Saturday, June 30, 2007
Cheney's Unitary Executive
Newsweek: A New Dick Cheney-Alberto Gonzales Mystery
"A new battle has erupted over Vice President Dick Cheney's refusal to submit to an executive order requiring a government review of his handling of classified documents. But the dispute could also raise questions for embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. For the past four years, Cheney's office has failed to comply with an executive order requiring all federal offices—including those in the White House—to annually report to the National Archives on how they safeguard classified documents. Cheney's hard-line chief of staff, David Addington, has made the novel argument that the veep doesn't have to comply on the ground that, because the vice president also serves as president of the Senate, his office is not really part of the executive branch..."
William Rivers Pitt: How Dick Cheney Broke My Mind
"I was absolutely savaged by an unexpected emotional detonation on Thursday. Every rough emotion I am capable of experiencing - anger, fear, sorrow, rage, bitterness, despair, loathing, astonishment, woe, regret, horror, fury - erupted within me at the same time that day. I spent hours in the aftermath trying to type an accurate description of what had happened to me and why, but I failed. For the first time in a long, long while, I was completely unable to write.
What could have been powerful enough to huff and puff and blow my house down? What manner of mind bomb could hurl me so far off kilter that I was incapable of explaining it on paper?
It was, of course, Dick Cheney..."
Iraq:
The San Francisco Examiner: White House Opposes Move to Declassify Report on Iraq's WMDs
"The White House is resisting a move by both Republicans and Democrats to fully declassify a Senate report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Republicans say the public disclosure would help show that the CIA made honest mistakes in its 2002 assessment that Iraq owned stockpiles of WMDs, when in fact it no longer did.
But the White House believes the declassification would trigger another round of negative news media coverage and Democratic-led congressional hearings, said a Senate Republican, who asked to remain anonymous because of ongoing private discussions..."
Letter To My So-Called Liberal Rep. On His Vote Against The Fairness Doctrine:
"Rep. Udall,
I am dismayed and outraged that you voted for H.AMDT. 484 to H.R.2829.
The removal of the Fairness Doctrine in the Reagan de-regulatory push of 1985 was a great loss for balance in the sort of information broadcast on the publicly-owned airwaves. I clearly remember it in action before 1985. A local evening news broadcast would often be followed by the station's news editor offering an opinion on a topic. Then it would be followed by a counter-point argument from another person. Imagine that; more than one side of an issue was presented, and this is precisely what makes people THINK!
Your support of a measure to prevent the FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GENERAL GOV APPROPRIATIONS bill from funding any FCC attempt to re-implement the Fairness Doctrine is utterly offensive to me as a Progressive.
I understand why conservatives were happy about its removal. It allowed for the growth of one-sided commercial talk radio. Nothing could make commercial broadcasters happier than one-sided programming to offer as a platform to potential advertisers. Why a Rep. who claims to hold progressive values doesn't see that the people's airwaves deserve better is incomprehensible to me..."
Medicine:
NY Times: Psychiatrists Top List in Drug Maker Gifts
"As states begin to require that drug companies disclose their payments to doctors for lectures and other services, a pattern has emerged: psychiatrists earn more money from drug makers than doctors in any other specialty.
How this money may be influencing psychiatrists and other doctors has become one of the most contentious issues in health care. For instance, the more psychiatrists have earned from drug makers, the more they have prescribed a new class of powerful medicines known as atypical antipsychotics to children, for whom the drugs are especially risky and mostly unapproved.
Vermont officials disclosed Tuesday that drug company payments to psychiatrists in the state more than doubled last year, to an average of $45,692 each from $20,835 in 2005. Antipsychotic medicines are among the largest expenses for the state’s Medicaid program.
Over all last year, drug makers spent $2.25 million on marketing payments, fees and travel expenses to Vermont doctors, hospitals and universities, a 2.3 percent increase over the prior year, the state said.
