the government. That is precisely what the board of CPB was set up to prevent 40 years ago; it is there to be a firewall between public broadcasting and political pressure. Ken Tomlinson is a disgrace to the purpose of that board, he has a political agenda and is engaging in a raw display of ideological bullying. The right-wingers in the House of Representatives are backing his power play with a threat to cut off funding for PBS entirely.
Tomlinson's claim of liberal bias at PBS is based on the program 'NOW with Bill Moyers,' even though Moyers' program frequently featured guests on the Right. Moyers is now retired, and the show has been cut to half an hour. Tomlinson 'balanced' it with a weekly program by the editorial writers of the Wall Street Journal, who don't even bother to pretend to be objective: They are right-wing beyond argument. Tomlinson actually spent $10,000 of the taxpayers' money to pay some consultant to find bias in Moyers' program but has never released the results of that 'study.'
Tomlinson, himself a former head of Voice of America in the Reagan administration and a retired editor Reader's Digest, has been an active right-winger since I first met him in 1974. He is also the Bush-appointed chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and other official arms of the government's propaganda machine. He is a Bush information apparatchik. It is quite clear he believes PBS and NPR should also function as cheerleaders for the government..."
Capitol Politics:
Sidney Blumenthal: Tom DeLay's Broken Body
"...The efforts to suppress the proper workings of the House on inquiries of corruption and to quell uneasy questions about legislation from Democrats are only increasing the public pressure on the Republican leadership. Ever more rigid control is producing sharper and deeper fissures in its façade. The desperation for order fosters greater disorder. Such is the state of democracy in America that the rest of the world is encouraged to emulate."
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Again, How Oil Has Everything To Do With Bush's War:
Greg Palast: Palast for Conyers: The OTHER ' Memos' from Downing Street and Pennsylvania Avenue
"...Here is a small timeline of confidential skullduggery dug up and broadcast by my own team for BBC Television and Harper's on the secret plans to seize Iraq's assets and oil.
February 2001 - Only one month after the first Bush-Cheney inauguration, the State Department's Pam Quanrud organizes a secret confab in California to make plans for the invasion of Iraq and removal of Saddam. US oil industry advisor Falah Aljibury and others are asked to interview would-be replacements for a new US-installed dictator.
On BBC Television's Newsnight, Aljibury himself explained,
'It is an invasion, but it will act like a coup. The original plan was to liberate Iraq from the Saddamists and from the regime.'
March 2001 - Vice-President Dick Cheney meets with oil company executives and reviews oil field maps of Iraq. Cheney refuses to release the names of those attending or their purpose. Harper's has since learned their plan and purpose - see below.
October/November 2001 - An easy military victory in Afghanistan emboldens then-Dep. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to convince the Administration to junk the State Department 'coup' plan in favor of an invasion and occupation that could remake the economy of Iraq. An elaborate plan, ultimately summarized in a 101-page document, scopes out the 'sale of all state enterprises' - that is, most of the nation's assets, '… especially in the oil and supporting industries.'
2002 - Grover Norquist and other corporate lobbyists meet secretly with Defense, State and Treasury officials to ensure the invasion plans for Iraq include plans for protecting 'property rights.' The result was a pre-invasion scheme to sell off Iraq's oil fields, banks, electric systems, and even change the country's copyright laws to the benefit of the lobbyists' clients. Occupation chief Paul Bremer would later order these giveaways into Iraq law.
Fall 2002 - Philip Carroll, former CEO of Shell Oil USA, is brought in by the Pentagon to plan the management of Iraq's oil fields. He works directly with Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. 'There were plans,' says Carroll, 'maybe even too many plans' - but none disclosed to the public nor even the US Congress.
January 2003 - Robert Ebel, former CIA oil analyst, is sent, BBC learns, to London to meet with Fadhil Chalabi to plan terms for taking over Iraq's oil.
March 2003 - What White House spokesman Ari Fleisher calls 'Operations Iraqi Liberation' (OIL) begins. (Invasion is re-christened 'OIF' - Operation Iraqi Freedom.)
March 2003 - Defense Department is told in confidence by US Energy Information Administrator Guy Caruso that Iraq's fields are incapable of a massive increase in output. Despite this intelligence, Dep. Secretary Wolfowitz testifies to Congress that invasion will be a free ride. He swears, 'There's a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money. …We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon,' a deliberate fabrication promoted by the Administration, an insider told BBC, as 'part of the sales pitch' for war.
May 2003 - General Jay Garner, appointed by Bush as viceroy over Iraq, is fired by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The general revealed in an interview for BBC that he resisted White House plans to sell off Iraq's oil and national assets.
'That's just one fight you don't want to take on,' Garner told me. But apparently, the White House wanted that fight.
The general also disclosed that these invade-and-grab plans were developed long before the US asserted that Saddam still held WDM:
'All I can tell you is the plans were pretty elaborate; they didn't start them in 2002, they were started in 2001.'
November/December 2003 - Secrecy and misinformation continues even after the invasion. The oil industry objects to the State Department plans for Iraq's oil fields and drafts for the Administration a 323-page plan, 'Options for [the] Iraqi Oil Industry.' Per the industry plan, the US forces Iraq to create an OPEC-friendly state oil company that supports the OPEC cartel's extortionate price for petroleum..."
For Not Towing the GOP Line, CPB Faces Budget Cuts of 25%
Washington Post: Public Broadcasting Targeted By House
"A House subcommittee voted yesterday to sharply reduce the federal government's financial support for public broadcasting, including eliminating taxpayer funds that help underwrite such popular children's educational programs as 'Sesame Street,' 'Reading Rainbow,' 'Arthur' and 'Postcards From Buster.'
In addition, the subcommittee acted to eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- which passes federal funds to public broadcasters - starting with a 25 percent reduction in CPB's budget for next year, from $400 million to $300 million.
In all, the cuts would represent the most drastic cutback of public broadcasting since Congress created the nonprofit CPB in 1967. The CPB funds are particularly important for small TV and radio stations and account for about 15 percent of the public broadcasting industry's total revenue.
Expressing alarm, public broadcasters and their supporters in Congress interpreted the move as an escalation of a Republican-led campaign against a perceived liberal bias in their programming. That effort was initiated by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's own chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson..."
Greg Palast: Palast for Conyers: The OTHER ' Memos' from Downing Street and Pennsylvania Avenue
"...Here is a small timeline of confidential skullduggery dug up and broadcast by my own team for BBC Television and Harper's on the secret plans to seize Iraq's assets and oil.
February 2001 - Only one month after the first Bush-Cheney inauguration, the State Department's Pam Quanrud organizes a secret confab in California to make plans for the invasion of Iraq and removal of Saddam. US oil industry advisor Falah Aljibury and others are asked to interview would-be replacements for a new US-installed dictator.
On BBC Television's Newsnight, Aljibury himself explained,
'It is an invasion, but it will act like a coup. The original plan was to liberate Iraq from the Saddamists and from the regime.'
March 2001 - Vice-President Dick Cheney meets with oil company executives and reviews oil field maps of Iraq. Cheney refuses to release the names of those attending or their purpose. Harper's has since learned their plan and purpose - see below.
October/November 2001 - An easy military victory in Afghanistan emboldens then-Dep. Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to convince the Administration to junk the State Department 'coup' plan in favor of an invasion and occupation that could remake the economy of Iraq. An elaborate plan, ultimately summarized in a 101-page document, scopes out the 'sale of all state enterprises' - that is, most of the nation's assets, '… especially in the oil and supporting industries.'
2002 - Grover Norquist and other corporate lobbyists meet secretly with Defense, State and Treasury officials to ensure the invasion plans for Iraq include plans for protecting 'property rights.' The result was a pre-invasion scheme to sell off Iraq's oil fields, banks, electric systems, and even change the country's copyright laws to the benefit of the lobbyists' clients. Occupation chief Paul Bremer would later order these giveaways into Iraq law.
Fall 2002 - Philip Carroll, former CEO of Shell Oil USA, is brought in by the Pentagon to plan the management of Iraq's oil fields. He works directly with Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. 'There were plans,' says Carroll, 'maybe even too many plans' - but none disclosed to the public nor even the US Congress.
January 2003 - Robert Ebel, former CIA oil analyst, is sent, BBC learns, to London to meet with Fadhil Chalabi to plan terms for taking over Iraq's oil.
March 2003 - What White House spokesman Ari Fleisher calls 'Operations Iraqi Liberation' (OIL) begins. (Invasion is re-christened 'OIF' - Operation Iraqi Freedom.)
March 2003 - Defense Department is told in confidence by US Energy Information Administrator Guy Caruso that Iraq's fields are incapable of a massive increase in output. Despite this intelligence, Dep. Secretary Wolfowitz testifies to Congress that invasion will be a free ride. He swears, 'There's a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money. …We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon,' a deliberate fabrication promoted by the Administration, an insider told BBC, as 'part of the sales pitch' for war.
May 2003 - General Jay Garner, appointed by Bush as viceroy over Iraq, is fired by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The general revealed in an interview for BBC that he resisted White House plans to sell off Iraq's oil and national assets.
'That's just one fight you don't want to take on,' Garner told me. But apparently, the White House wanted that fight.
The general also disclosed that these invade-and-grab plans were developed long before the US asserted that Saddam still held WDM:
'All I can tell you is the plans were pretty elaborate; they didn't start them in 2002, they were started in 2001.'
November/December 2003 - Secrecy and misinformation continues even after the invasion. The oil industry objects to the State Department plans for Iraq's oil fields and drafts for the Administration a 323-page plan, 'Options for [the] Iraqi Oil Industry.' Per the industry plan, the US forces Iraq to create an OPEC-friendly state oil company that supports the OPEC cartel's extortionate price for petroleum..."
For Not Towing the GOP Line, CPB Faces Budget Cuts of 25%
Washington Post: Public Broadcasting Targeted By House
"A House subcommittee voted yesterday to sharply reduce the federal government's financial support for public broadcasting, including eliminating taxpayer funds that help underwrite such popular children's educational programs as 'Sesame Street,' 'Reading Rainbow,' 'Arthur' and 'Postcards From Buster.'
In addition, the subcommittee acted to eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- which passes federal funds to public broadcasters - starting with a 25 percent reduction in CPB's budget for next year, from $400 million to $300 million.
In all, the cuts would represent the most drastic cutback of public broadcasting since Congress created the nonprofit CPB in 1967. The CPB funds are particularly important for small TV and radio stations and account for about 15 percent of the public broadcasting industry's total revenue.
Expressing alarm, public broadcasters and their supporters in Congress interpreted the move as an escalation of a Republican-led campaign against a perceived liberal bias in their programming. That effort was initiated by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's own chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson..."
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
All Volunteers To The Front:
Bob Herbert: They Won't Go
"...The Army reported on Friday that it had fallen short of its recruitment goals for a fourth consecutive month. The Marines managed to meet their recruitment target for May, but that was their first successful month this year.
Scrambling to fill its ranks, the Army is signing up more high school dropouts and lower-scoring applicants.
With the war in Iraq going badly and allegations of abuse by military personnel widespread, young men and women are increasingly deciding that there's no upside to a career choice in which the most important skills might be ducking bullets and dodging roadside bombs.
The primary reason the U.S. went to an all-volunteer military in 1973 was to ensure that those who did not want to fight wouldn't have to. That option is now being overwhelmingly exercised, discretion being the clear choice over valor. Young people and their parents alike are turning their backs on the military in droves.
The Army is so desperate for even lukewarm bodies that it is reluctant to release even problem soldiers, troops who are seriously out of shape, or pregnant, or abusing alcohol or drugs. And it is lowering standards for admission to the junior officer ranks. For example, minor criminal offenses that previously would have been prohibitive can now be overlooked.
At the same time Army recruiters have been chasing high school kids with such reckless abandon that a backlash is developing among parents who, in many cases, want the recruiters kept out of their children's schools..."
Health Care:
Paul Krugman:One Nation, Uninsured
"...The intellectually serious debate is between those who believe that the government should simply provide basic health insurance for everyone and those proposing a more complex, indirect approach that preserves a central role for private health insurance companies.
A system in which the government provides universal health insurance is often referred to as 'single payer,' but I like Ted Kennedy's slogan 'Medicare for all.' It reminds voters that America already has a highly successful, popular single-payer program, albeit only for the elderly. It shows that we're talking about government insurance, not government-provided health care. And it makes it clear that like Medicare (but unlike Canada's system), a U.S. national health insurance system would allow individuals with the means and inclination to buy their own medical care.
The great advantage of universal, government-provided health insurance is lower costs. Canada's government-run insurance system has much less bureaucracy and much lower administrative costs than our largely private system. Medicare has much lower administrative costs than private insurance. The reason is that single-payer systems don't devote large resources to screening out high-risk clients or charging them higher fees. The savings from a single-payer system would probably exceed $200 billion a year, far more than the cost of covering all of those now uninsured..."
The White House & The Press:
Frank Rich: Don't Follow the Money
"The current administration, a second-term imperial presidency that outstrips Nixon's in hubris by the day, leads the attack, trying to intimidate and snuff out any Woodwards or Bernsteins that might challenge it, any media proprietor like Katharine Graham or editor like Ben Bradlee who might support them and any anonymous source like Deep Throat who might enable them to find what Carl Bernstein calls 'the best obtainable version of the truth.'
The attacks continue to be so successful that even now, long after many news organizations, including The Times, have been found guilty of failing to puncture the administration's prewar W.M.D. hype, new details on that same story are still being ignored or left uninvestigated. The July 2002 'Downing Street memo,' the minutes of a meeting in which Tony Blair and his advisers learned of a White House effort to fix 'the intelligence and facts' to justify the war in Iraq, was published by The London Sunday Times on May 1. Yet in the 19 daily Scott McClellan briefings that followed, the memo was the subject of only 2 out of the approximately 940 questions asked by the White House press corps, according to Eric Boehlert of Salon.
This is the kind of lapdog news media the Nixon White House cherished. To foster it, Nixon's special counsel, Charles W. Colson, embarked on a ruthless program of intimidation that included threatening antitrust action against the networks if they didn't run pro-Nixon stories...
...The main difference is that in the Nixon White House, the president's men plotted behind closed doors. The current administration is now so brazen it does its dirty work in plain sight.
In the most recent example, all the president's men slimed and intimidated Newsweek by accusing it of being an accessory to 17 deaths for its errant Koran story; led by Scott McClellan, they said it was unthinkable that any American guard could be disrespectful of Islam's holy book. These neo-Colsons easily drowned out Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, both of whom said that the riots that led to the 17 deaths were unrelated to Newsweek. Then came the pièce de résistance of Nixon mimicry: a Pentagon report certifying desecrations of the Koran by American guards was released two weeks after the Newsweek imbroglio, at 7:15 p.m. on a Friday, to assure it would miss the evening newscasts and be buried in the Memorial Day weekend's little-read papers..."
Bob Herbert: They Won't Go
"...The Army reported on Friday that it had fallen short of its recruitment goals for a fourth consecutive month. The Marines managed to meet their recruitment target for May, but that was their first successful month this year.
Scrambling to fill its ranks, the Army is signing up more high school dropouts and lower-scoring applicants.
With the war in Iraq going badly and allegations of abuse by military personnel widespread, young men and women are increasingly deciding that there's no upside to a career choice in which the most important skills might be ducking bullets and dodging roadside bombs.
The primary reason the U.S. went to an all-volunteer military in 1973 was to ensure that those who did not want to fight wouldn't have to. That option is now being overwhelmingly exercised, discretion being the clear choice over valor. Young people and their parents alike are turning their backs on the military in droves.
The Army is so desperate for even lukewarm bodies that it is reluctant to release even problem soldiers, troops who are seriously out of shape, or pregnant, or abusing alcohol or drugs. And it is lowering standards for admission to the junior officer ranks. For example, minor criminal offenses that previously would have been prohibitive can now be overlooked.
At the same time Army recruiters have been chasing high school kids with such reckless abandon that a backlash is developing among parents who, in many cases, want the recruiters kept out of their children's schools..."
Health Care:
Paul Krugman:One Nation, Uninsured
"...The intellectually serious debate is between those who believe that the government should simply provide basic health insurance for everyone and those proposing a more complex, indirect approach that preserves a central role for private health insurance companies.
A system in which the government provides universal health insurance is often referred to as 'single payer,' but I like Ted Kennedy's slogan 'Medicare for all.' It reminds voters that America already has a highly successful, popular single-payer program, albeit only for the elderly. It shows that we're talking about government insurance, not government-provided health care. And it makes it clear that like Medicare (but unlike Canada's system), a U.S. national health insurance system would allow individuals with the means and inclination to buy their own medical care.