The number most likely represents a small fraction of drug makers’ total marketing expenditures to doctors since it does not include the costs of free drug samples or the salaries of sales representatives and their staff members. According to their income statements, drug makers generally spend twice as much to market drugs as they do to research them..."
Religion Is Not Science:
The Register (UK) - UK Gov boots intelligent design back into 'religious' margins
"The government has announced that it will publish guidance for schools on how creationism and intelligent design relate to science teaching, and has reiterated that it sees no place for either on the science curriculum.
It has also defined 'Intelligent Design', the idea that life is too complex to have arisen without the guiding hand of a greater intelligence, as a religion, along with 'creationism'.
Responding to a petition (http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page12021.asp) on the Number 10 ePetitions site, the government said: 'The Government is aware that a number of concerns have been raised in the media and elsewhere as to whether creationism and intelligent design have a place in science lessons. The Government is clear that creationism and intelligent design are not part of the science National Curriculum programmes of study and should not be taught as science.'
It added that it would expect teachers to be able to answer pupil's questions about 'creationism, intelligent design, and other religious beliefs' within a scientific framework..."
Domestic Surveillance:
The Washington Post: FISA Court Judge Takes Issue With NSA Wiretaps
"At 3 a.m. on Aug. 8, 1998, the day after the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the chief judge of a special court that supervises applications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was awakened at home in order to approve five wiretaps, including one of Osama bin Laden's former secretary in Texas.
'Those five wiretaps turned out to be very productive,' U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said Saturday during an unusually open discussion of his work at the helm of the FISA court. Wadih el-Hage, the bin Laden aide, was tried and convicted in the bombings in 2001, and 'all the evidence from those wiretaps that I authorized that night were used at the trial,' Lamberth said.
Lamberth, known for his outspoken nature, was the court's chief judge from 1995 to 2002 and during that period was privy, he said, 'to every deepest, darkest secret our country has.' His presentation Saturday, at the American Library Association's convention, was probably the most revealing discussion to date of actions by the FISA court, which since 1978 has approved wiretaps and other secret surveillance activities involving foreign intelligence and terrorism cases.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the court shifted gears. 'We changed procedures and put in all the orders from September 12 forward based on the oral briefing with the director of the FBI and the chief judge of the FISA court,' Lamberth said. 'The courts can respond in times of national crisis, and I think the courts have to, and we did.'
One reason, he said, is that 'if you move very quickly, that's when things are most productive, particularly in e-mails. As soon as an event happens, everybody is e-mailing everybody and you pick up the most productive tape.'
Lamberth's defense of the court's speed and efficiency came after senior Bush administration officials said its procedures were too cumbersome to meet counterterrorism needs in the post-9/11 world, and created a system of warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency that did not include judicial review.
Taking direct aim at the administration's assertion, Lamberth noted that members of the court had approved almost 99 percent of the FISA applications presented. He added that he could not see a better way of conducting such surveillance..."
Newsweek: A New Dick Cheney-Alberto Gonzales Mystery
"A new battle has erupted over Vice President Dick Cheney's refusal to submit to an executive order requiring a government review of his handling of classified documents. But the dispute could also raise questions for embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. For the past four years, Cheney's office has failed to comply with an executive order requiring all federal offices—including those in the White House—to annually report to the National Archives on how they safeguard classified documents. Cheney's hard-line chief of staff, David Addington, has made the novel argument that the veep doesn't have to comply on the ground that, because the vice president also serves as president of the Senate, his office is not really part of the executive branch..."
William Rivers Pitt: How Dick Cheney Broke My Mind
"I was absolutely savaged by an unexpected emotional detonation on Thursday. Every rough emotion I am capable of experiencing - anger, fear, sorrow, rage, bitterness, despair, loathing, astonishment, woe, regret, horror, fury - erupted within me at the same time that day. I spent hours in the aftermath trying to type an accurate description of what had happened to me and why, but I failed. For the first time in a long, long while, I was completely unable to write.
What could have been powerful enough to huff and puff and blow my house down? What manner of mind bomb could hurl me so far off kilter that I was incapable of explaining it on paper?
It was, of course, Dick Cheney..."
Iraq:
The San Francisco Examiner: White House Opposes Move to Declassify Report on Iraq's WMDs
"The White House is resisting a move by both Republicans and Democrats to fully declassify a Senate report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Republicans say the public disclosure would help show that the CIA made honest mistakes in its 2002 assessment that Iraq owned stockpiles of WMDs, when in fact it no longer did.
But the White House believes the declassification would trigger another round of negative news media coverage and Democratic-led congressional hearings, said a Senate Republican, who asked to remain anonymous because of ongoing private discussions..."
Letter To My So-Called Liberal Rep. On His Vote Against The Fairness Doctrine:
"Rep. Udall,
I am dismayed and outraged that you voted for H.AMDT. 484 to H.R.2829.
The removal of the Fairness Doctrine in the Reagan de-regulatory push of 1985 was a great loss for balance in the sort of information broadcast on the publicly-owned airwaves. I clearly remember it in action before 1985. A local evening news broadcast would often be followed by the station's news editor offering an opinion on a topic. Then it would be followed by a counter-point argument from another person. Imagine that; more than one side of an issue was presented, and this is precisely what makes people THINK!
Your support of a measure to prevent the FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GENERAL GOV APPROPRIATIONS bill from funding any FCC attempt to re-implement the Fairness Doctrine is utterly offensive to me as a Progressive.
I understand why conservatives were happy about its removal. It allowed for the growth of one-sided commercial talk radio. Nothing could make commercial broadcasters happier than one-sided programming to offer as a platform to potential advertisers. Why a Rep. who claims to hold progressive values doesn't see that the people's airwaves deserve better is incomprehensible to me..."
Medicine:
NY Times: Psychiatrists Top List in Drug Maker Gifts
"As states begin to require that drug companies disclose their payments to doctors for lectures and other services, a pattern has emerged: psychiatrists earn more money from drug makers than doctors in any other specialty.
How this money may be influencing psychiatrists and other doctors has become one of the most contentious issues in health care. For instance, the more psychiatrists have earned from drug makers, the more they have prescribed a new class of powerful medicines known as atypical antipsychotics to children, for whom the drugs are especially risky and mostly unapproved.
Vermont officials disclosed Tuesday that drug company payments to psychiatrists in the state more than doubled last year, to an average of $45,692 each from $20,835 in 2005. Antipsychotic medicines are among the largest expenses for the state’s Medicaid program.
Over all last year, drug makers spent $2.25 million on marketing payments, fees and travel expenses to Vermont doctors, hospitals and universities, a 2.3 percent increase over the prior year, the state said.
The number most likely represents a small fraction of drug makers’ total marketing expenditures to doctors since it does not include the costs of free drug samples or the salaries of sales representatives and their staff members. According to their income statements, drug makers generally spend twice as much to market drugs as they do to research them..."
Religion Is Not Science:
The Register (UK) - UK Gov boots intelligent design back into 'religious' margins
"The government has announced that it will publish guidance for schools on how creationism and intelligent design relate to science teaching, and has reiterated that it sees no place for either on the science curriculum.
It has also defined 'Intelligent Design', the idea that life is too complex to have arisen without the guiding hand of a greater intelligence, as a religion, along with 'creationism'.
Responding to a petition (http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page12021.asp) on the Number 10 ePetitions site, the government said: 'The Government is aware that a number of concerns have been raised in the media and elsewhere as to whether creationism and intelligent design have a place in science lessons. The Government is clear that creationism and intelligent design are not part of the science National Curriculum programmes of study and should not be taught as science.'
It added that it would expect teachers to be able to answer pupil's questions about 'creationism, intelligent design, and other religious beliefs' within a scientific framework..."