The great advantage of universal, government-provided health insurance is lower costs. Canada's government-run insurance system has much less bureaucracy and much lower administrative costs than our largely private system. Medicare has much lower administrative costs than private insurance. The reason is that single-payer systems don't devote large resources to screening out high-risk clients or charging them higher fees. The savings from a single-payer system would probably exceed $200 billion a year, far more than the cost of covering all of those now uninsured..."
The White House & The Press:
Frank Rich: Don't Follow the Money
"The current administration, a second-term imperial presidency that outstrips Nixon's in hubris by the day, leads the attack, trying to intimidate and snuff out any Woodwards or Bernsteins that might challenge it, any media proprietor like Katharine Graham or editor like Ben Bradlee who might support them and any anonymous source like Deep Throat who might enable them to find what Carl Bernstein calls 'the best obtainable version of the truth.'
The attacks continue to be so successful that even now, long after many news organizations, including The Times, have been found guilty of failing to puncture the administration's prewar W.M.D. hype, new details on that same story are still being ignored or left uninvestigated. The July 2002 'Downing Street memo,' the minutes of a meeting in which Tony Blair and his advisers learned of a White House effort to fix 'the intelligence and facts' to justify the war in Iraq, was published by The London Sunday Times on May 1. Yet in the 19 daily Scott McClellan briefings that followed, the memo was the subject of only 2 out of the approximately 940 questions asked by the White House press corps, according to Eric Boehlert of Salon.
This is the kind of lapdog news media the Nixon White House cherished. To foster it, Nixon's special counsel, Charles W. Colson, embarked on a ruthless program of intimidation that included threatening antitrust action against the networks if they didn't run pro-Nixon stories...
...The main difference is that in the Nixon White House, the president's men plotted behind closed doors. The current administration is now so brazen it does its dirty work in plain sight.
In the most recent example, all the president's men slimed and intimidated Newsweek by accusing it of being an accessory to 17 deaths for its errant Koran story; led by Scott McClellan, they said it was unthinkable that any American guard could be disrespectful of Islam's holy book. These neo-Colsons easily drowned out Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, both of whom said that the riots that led to the 17 deaths were unrelated to Newsweek. Then came the pièce de résistance of Nixon mimicry: a Pentagon report certifying desecrations of the Koran by American guards was released two weeks after the Newsweek imbroglio, at 7:15 p.m. on a Friday, to assure it would miss the evening newscasts and be buried in the Memorial Day weekend's little-read papers..."
Friday, June 10, 2005
The Unchecked Lies That Rushed A Nation To Pre-planned War:
William Rivers Pitt: After Downing Street
Politicizing Federal Indictments For Maximum Hype As Bush Campaigns For Renewal of the PATRIOT Act
CS Monitor: Terror allegations disappear from court filing
"The LA Times reports that the Federal Bureau of Invesigation apparently gave the media a different, far more damaging version of an affidavit against a Lodi, California father and son charged with lying to federal officials than the one that was finally given to a court in Sacramento Thursday.
The affidavit filed Thursday did not contain any of the sensation material from earlier in the week which said the son's 'potential terrorist targets included hospitals and groceries, and contained names of key individuals and statements about the international origins of 'hundreds' of participants in alleged Al Qaeda terrorist training camps in Pakistan.'
Attorneys for the two men now say they will challenge the government on this discrepancy, which they say as a deliberate move by the FBI to prejudice the case against their clients. Defense attorney Johnny Griffin III, who represents the father, Umer Hayat, accused the government of 'releasing information it knew it could not authenticate.' The FBI said the different versions were the result of 'unfortunate oversight due to miscommunication,'...
...The Los Angeles Times reports that in a speech yesterday asking for the Patriot Act to be made permanent, President Bush said that since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, 'federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted.'
But the American Civil Liberties Union challenged Mr. Bush's numbers, citing a study done by Syracuse University that showed the 'vast majority' of the 400 cases were for minor, non-terrorism offenses.' Lisa Graves, an ACLU senior counsel, said the study showed that most of those arrested 'posed such little threat to national security that most served no jail time,'..."
The (Fleeting) Right To Privacy:
AP: DoJ: Stealing Personal Medical Data OK
"The Justice Department has decided that most health care employees can't be prosecuted for stealing personal data under a privacy law intended to protect medical information.
The ruling could jeopardize the lone conviction obtained under medical privacy rules that took effect in 2003 and could stop federal prosecutors from pursuing some of the more than 13,000 complaints that have been filed alleging violations of those rules.
The health care industry has long sought to limit the effect of the rules and the 1996 privacy law, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, on which they are based, although officials at several industry trade groups said Tuesday they did not lobby the Justice Department on this topic.
Hospitals, insurers, doctors and other health care providers that bill for their services are subject to criminal prosecution under the law, according to the June 1 memo signed by Steven G. Bradbury, the Justice lawyer who heads the office of legal counsel.
But a hospital clerk, for example, and other employees cannot face criminal penalties because the law doesn't apply to them, Bradbury wrote.
The memo was the subject of extensive internal debate within the Bush administration, with at least one federal prosecutor voicing opposition to its conclusion.
'As prosecutors in the field, we're disappointed with the opinion,' said Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for US Attorney John McKay in Seattle.
Last August, McKay's office obtained a guilty plea from a technician at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. Richard W. Gibson was sentenced to 16 months in prison after admitting that he stole the identity of a cancer patient and used the information to obtain credit cards in the patient's name. Gibson bought $9,100 worth of jewelry, video games and a barbecue grill using the cards..."
William Rivers Pitt: After Downing Street
Politicizing Federal Indictments For Maximum Hype As Bush Campaigns For Renewal of the PATRIOT Act
CS Monitor: Terror allegations disappear from court filing
"The LA Times reports that the Federal Bureau of Invesigation apparently gave the media a different, far more damaging version of an affidavit against a Lodi, California father and son charged with lying to federal officials than the one that was finally given to a court in Sacramento Thursday.
The affidavit filed Thursday did not contain any of the sensation material from earlier in the week which said the son's 'potential terrorist targets included hospitals and groceries, and contained names of key individuals and statements about the international origins of 'hundreds' of participants in alleged Al Qaeda terrorist training camps in Pakistan.'
Attorneys for the two men now say they will challenge the government on this discrepancy, which they say as a deliberate move by the FBI to prejudice the case against their clients. Defense attorney Johnny Griffin III, who represents the father, Umer Hayat, accused the government of 'releasing information it knew it could not authenticate.' The FBI said the different versions were the result of 'unfortunate oversight due to miscommunication,'...
...The Los Angeles Times reports that in a speech yesterday asking for the Patriot Act to be made permanent, President Bush said that since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, 'federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted.'
But the American Civil Liberties Union challenged Mr. Bush's numbers, citing a study done by Syracuse University that showed the 'vast majority' of the 400 cases were for minor, non-terrorism offenses.' Lisa Graves, an ACLU senior counsel, said the study showed that most of those arrested 'posed such little threat to national security that most served no jail time,'..."
The (Fleeting) Right To Privacy:
AP: DoJ: Stealing Personal Medical Data OK
"The Justice Department has decided that most health care employees can't be prosecuted for stealing personal data under a privacy law intended to protect medical information.
The ruling could jeopardize the lone conviction obtained under medical privacy rules that took effect in 2003 and could stop federal prosecutors from pursuing some of the more than 13,000 complaints that have been filed alleging violations of those rules.
The health care industry has long sought to limit the effect of the rules and the 1996 privacy law, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, on which they are based, although officials at several industry trade groups said Tuesday they did not lobby the Justice Department on this topic.
Hospitals, insurers, doctors and other health care providers that bill for their services are subject to criminal prosecution under the law, according to the June 1 memo signed by Steven G. Bradbury, the Justice lawyer who heads the office of legal counsel.
But a hospital clerk, for example, and other employees cannot face criminal penalties because the law doesn't apply to them, Bradbury wrote.
The memo was the subject of extensive internal debate within the Bush administration, with at least one federal prosecutor voicing opposition to its conclusion.
'As prosecutors in the field, we're disappointed with the opinion,' said Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for US Attorney John McKay in Seattle.
Last August, McKay's office obtained a guilty plea from a technician at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. Richard W. Gibson was sentenced to 16 months in prison after admitting that he stole the identity of a cancer patient and used the information to obtain credit cards in the patient's name. Gibson bought $9,100 worth of jewelry, video games and a barbecue grill using the cards..."
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Crafting Environmental Policy To The Petroleum Industry's Taste:
Greenpeace: Bush Administration Uses "Fuzzy" English to Rewrite Global Warming Science
"[Wednesday's] story in The New York Times, 'Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming,' is further evidence that the Bush White House, controlled by the oil industry, has been lying to the public regarding the need to take action to stop this global threat. From today's story we learn that 'In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, [Chief of Staff to the White House's Council on Environmental Quality] removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.' Prior to working at the White House, Cooney was a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's trade association.
Cooney’s misdeeds go well beyond undermining the public’s understanding of global warming by editing official scientific publications on global warming. Cooney has regularly enlisted the help of industry funded think tanks and public relations firms to help promote the Bush Administration’s line that global warming is still a theory. Greenpeace has uncovered a string of email communications (read an
example) between Cooney and industry funded global warming naysayers (primarily funded by ExxonMobil) dating back to 2001 showing a collaboration between the White House and the naysayers to run a communication strategy to support the White House position that knowledge of global warming, despite a wealth of scientific evidence, is still uncertain..."
NY Times Editorial: A (White) House Party for Lobbyists
"President Bush moved quickly after the 2000 election to fill many of the important environmental and energy jobs with corporate lobbyists who had spent their careers trying to weaken the laws they would then swear to protect. Most were vetted by Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. The result has been an erosion of the regulatory framework protecting the country's air, water, public lands and wildlife, combined with a chronic unwillingness by the administration to address difficult environmental issues.
Anyone needing evidence of industry's influence need look no further than Andrew C. Revkin's article in Wednesday's Times involving the handiwork of one Philip Cooney, an important but heretofore obscure official who serves as chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Mr. Cooney spent his immediate pre-White House years as a lawyer at the American Petroleum Institute, where he helped organize the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gas emissions from factories and automobiles. Mr. Revkin reported that Mr. Cooney had been fighting the same fight in his new job by sanitizing government reports in an effort to cast doubt on the link - a link accepted by mainstream scientists - between climate change and the emissions caused by burning fossil fuels.
Creating uncertainty about that connection, of course, reduces the chances that anything meaningful will be done to clamp down on those emissions and thus to discomfit Mr. Bush's corporate allies.
This is hardly the first time this administration has tinkered with the truth. In 2002 and 2003, about the same time Mr. Cooney was deploying his literary skills, the White House censored two Environmental Protection Agency reports that linked warming to industrial activity.
It's sad to think of a White House run by people who believe that a problem can be edited out of existence."
Greenpeace: Bush Administration Uses "Fuzzy" English to Rewrite Global Warming Science
"[Wednesday's] story in The New York Times, 'Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming,' is further evidence that the Bush White House, controlled by the oil industry, has been lying to the public regarding the need to take action to stop this global threat. From today's story we learn that 'In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, [Chief of Staff to the White House's Council on Environmental Quality] removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.' Prior to working at the White House, Cooney was a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's trade association.
Cooney’s misdeeds go well beyond undermining the public’s understanding of global warming by editing official scientific publications on global warming. Cooney has regularly enlisted the help of industry funded think tanks and public relations firms to help promote the Bush Administration’s line that global warming is still a theory. Greenpeace has uncovered a string of email communications (read an
example) between Cooney and industry funded global warming naysayers (primarily funded by ExxonMobil) dating back to 2001 showing a collaboration between the White House and the naysayers to run a communication strategy to support the White House position that knowledge of global warming, despite a wealth of scientific evidence, is still uncertain..."
NY Times Editorial: A (White) House Party for Lobbyists
"President Bush moved quickly after the 2000 election to fill many of the important environmental and energy jobs with corporate lobbyists who had spent their careers trying to weaken the laws they would then swear to protect. Most were vetted by Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. The result has been an erosion of the regulatory framework protecting the country's air, water, public lands and wildlife, combined with a chronic unwillingness by the administration to address difficult environmental issues.
Anyone needing evidence of industry's influence need look no further than Andrew C. Revkin's article in Wednesday's Times involving the handiwork of one Philip Cooney, an important but heretofore obscure official who serves as chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
Mr. Cooney spent his immediate pre-White House years as a lawyer at the American Petroleum Institute, where he helped organize the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gas emissions from factories and automobiles. Mr. Revkin reported that Mr. Cooney had been fighting the same fight in his new job by sanitizing government reports in an effort to cast doubt on the link - a link accepted by mainstream scientists - between climate change and the emissions caused by burning fossil fuels.
Creating uncertainty about that connection, of course, reduces the chances that anything meaningful will be done to clamp down on those emissions and thus to discomfit Mr. Bush's corporate allies.
This is hardly the first time this administration has tinkered with the truth. In 2002 and 2003, about the same time Mr. Cooney was deploying his literary skills, the White House censored two Environmental Protection Agency reports that linked warming to industrial activity.
It's sad to think of a White House run by people who believe that a problem can be edited out of existence."
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
The Rule of Law:
The Times (below) does not go far enough in dissecting the problem. The problem is the addiction of Congress to pharmaceutical lobby favors. It is this relationship that results in cannabis remaining a Schedule I drug, which assumes it has "no recognized medical use in treatment in the US."
The pharma industry is desperate to prevent the loss of customers for its expensive patented pills and as such has convinced Congress to limit even the research that can be done on the cannabis plant, requiring the DEA to permit only experiments on one strain of the plant grown at the U. of Mississippi. It should surprise noone that little useful research could result with those requirements. The UK's policy approach is far more pragmatic, allowing GW Pharmaceuticals to breed its own cannabis strains, allowing it to develop plant extracts, with varying cannabinoid ratios, appropriate to various indications (Multiple Sclerosis, Peripheral Neuropathic Pain, Central Neuropathic Pain, Cancer Pain,).
The very low toxicity of cannabinoids, compared to standard pharma perparations, should be driving the interest in further research in the US. The failure to do so, in light of such R&D taking place elsewhere, makes the Schedule I status of cannabis appear not only absurd, but meanspirited.
New York Times: The Court and Marijuana
"...We certainly wish that the Justice Department could be weaned from the gross misuse of the federal Controlled Substances Act that led to its campaign against the use of marijuana by terminally ill people in the 11 states where it is legal for doctors to prescribe it.
...The law the Bush administration used in attempting to crack down on medical marijuana in states where it is legal was intended to stop interstate trafficking in dangerous drugs. Most Americans would agree that using small amounts of marijuana in private under a doctor's supervision has nothing to do with narcotics trafficking. To stop the Justice Department from pursuing this ideological obsession, Congress should amend the law to specifically exempt prescribed marijuana. It should not be a partisan issue; both red and blue states have laws allowing the medicinal use of marijuana..."
Fixing Government Policy To Benefit The Petroleum Industry:
Anyone surprised?
NY Times:Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming
"A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.
In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.
The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase 'significant and fundamental' before the word 'uncertainties,' tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.
Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues.
Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the 'climate team leader' and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, he has no scientific training.
The documents were obtained by The New York Times from the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit legal-assistance group for government whistle-blowers.
The project is representing Rick S. Piltz, who resigned in March as a senior associate in the office that coordinates government climate research. That office, now called the Climate Change Science Program, issued the documents that Mr. Cooney edited.
A White House spokeswoman, Michele St. Martin, said yesterday that Mr. Cooney would not be available to comment..."
Energy Politcs:
Jason Leopold: Former Army Sec, Enron VP, Thomas White Wants Gov't Funding For New Energy Project
"Beware. This could be your tax dollars at work.
The federal government may guarantee hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to help a former energy executive who publicly admitted he had no idea that the division he once ran cooked its books and who is now trying to secure funding for a new energy company he started with three ex-colleagues.
Yes, Thomas White, the former vice chairman of Enron Energy Services and one-time Secretary of the Army, who testified before the U.S. Senate more than two years ago that he was clueless about the tactics the employees who worked for him used to manipulate electricity prices in the California power market in addition to the massive losses EES - under his leadership - hid in an effort to keep its parent company, Enron Corp, temporarily afloat, is back in the energy business and this time he's looking for a handout..."
On Torture:
Naomi Klein: Torture's Part of the Territory
"Brace yourself for a flood of gruesome new torture snapshots. Last week, a federal judge ordered the Defense Department to release dozens of additional photographs and videotapes depicting prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.
The photographs will elicit what has become a predictable response: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will claim to be shocked and will assure us that action is already being taken to prevent such abuses from happening again...
...Most Iraqis do not consent to the open-ended military occupation they have been living under for more than two years. On Jan. 30, a clear majority voted for political parties promising to demand a timetable for U.S. withdrawal. Washington may have succeeded in persuading Iraq's political class to abandon that demand, but the fact remains that U.S. troops are on Iraqi soil in open defiance of the express wishes of the population.