Domestic Surveillance:
The Washington Post: FISA Court Judge Takes Issue With NSA Wiretaps
"At 3 a.m. on Aug. 8, 1998, the day after the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the chief judge of a special court that supervises applications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was awakened at home in order to approve five wiretaps, including one of Osama bin Laden's former secretary in Texas.
'Those five wiretaps turned out to be very productive,' U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth said Saturday during an unusually open discussion of his work at the helm of the FISA court. Wadih el-Hage, the bin Laden aide, was tried and convicted in the bombings in 2001, and 'all the evidence from those wiretaps that I authorized that night were used at the trial,' Lamberth said.
Lamberth, known for his outspoken nature, was the court's chief judge from 1995 to 2002 and during that period was privy, he said, 'to every deepest, darkest secret our country has.' His presentation Saturday, at the American Library Association's convention, was probably the most revealing discussion to date of actions by the FISA court, which since 1978 has approved wiretaps and other secret surveillance activities involving foreign intelligence and terrorism cases.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the court shifted gears. 'We changed procedures and put in all the orders from September 12 forward based on the oral briefing with the director of the FBI and the chief judge of the FISA court,' Lamberth said. 'The courts can respond in times of national crisis, and I think the courts have to, and we did.'
One reason, he said, is that 'if you move very quickly, that's when things are most productive, particularly in e-mails. As soon as an event happens, everybody is e-mailing everybody and you pick up the most productive tape.'
Lamberth's defense of the court's speed and efficiency came after senior Bush administration officials said its procedures were too cumbersome to meet counterterrorism needs in the post-9/11 world, and created a system of warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency that did not include judicial review.
Taking direct aim at the administration's assertion, Lamberth noted that members of the court had approved almost 99 percent of the FISA applications presented. He added that he could not see a better way of conducting such surveillance..."
Thursday, June 28, 2007
This Is How Freedom Dies...
...with a whimper, rather than a BANG! heard 'round the world.
Ryan Paul: Court: Protecting trade secrets takes priority over election transparency
"A Florida appeals court has upheld a lower court decision that denies requests for an independent source code audit of voting machines used by Florida's 13th district, which suffered election irregularities in a highly controversial congressional race. The appeals court has chosen to support a lower court decision which asserts that forcing voting machine maker Election Systems and Software (ES&S) to provide source code access to independent security auditors would amount to 'gutting the protections afforded those who own trade secrets.'
It all started when candidate Christine Jennings lost to Rep. Vern Buchanan by only 368 votes in a House race last year, the slimmest margin of any congressional race in the country. Irregularities in the election, particularly high undervote rates, caused Jennings to express doubts about the validity of the outcome. During the election, approximately 15 percent (or 18,000) of the total ballots cast in the district did not include a vote in the disputed race. By comparison, the absentee ballots in the same district and regular paper ballots used in neighboring districts only exhibit a 2 percent undervote rate for congressional races. The high undervote rates have been attributed to the ES&S iVotronic machines used in the 13th district..."
Trying To Fake Chocolate:
NY Times: Chocolate Fake
"...Now what big-time candy men had hoped would sneak by as a simple rule change has erupted into a food fight that will go far to define how America values culinary pleasure.
Real chocolate is made from crushed cacao beans, which provide not only solid cocoa mass but also cocoa butter that is vital to texture because, quite literally, it melts in your mouth. Industrial confectioners have petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to be able to replace cocoa butter with cheaper fats and still call the resulting product 'chocolate.' The reason: the substitution would allow them to use fewer beans and to sell off the butter for cosmetics and such.
Advocates of substitution claim Europeans already do this. That comparison, whether a misunderstanding or an effort to mislead, is absurd.
When European companies tried to cut cocoa butter, the debate dragged on for a decade. In 2003, the European Union ruled that substitution had to be limited to 5 percent and only by a few specific oils that chemically resemble cocoa butter. This faux chocolate is clearly labeled 'contains vegetable fats in addition to cocoa butter' — and is shunned by purists. The French like to call it 'cocholat,' an epithet derived from their word for pig, cochon.