Lacking consent, the current U.S.-Iraqi regime relies heavily on fear, including the most terrifying tactics of them all: disappearances, indefinite detention without charge and torture. And despite official reassurances, it's only getting worse. A year ago, President Bush pledged to erase the stain of Abu Ghraib by razing the prison to the ground. There has been a change of plans. Abu Ghraib and two other U.S.-run prisons in Iraq are being expanded, and a new 2,000-person detention facility is being built, with a price tag of $50 million. In the last seven months alone, the prison population has doubled to a staggering 11,350.
The U.S. military may indeed be cracking down on prisoner abuse, but torture in Iraq is not in decline - it has simply been outsourced. In January, Human Rights Watch found that torture within Iraqi-run (and U.S.-supervised) jails and detention facilities was 'systematic,' including the use of electroshock.
An internal report from the 1st Cavalry Division, obtained by the Washington Post, states that 'electrical shock and choking' are 'consistently used to achieve confessions' by Iraqi police and soldiers. So open is the use of torture that it has given rise to a hit television show: Every night on the TV station Al Iraqiya - run by a U.S. contractor - prisoners with swollen faces and black eyes 'confess' to their crimes.
Rumsfeld claims that the wave of recent suicide bombings in Iraq is 'a sign of desperation.' In fact, it is the proliferation of torture under Rumsfeld's watch that is the true sign of panic..."
The Times (below) does not go far enough in dissecting the problem. The problem is the addiction of Congress to pharmaceutical lobby favors. It is this relationship that results in cannabis remaining a Schedule I drug, which assumes it has "no recognized medical use in treatment in the US."
The pharma industry is desperate to prevent the loss of customers for its expensive patented pills and as such has convinced Congress to limit even the research that can be done on the cannabis plant, requiring the DEA to permit only experiments on one strain of the plant grown at the U. of Mississippi. It should surprise noone that little useful research could result with those requirements. The UK's policy approach is far more pragmatic, allowing GW Pharmaceuticals to breed its own cannabis strains, allowing it to develop plant extracts, with varying cannabinoid ratios, appropriate to various indications (Multiple Sclerosis, Peripheral Neuropathic Pain, Central Neuropathic Pain, Cancer Pain,).
The very low toxicity of cannabinoids, compared to standard pharma perparations, should be driving the interest in further research in the US. The failure to do so, in light of such R&D taking place elsewhere, makes the Schedule I status of cannabis appear not only absurd, but meanspirited.
New York Times: The Court and Marijuana
"...We certainly wish that the Justice Department could be weaned from the gross misuse of the federal Controlled Substances Act that led to its campaign against the use of marijuana by terminally ill people in the 11 states where it is legal for doctors to prescribe it.
...The law the Bush administration used in attempting to crack down on medical marijuana in states where it is legal was intended to stop interstate trafficking in dangerous drugs. Most Americans would agree that using small amounts of marijuana in private under a doctor's supervision has nothing to do with narcotics trafficking. To stop the Justice Department from pursuing this ideological obsession, Congress should amend the law to specifically exempt prescribed marijuana. It should not be a partisan issue; both red and blue states have laws allowing the medicinal use of marijuana..."
Fixing Government Policy To Benefit The Petroleum Industry:
Anyone surprised?
NY Times:Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming
"A White House official who once led the oil industry's fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents.
In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.
The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase 'significant and fundamental' before the word 'uncertainties,' tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.
Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues.
Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the 'climate team leader' and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, he has no scientific training.
The documents were obtained by The New York Times from the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit legal-assistance group for government whistle-blowers.
The project is representing Rick S. Piltz, who resigned in March as a senior associate in the office that coordinates government climate research. That office, now called the Climate Change Science Program, issued the documents that Mr. Cooney edited.
A White House spokeswoman, Michele St. Martin, said yesterday that Mr. Cooney would not be available to comment..."
Energy Politcs:
Jason Leopold: Former Army Sec, Enron VP, Thomas White Wants Gov't Funding For New Energy Project
"Beware. This could be your tax dollars at work.
The federal government may guarantee hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to help a former energy executive who publicly admitted he had no idea that the division he once ran cooked its books and who is now trying to secure funding for a new energy company he started with three ex-colleagues.
Yes, Thomas White, the former vice chairman of Enron Energy Services and one-time Secretary of the Army, who testified before the U.S. Senate more than two years ago that he was clueless about the tactics the employees who worked for him used to manipulate electricity prices in the California power market in addition to the massive losses EES - under his leadership - hid in an effort to keep its parent company, Enron Corp, temporarily afloat, is back in the energy business and this time he's looking for a handout..."
On Torture:
Naomi Klein: Torture's Part of the Territory
"Brace yourself for a flood of gruesome new torture snapshots. Last week, a federal judge ordered the Defense Department to release dozens of additional photographs and videotapes depicting prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.
The photographs will elicit what has become a predictable response: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld will claim to be shocked and will assure us that action is already being taken to prevent such abuses from happening again...
...Most Iraqis do not consent to the open-ended military occupation they have been living under for more than two years. On Jan. 30, a clear majority voted for political parties promising to demand a timetable for U.S. withdrawal. Washington may have succeeded in persuading Iraq's political class to abandon that demand, but the fact remains that U.S. troops are on Iraqi soil in open defiance of the express wishes of the population.
Lacking consent, the current U.S.-Iraqi regime relies heavily on fear, including the most terrifying tactics of them all: disappearances, indefinite detention without charge and torture. And despite official reassurances, it's only getting worse. A year ago, President Bush pledged to erase the stain of Abu Ghraib by razing the prison to the ground. There has been a change of plans. Abu Ghraib and two other U.S.-run prisons in Iraq are being expanded, and a new 2,000-person detention facility is being built, with a price tag of $50 million. In the last seven months alone, the prison population has doubled to a staggering 11,350.
The U.S. military may indeed be cracking down on prisoner abuse, but torture in Iraq is not in decline - it has simply been outsourced. In January, Human Rights Watch found that torture within Iraqi-run (and U.S.-supervised) jails and detention facilities was 'systematic,' including the use of electroshock.
An internal report from the 1st Cavalry Division, obtained by the Washington Post, states that 'electrical shock and choking' are 'consistently used to achieve confessions' by Iraqi police and soldiers. So open is the use of torture that it has given rise to a hit television show: Every night on the TV station Al Iraqiya - run by a U.S. contractor - prisoners with swollen faces and black eyes 'confess' to their crimes.
Rumsfeld claims that the wave of recent suicide bombings in Iraq is 'a sign of desperation.' In fact, it is the proliferation of torture under Rumsfeld's watch that is the true sign of panic..."
Monday, June 06, 2005
High Crimes - Bush Started Iraq War in 2002 Without Congressional Approval:
Jeremy Scahill: The Other Bomb Drops
"It was a huge air assault: Approximately 100 US and British planes flew from Kuwait into Iraqi airspace. At least seven types of aircraft were part of this massive operation, including US F-15 Strike Eagles and Royal Air Force Tornado ground-attack planes. They dropped precision-guided munitions on Saddam Hussein's major western air-defense facility, clearing the path for Special Forces helicopters that lay in wait in Jordan. Earlier attacks had been carried out against Iraqi command and control centers, radar detection systems, Revolutionary Guard units, communication centers and mobile air-defense systems. The Pentagon's goal was clear: Destroy Iraq's ability to resist. This was war.
But there was a catch: The war hadn't started yet, at least not officially. This was September 2002 - a month before Congress had voted to give President Bush the authority he used to invade Iraq, two months before the United Nations brought the matter to a vote and more than six months before 'shock and awe' officially began.
At the time, the Bush Administration publicly played down the extent of the air strikes, claiming the United States was just defending the so-called no-fly zones. But new information that has come out in response to the Downing Street memo reveals that, by this time, the war was already a foregone conclusion and attacks were no less than the undeclared beginning of the invasion of Iraq..."
On Torture:
AP : Judge Orders That Army Release Abu Ghraib Pictures
"A judge has ordered the government to release four videos from Abu Ghraib prison and dozens of photographs from the same collection of photos that touched off the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal a year ago.
The federal judge issued the order late Wednesday requiring the Army to release the material to the American Civil Liberties Union to comply with the Freedom of Information Act.
The ACLU said the material would show that the abuse was 'more than the actions of a few rogue soldiers.'