In America, the Food and Drug Administration can act swiftly to change rules based on what it calls a citizen’s petition..."
Energy Politics:
Amory Lovins: Climate Change : Yahoo! Green
"Two-fifths of the CO2 that's slowly crisping our planet comes from power stations, mostly burning coal. Must we wait decades to test and build a costly new fleet of coal-fired plants that grab and store the CO2 before it goes up the stack?
No: better, faster, cheaper investments can keep the lights on and the motors humming with less CO2, less money, and more brains. The low-hanging fruit is mushing up around our ankles and spilling in over the tops of our waders while the tree pelts our heads with more fruit.
Modern efficiency can save three-fourths of all U.S. electricity at an average cost around 1¢/kWh-one-eighth the price. Over several decades, today's smarter solutions could displace all the coal, oil, nuclear and probably gas power plants, cheaper than just running them, even if building them cost nothing!
Three-fifths of the world's electricity runs motors. Making existing motor systems twice as efficient pays for itself in about a year, because buying the right 7 improvements gets 28 more for free. But even bigger, cheaper savings lurk in the systems that the motors operate.
Motors' biggest use is pumps. Out of the pumps come pipes, often redesignable. Cheaper low-friction redesign of a typical industrial pumping loop saved 92% of its pumping power by substituting fat, short, straight pipes for skinny, long crooked pipes. This is not rocket science..."
War Profiteers Going Unpunished:
The Boston Globe: Justice Dept. opts out of whistle-blower suits
"The Justice Department has opted out of at least 10 whistle-blower lawsuits alleging fraud and corruption in government reconstruction and security contracts in Iraq, and has spent years investigating additional fraud cases but has yet to try to recover any money.
A congressional subcommittee heard testimony on the matter yesterday, as lawmakers sought to determine why the federal government has not done more to recover tens of millions of dollars that allegedly have been misused or misspent in Iraq.
'I would expect, given the talent that the Justice Department has available to it, . . . that they could have done more,' Representative William D. Delahunt, Democrat of Quincy, said at the hearing. 'I have the uneasy feeling like we're missing something here, a potential substantial recovery.'
The government's reluctance to join in any of the civil suits has sparked allegations of political interference.
One witness, Alan Grayson , a lawyer who represents several whistle-blowers, told the House subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security that the Justice Department has been stonewalling and dragging its feet in investigating the whistle-blowers' claims of fraud.
'In our fifth year in the war in Iraq, the Bush administration has not litigated a single case against any war profiteer under the False Claims Act,' Grayson said.
Tens of millions of dollars -- and perhaps far more -- allegedly have gone into the pockets of contractors who overbilled for services, paid bribes, and received kickbacks. Under the federal False Claims Act of 1863, employees who say they witnessed such corruption can sue their employers for defrauding the US government and reap a percentage of any money that's recovered.
The federal government normally investigates such cases to determine whether to participate in the suit and bring its investigative and legal resources to bear against the accused company. But if the government declines, whistle-blowers often face an uphill battle in court and often decide to drop the matter -- which has happened in at least three of the Iraq whistle - blower cases..."
...with a whimper, rather than a BANG! heard 'round the world.
Ryan Paul: Court: Protecting trade secrets takes priority over election transparency
"A Florida appeals court has upheld a lower court decision that denies requests for an independent source code audit of voting machines used by Florida's 13th district, which suffered election irregularities in a highly controversial congressional race. The appeals court has chosen to support a lower court decision which asserts that forcing voting machine maker Election Systems and Software (ES&S) to provide source code access to independent security auditors would amount to 'gutting the protections afforded those who own trade secrets.'
It all started when candidate Christine Jennings lost to Rep. Vern Buchanan by only 368 votes in a House race last year, the slimmest margin of any congressional race in the country. Irregularities in the election, particularly high undervote rates, caused Jennings to express doubts about the validity of the outcome. During the election, approximately 15 percent (or 18,000) of the total ballots cast in the district did not include a vote in the disputed race. By comparison, the absentee ballots in the same district and regular paper ballots used in neighboring districts only exhibit a 2 percent undervote rate for congressional races. The high undervote rates have been attributed to the ES&S iVotronic machines used in the 13th district..."