Judge Alvin Hellerstein said the 144 pictures and videos can be turned over in edited form to protect the victims' identities. He gave the Army one month to release them.
The judge ordered the release after he viewed eight of the photos last week. They were given to the Army by a military policeman assigned to Abu Ghraib.
In October 2003, the ACLU filed a lawsuit seeking information on treatment of detainees in US custody and the transfer of prisoners to countries known to use torture. The ACLU contends that prisoner abuse is systemic..."
Iraq:
Dahr Jamail:
The failed siege of Fallujah
"After two devastating sieges of Fallujah in April and November of 2004, which left thousands of Iraqis dead and hundreds of thousands without homes, the aftermath of the US attempt to rid the city of resistance fighters in an effort to improve security in the country continues to plague the residents of Fallujah, and Iraq as a whole.
Simmering anger grows with time among Fallujans who, after having most of their city destroyed by the US military onslaught, have seen promises of rebuilding by both the US military and Iraqi government remain mostly unfulfilled.
'There are daily war crimes being committed in Fallujah, even now,' said Mohammed Abdulla, the executive director of the Study Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Fallujah (SCHRDF). His organization works within the destruction of Fallujah, trying to monitor the plight of residents, bring them reconstruction aid, and document the war crimes and illegal weapons that were used during the November siege.
'Now we have none of the rebuilding which was promised, which people need so desperately in order to get their lives back in order,' said Abdulla during a recent interview with Asia Times Online in Amman.
Doctors working inside the city continue to complain of US and Iraqi security forces impeding their medical care. Along with the continuance of strict US military checkpoints, residents in the city say the treatment they receive from both the US military and Iraqi security forces operating inside Fallujah is both degrading and humiliating. This treatment is also being perceived by most as intentional..."
Appointing the Fox To Watch The Henhouse:
This appointment is only due to the business lobby's influence on Capitol Hill.
NY Times: Bush S.E.C. Pick Is Seen as Friend to Corporations
"In Republican and business circles, William H. Donaldson has been viewed as the David Souter of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a disappointingly independent choice who sided too frequently with the Democrats. President Bush, hearing complaints about Mr. Donaldson's record from across the business spectrum, responded on Thursday by nominating Representative Christopher Cox, a conservative Republican from California, as a successor whose loyalties seem clear. And unlike the Supreme Court, where Justice Souter has a lifetime appointment, the S.E.C. provides the White House with an immediate opportunity to tip the balance of the five-person commission in a more favorable direction.
Mr. Cox - a devoted student of Ayn Rand, the high priestess of unfettered capitalism - has a long record in the House of promoting the agenda of business interests that are a cornerstone of the Republican Party's political and financial support..."
Campaign Finance:
The Independent (UK) - US Probes Tax Scheme Used by Billionaire Bush Donors
"The Manhattan District Attorney, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are jointly probing a tax-shelter plan run out of the Isle of Man.
The scheme, devised by one of America's biggest banks and used by two billionaire donors to George Bush's election campaign among others, is being probed for possible breaches of securities and anti-money-laundering rules.
The investigating bodies believed that up to $100m (£55m) of tax was saved through one scheme alone, and as much as $700m in taxes may have been avoided over an 11-year period. The scheme involved executives and corporations handing over stock to trusts that they declared they neither owned nor controlled. When the options were cashed in, no tax was payable. However, the IRS changed the rules in 2003 to say that tax should be paid anyway.
In the previous 11 years, tax schemes were marketed by Bank of America to at least 42 corporations.
Earlier this year the Manhattan District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau, started probing allegations that some of these trusts were controlled by the people passing on the stock options. Both the IRS and the SEC have now joined in this probe..."
Energy Politcs:
Kelpie Wilson: Sellin' Nukes, Dissin' Wind
"...the new version of the McCain-Lieberman climate change bill adds in a hefty nuclear power subsidy. This is a harbinger of what we are likely to see in this summer's episode of the Energy Bill Wars: nuclear advocates will bargain for new subsidies in exchange for some slightly increased support of solar, wind and energy efficiency.
One of the prizes the nuclear industry wants is a production tax credit of 1.8 cents per kilowatt hour guaranteed for ten years. This is on top of a package already passed in the House version of the Energy Bill that includes more than $6 billion in subsidies and tax breaks plus the reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act that caps industry's liability for nuclear accidents.
According to Public Citizen, nuclear energy has received $74 billion of taxpayers' money for research and development since 1948. In contrast, fossil fuels have received $30.9 billion; renewables have gotten $14.6 billion and energy efficiency $11.7 billion.
For the nuclear industry to demand a guaranteed production tax credit is particularly insane in the face of the struggles of the wind power industry. Here is a power source that, once installed, has NO fuel cost. While the rest of the world is experiencing explosive growth in wind power, the US has crippled its industry by refusing to provide a reliable production tax credit. The only credit available has to be renewed every two years. Attached to last year's failed Energy Bill, it was saved at the last minute by insertion into another piece of legislation, but the uncertainty created deters serious investment in wind power.
Which industry most deserves our hard earned tax money? Massive deployment of wind power could help revitalize US manufacturing and bring money into rural areas by installing wind turbines in farmers' fields. Nuclear power employs only elite contractors and engineers along with a few Homer Simpsons to run the plants...
... But the real choice is not between a high-powered but dangerous nuclear future and a solar-powered, modest granola lifestyle. We will never build enough nukes to replace the immense legacy of stored sunlight that is fossil fuels. We are inevitably headed toward a different, decentralized, low energy future. If there is a human impulse toward imperialism, there is an equally strong human impulse for democracy, and I am optimistic that the future will offer fewer opportunities for despots and more for democrats.
The real choice then is this: Do we saddle our descendents with the poison forever of nuclear contamination in our attempts to hang on to a doomed lifestyle? Or do we start learning to live lightly on the planet now, and spare the children?"
Bolton For UN Post?
AP: Bolton Said to Orchestrate Unlawful Firing
"John R. Bolton flew to Europe in 2002 to confront the head of a global arms-control agency and demand he resign, then orchestrated the firing of the unwilling diplomat in a move a U.N. tribunal has since judged unlawful, according to officials involved.
A former Bolton deputy says the U.S. undersecretary of state felt Jose Bustani 'had to go,' particularly because the Brazilian was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. That might have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war.
Bustani, who says he got a 'menacing' phone call from Bolton at one point, was removed by a vote of just one-third of member nations at an unusual special session of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), at which the United States cited alleged mismanagement in calling for his ouster.
The United Nations' highest administrative tribunal later condemned the action as an 'unacceptable violation' of principles protecting international civil servants. The OPCW session's Swiss chairman now calls it an 'unfortunate precedent' and Bustani a 'man with merit.'
'Many believed the U.S. delegation didn't want meddling from outside in the Iraq business,' said the retired Swiss diplomat, Heinrich Reimann. 'That could be the case.'
Bolton's handling of the multilateral showdown takes on added significance now as he looks for U.S. Senate confirmation as early as this week as U.N. ambassador, a key role on the international stage, and as more details have emerged in Associated Press interviews about what happened in 2002..."
Jeremy Scahill: The Other Bomb Drops
"It was a huge air assault: Approximately 100 US and British planes flew from Kuwait into Iraqi airspace. At least seven types of aircraft were part of this massive operation, including US F-15 Strike Eagles and Royal Air Force Tornado ground-attack planes. They dropped precision-guided munitions on Saddam Hussein's major western air-defense facility, clearing the path for Special Forces helicopters that lay in wait in Jordan. Earlier attacks had been carried out against Iraqi command and control centers, radar detection systems, Revolutionary Guard units, communication centers and mobile air-defense systems. The Pentagon's goal was clear: Destroy Iraq's ability to resist. This was war.
But there was a catch: The war hadn't started yet, at least not officially. This was September 2002 - a month before Congress had voted to give President Bush the authority he used to invade Iraq, two months before the United Nations brought the matter to a vote and more than six months before 'shock and awe' officially began.
At the time, the Bush Administration publicly played down the extent of the air strikes, claiming the United States was just defending the so-called no-fly zones. But new information that has come out in response to the Downing Street memo reveals that, by this time, the war was already a foregone conclusion and attacks were no less than the undeclared beginning of the invasion of Iraq..."
On Torture:
AP : Judge Orders That Army Release Abu Ghraib Pictures
"A judge has ordered the government to release four videos from Abu Ghraib prison and dozens of photographs from the same collection of photos that touched off the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal a year ago.
The federal judge issued the order late Wednesday requiring the Army to release the material to the American Civil Liberties Union to comply with the Freedom of Information Act.
The ACLU said the material would show that the abuse was 'more than the actions of a few rogue soldiers.'
Judge Alvin Hellerstein said the 144 pictures and videos can be turned over in edited form to protect the victims' identities. He gave the Army one month to release them.
The judge ordered the release after he viewed eight of the photos last week. They were given to the Army by a military policeman assigned to Abu Ghraib.
In October 2003, the ACLU filed a lawsuit seeking information on treatment of detainees in US custody and the transfer of prisoners to countries known to use torture. The ACLU contends that prisoner abuse is systemic..."
Iraq:
Dahr Jamail:
The failed siege of Fallujah
"After two devastating sieges of Fallujah in April and November of 2004, which left thousands of Iraqis dead and hundreds of thousands without homes, the aftermath of the US attempt to rid the city of resistance fighters in an effort to improve security in the country continues to plague the residents of Fallujah, and Iraq as a whole.
Simmering anger grows with time among Fallujans who, after having most of their city destroyed by the US military onslaught, have seen promises of rebuilding by both the US military and Iraqi government remain mostly unfulfilled.
'There are daily war crimes being committed in Fallujah, even now,' said Mohammed Abdulla, the executive director of the Study Center for Human Rights and Democracy in Fallujah (SCHRDF). His organization works within the destruction of Fallujah, trying to monitor the plight of residents, bring them reconstruction aid, and document the war crimes and illegal weapons that were used during the November siege.
'Now we have none of the rebuilding which was promised, which people need so desperately in order to get their lives back in order,' said Abdulla during a recent interview with Asia Times Online in Amman.
Doctors working inside the city continue to complain of US and Iraqi security forces impeding their medical care. Along with the continuance of strict US military checkpoints, residents in the city say the treatment they receive from both the US military and Iraqi security forces operating inside Fallujah is both degrading and humiliating. This treatment is also being perceived by most as intentional..."
Appointing the Fox To Watch The Henhouse:
This appointment is only due to the business lobby's influence on Capitol Hill.
NY Times: Bush S.E.C. Pick Is Seen as Friend to Corporations
"In Republican and business circles, William H. Donaldson has been viewed as the David Souter of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a disappointingly independent choice who sided too frequently with the Democrats. President Bush, hearing complaints about Mr. Donaldson's record from across the business spectrum, responded on Thursday by nominating Representative Christopher Cox, a conservative Republican from California, as a successor whose loyalties seem clear. And unlike the Supreme Court, where Justice Souter has a lifetime appointment, the S.E.C. provides the White House with an immediate opportunity to tip the balance of the five-person commission in a more favorable direction.
Mr. Cox - a devoted student of Ayn Rand, the high priestess of unfettered capitalism - has a long record in the House of promoting the agenda of business interests that are a cornerstone of the Republican Party's political and financial support..."
Campaign Finance:
The Independent (UK) - US Probes Tax Scheme Used by Billionaire Bush Donors
"The Manhattan District Attorney, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are jointly probing a tax-shelter plan run out of the Isle of Man.
The scheme, devised by one of America's biggest banks and used by two billionaire donors to George Bush's election campaign among others, is being probed for possible breaches of securities and anti-money-laundering rules.
The investigating bodies believed that up to $100m (£55m) of tax was saved through one scheme alone, and as much as $700m in taxes may have been avoided over an 11-year period. The scheme involved executives and corporations handing over stock to trusts that they declared they neither owned nor controlled. When the options were cashed in, no tax was payable. However, the IRS changed the rules in 2003 to say that tax should be paid anyway.
In the previous 11 years, tax schemes were marketed by Bank of America to at least 42 corporations.
Earlier this year the Manhattan District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau, started probing allegations that some of these trusts were controlled by the people passing on the stock options. Both the IRS and the SEC have now joined in this probe..."
Energy Politcs:
Kelpie Wilson: Sellin' Nukes, Dissin' Wind
"...the new version of the McCain-Lieberman climate change bill adds in a hefty nuclear power subsidy. This is a harbinger of what we are likely to see in this summer's episode of the Energy Bill Wars: nuclear advocates will bargain for new subsidies in exchange for some slightly increased support of solar, wind and energy efficiency.
One of the prizes the nuclear industry wants is a production tax credit of 1.8 cents per kilowatt hour guaranteed for ten years. This is on top of a package already passed in the House version of the Energy Bill that includes more than $6 billion in subsidies and tax breaks plus the reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act that caps industry's liability for nuclear accidents.
According to Public Citizen, nuclear energy has received $74 billion of taxpayers' money for research and development since 1948. In contrast, fossil fuels have received $30.9 billion; renewables have gotten $14.6 billion and energy efficiency $11.7 billion.
For the nuclear industry to demand a guaranteed production tax credit is particularly insane in the face of the struggles of the wind power industry. Here is a power source that, once installed, has NO fuel cost. While the rest of the world is experiencing explosive growth in wind power, the US has crippled its industry by refusing to provide a reliable production tax credit. The only credit available has to be renewed every two years. Attached to last year's failed Energy Bill, it was saved at the last minute by insertion into another piece of legislation, but the uncertainty created deters serious investment in wind power.
Which industry most deserves our hard earned tax money? Massive deployment of wind power could help revitalize US manufacturing and bring money into rural areas by installing wind turbines in farmers' fields. Nuclear power employs only elite contractors and engineers along with a few Homer Simpsons to run the plants...
... But the real choice is not between a high-powered but dangerous nuclear future and a solar-powered, modest granola lifestyle. We will never build enough nukes to replace the immense legacy of stored sunlight that is fossil fuels. We are inevitably headed toward a different, decentralized, low energy future. If there is a human impulse toward imperialism, there is an equally strong human impulse for democracy, and I am optimistic that the future will offer fewer opportunities for despots and more for democrats.
The real choice then is this: Do we saddle our descendents with the poison forever of nuclear contamination in our attempts to hang on to a doomed lifestyle? Or do we start learning to live lightly on the planet now, and spare the children?"
Bolton For UN Post?
AP: Bolton Said to Orchestrate Unlawful Firing
"John R. Bolton flew to Europe in 2002 to confront the head of a global arms-control agency and demand he resign, then orchestrated the firing of the unwilling diplomat in a move a U.N. tribunal has since judged unlawful, according to officials involved.
A former Bolton deputy says the U.S. undersecretary of state felt Jose Bustani 'had to go,' particularly because the Brazilian was trying to send chemical weapons inspectors to Baghdad. That might have helped defuse the crisis over alleged Iraqi weapons and undermined a U.S. rationale for war.
Bustani, who says he got a 'menacing' phone call from Bolton at one point, was removed by a vote of just one-third of member nations at an unusual special session of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), at which the United States cited alleged mismanagement in calling for his ouster.
The United Nations' highest administrative tribunal later condemned the action as an 'unacceptable violation' of principles protecting international civil servants. The OPCW session's Swiss chairman now calls it an 'unfortunate precedent' and Bustani a 'man with merit.'
'Many believed the U.S. delegation didn't want meddling from outside in the Iraq business,' said the retired Swiss diplomat, Heinrich Reimann. 'That could be the case.'
Bolton's handling of the multilateral showdown takes on added significance now as he looks for U.S. Senate confirmation as early as this week as U.N. ambassador, a key role on the international stage, and as more details have emerged in Associated Press interviews about what happened in 2002..."
Friday, June 03, 2005
High Crimes:
Robert Shetterly: Administration's offenses impeachable
Environemental Toxins - The 'Gift' That Keeps On Giving:
BBC News: Toxins may pass down generations
"A team from Washington State University has produced evidence that some inherited diseases may be caused by poisons polluting the womb.
Research on rats indicates man-made environmental toxins may alter genetic activity, giving rise to diseases that pass down at least four generations.
The research is published in the journal Science..."
Robert Shetterly: Administration's offenses impeachable
Environemental Toxins - The 'Gift' That Keeps On Giving:
BBC News: Toxins may pass down generations
"A team from Washington State University has produced evidence that some inherited diseases may be caused by poisons polluting the womb.
Research on rats indicates man-made environmental toxins may alter genetic activity, giving rise to diseases that pass down at least four generations.
The research is published in the journal Science..."
Thursday, June 02, 2005
The Establishment Clause Under Assault From the Religious Right:
Rob Boston: Wallbuilders Shoddy Workmanship
"'We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.'
So said James Madison, architect of the Constitution, defender of religious freedom and fourth president of the United States, according to the Religious Right.
But to church-state separationists and historians of the post-colonial period, something about this Madison quote has never felt quite right. It seemed unlikely that the same Madison who advocated 'total separation of the church from the state' and battled to disestablish the Anglican Church in Virginia would say it.The sentiment appeared to clash with his well known advocacy of a healthy distance between religion and government.
A few years ago, with the quote popping up increasingly in the mass media (including Rush Limbaugh's daily radio show), Robert S. Alley, professor emeritus at the University of Richmond and author of James Madison on Religious Liberty, undertook a dogged effort to track it down. Enlisting the help of the editors of The Papers of James Madison at the University of Virginia, Alley scoured reams of documents, books and writings. After coming up empty handed, the Madison scholar concluded that the quote was probably fictional.
Now the major purveyor of the quote, Texas-based Religious Right propagandist David Barton, has admitted it's bogus. Last year Barton's group, WallBuilders, issued a one-page document titled 'Questionable Quotes,' a list of 12 statements allegedly uttered by Founding Fathers and other prominent historical figures, that are now considered to be suspect or outright false. Madison's alleged comment about the Ten Commandments is number four on the list and is flatly declared by Barton to be 'false.'
Advocates of separation of church and state were left breathless over Barton's audacity. For nearly 10 years, the Texas propagandist has traveled the country putting on programs about America's alleged 'Christian heritage' at fundamentalist churches and other venues. During these events, Barton argued that the separation of church and state is a myth foisted on the country by the Supreme Court 50 years ago. The United States, he insisted, was founded by Christians and was intended to be a fundamentalist-style 'Christian nation,'..."
The Militarization of Space:
In a very short-term view, such projects would mean tremendous revenue for Bush's patrons in the US aerospace and weapons industry, but the long-term potential for a space arms-race with China seems to elude the calculus of these short-sighted profiteers.
The Independent (UK) - The real Star Wars: Bush revives missile defence plan
"...Space is already put to military use - and not only by the US - with satellites that gather data, speed communications, and conduct electronic eavesdropping. But these are not weapons in the accepted sense of the word; their purpose, it can be argued, is defensive and non-violent. Whether they are realistic or pure Strangelovian fantasy, the ideas now being kicked around by the Pentagon are a different matter altogether.
Killer satellites, which the US has been developing and that would disrupt or destroy in space an enemy's satellites are just the start. There is the CAV, the Common Aero Vehicle, a hypersonic craft launched in mid-air and swooping from space to hit targets up to 3,000 miles away with conventional weapons.
Another mooted weapon is the Hyper-Velocity Rod Bundle, nick-named 'rods from God,' consisting of tungsten bars weighing 100kg or more, deployed from a permanently orbiting platform and able to hit terrestrial targets, including buried targets, at 120 miles a minute, 7,200 mph, with the force of a small nuclear weapon.
A third weapon under study is a space-based laser, code-named Eagle, that employs space-based relay mirrors to direct the rays against ground targets. A fourth programme would use intense radio waves aimed from space to disable enemy communications systems. Welcome to the age of the so called 'death star'. Not quite George Lucas, but near enough..."
Money Fueling Political Ideology:
NY Times: Goals Reached, Donor on Right Closes Up Shop
The Environment:
The Scotsman (UK) - Serious UK nuclear leak 'went unnoticed for nine months'
"Tens of thousands of litres of highly radioactive liquid has been leaking unnoticed at the UK's nuclear reprocessing plant for nine months, it was revealed yesterday.
The leak is being described as the worst nuclear accident in Britain for 13 years and could threaten the future of the Thorp plant, at Sellafield in Cumbria, where the leak was discovered on 19 April.
The International Atomic Energy Authority has admitted that it would classify the accident as 'serious'.
It was only discovered that liquid was leaking last month, but by that time 83,000 litres of radioactive fuel, enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, had already been accidentally discharged.
British Nuclear Group, which runs the plant, said workers had failed to respond to indicators that would have warned since last August that there was a leak. The company has ordered an urgent review to check that there are not any other potential leaks, and is also warning against staff complacency.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Agency, the government quango responsible for the reprocessing plant, said that it will need time to assess the findings before discussing the implications with the government and the company..."
Rob Boston: Wallbuilders Shoddy Workmanship
"'We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.'
So said James Madison, architect of the Constitution, defender of religious freedom and fourth president of the United States, according to the Religious Right.
But to church-state separationists and historians of the post-colonial period, something about this Madison quote has never felt quite right. It seemed unlikely that the same Madison who advocated 'total separation of the church from the state' and battled to disestablish the Anglican Church in Virginia would say it.The sentiment appeared to clash with his well known advocacy of a healthy distance between religion and government.
A few years ago, with the quote popping up increasingly in the mass media (including Rush Limbaugh's daily radio show), Robert S. Alley, professor emeritus at the University of Richmond and author of James Madison on Religious Liberty, undertook a dogged effort to track it down. Enlisting the help of the editors of The Papers of James Madison at the University of Virginia, Alley scoured reams of documents, books and writings. After coming up empty handed, the Madison scholar concluded that the quote was probably fictional.
Now the major purveyor of the quote, Texas-based Religious Right propagandist David Barton, has admitted it's bogus. Last year Barton's group, WallBuilders, issued a one-page document titled 'Questionable Quotes,' a list of 12 statements allegedly uttered by Founding Fathers and other prominent historical figures, that are now considered to be suspect or outright false. Madison's alleged comment about the Ten Commandments is number four on the list and is flatly declared by Barton to be 'false.'
Advocates of separation of church and state were left breathless over Barton's audacity. For nearly 10 years, the Texas propagandist has traveled the country putting on programs about America's alleged 'Christian heritage' at fundamentalist churches and other venues. During these events, Barton argued that the separation of church and state is a myth foisted on the country by the Supreme Court 50 years ago. The United States, he insisted, was founded by Christians and was intended to be a fundamentalist-style 'Christian nation,'..."
The Militarization of Space:
In a very short-term view, such projects would mean tremendous revenue for Bush's patrons in the US aerospace and weapons industry, but the long-term potential for a space arms-race with China seems to elude the calculus of these short-sighted profiteers.
The Independent (UK) - The real Star Wars: Bush revives missile defence plan
"...Space is already put to military use - and not only by the US - with satellites that gather data, speed communications, and conduct electronic eavesdropping. But these are not weapons in the accepted sense of the word; their purpose, it can be argued, is defensive and non-violent. Whether they are realistic or pure Strangelovian fantasy, the ideas now being kicked around by the Pentagon are a different matter altogether.
Killer satellites, which the US has been developing and that would disrupt or destroy in space an enemy's satellites are just the start. There is the CAV, the Common Aero Vehicle, a hypersonic craft launched in mid-air and swooping from space to hit targets up to 3,000 miles away with conventional weapons.
Another mooted weapon is the Hyper-Velocity Rod Bundle, nick-named 'rods from God,' consisting of tungsten bars weighing 100kg or more, deployed from a permanently orbiting platform and able to hit terrestrial targets, including buried targets, at 120 miles a minute, 7,200 mph, with the force of a small nuclear weapon.
A third weapon under study is a space-based laser, code-named Eagle, that employs space-based relay mirrors to direct the rays against ground targets. A fourth programme would use intense radio waves aimed from space to disable enemy communications systems. Welcome to the age of the so called 'death star'. Not quite George Lucas, but near enough..."
Money Fueling Political Ideology:
NY Times: Goals Reached, Donor on Right Closes Up Shop
The Environment:
The Scotsman (UK) - Serious UK nuclear leak 'went unnoticed for nine months'
"Tens of thousands of litres of highly radioactive liquid has been leaking unnoticed at the UK's nuclear reprocessing plant for nine months, it was revealed yesterday.
The leak is being described as the worst nuclear accident in Britain for 13 years and could threaten the future of the Thorp plant, at Sellafield in Cumbria, where the leak was discovered on 19 April.
The International Atomic Energy Authority has admitted that it would classify the accident as 'serious'.
It was only discovered that liquid was leaking last month, but by that time 83,000 litres of radioactive fuel, enough to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, had already been accidentally discharged.
British Nuclear Group, which runs the plant, said workers had failed to respond to indicators that would have warned since last August that there was a leak. The company has ordered an urgent review to check that there are not any other potential leaks, and is also warning against staff complacency.
The Nuclear Decommissioning Agency, the government quango responsible for the reprocessing plant, said that it will need time to assess the findings before discussing the implications with the government and the company..."