Trying To Fake Chocolate:
NY Times: Chocolate Fake
"...Now what big-time candy men had hoped would sneak by as a simple rule change has erupted into a food fight that will go far to define how America values culinary pleasure.
Real chocolate is made from crushed cacao beans, which provide not only solid cocoa mass but also cocoa butter that is vital to texture because, quite literally, it melts in your mouth. Industrial confectioners have petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to be able to replace cocoa butter with cheaper fats and still call the resulting product 'chocolate.' The reason: the substitution would allow them to use fewer beans and to sell off the butter for cosmetics and such.
Advocates of substitution claim Europeans already do this. That comparison, whether a misunderstanding or an effort to mislead, is absurd.
When European companies tried to cut cocoa butter, the debate dragged on for a decade. In 2003, the European Union ruled that substitution had to be limited to 5 percent and only by a few specific oils that chemically resemble cocoa butter. This faux chocolate is clearly labeled 'contains vegetable fats in addition to cocoa butter' — and is shunned by purists. The French like to call it 'cocholat,' an epithet derived from their word for pig, cochon.
In America, the Food and Drug Administration can act swiftly to change rules based on what it calls a citizen’s petition..."
Energy Politics:
Amory Lovins: Climate Change : Yahoo! Green
"Two-fifths of the CO2 that's slowly crisping our planet comes from power stations, mostly burning coal. Must we wait decades to test and build a costly new fleet of coal-fired plants that grab and store the CO2 before it goes up the stack?
No: better, faster, cheaper investments can keep the lights on and the motors humming with less CO2, less money, and more brains. The low-hanging fruit is mushing up around our ankles and spilling in over the tops of our waders while the tree pelts our heads with more fruit.
Modern efficiency can save three-fourths of all U.S. electricity at an average cost around 1¢/kWh-one-eighth the price. Over several decades, today's smarter solutions could displace all the coal, oil, nuclear and probably gas power plants, cheaper than just running them, even if building them cost nothing!
Three-fifths of the world's electricity runs motors. Making existing motor systems twice as efficient pays for itself in about a year, because buying the right 7 improvements gets 28 more for free. But even bigger, cheaper savings lurk in the systems that the motors operate.
Motors' biggest use is pumps. Out of the pumps come pipes, often redesignable. Cheaper low-friction redesign of a typical industrial pumping loop saved 92% of its pumping power by substituting fat, short, straight pipes for skinny, long crooked pipes. This is not rocket science..."
War Profiteers Going Unpunished:
The Boston Globe: Justice Dept. opts out of whistle-blower suits
"The Justice Department has opted out of at least 10 whistle-blower lawsuits alleging fraud and corruption in government reconstruction and security contracts in Iraq, and has spent years investigating additional fraud cases but has yet to try to recover any money.
A congressional subcommittee heard testimony on the matter yesterday, as lawmakers sought to determine why the federal government has not done more to recover tens of millions of dollars that allegedly have been misused or misspent in Iraq.
'I would expect, given the talent that the Justice Department has available to it, . . . that they could have done more,' Representative William D. Delahunt, Democrat of Quincy, said at the hearing. 'I have the uneasy feeling like we're missing something here, a potential substantial recovery.'
The government's reluctance to join in any of the civil suits has sparked allegations of political interference.
One witness, Alan Grayson , a lawyer who represents several whistle-blowers, told the House subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security that the Justice Department has been stonewalling and dragging its feet in investigating the whistle-blowers' claims of fraud.
'In our fifth year in the war in Iraq, the Bush administration has not litigated a single case against any war profiteer under the False Claims Act,' Grayson said.
Tens of millions of dollars -- and perhaps far more -- allegedly have gone into the pockets of contractors who overbilled for services, paid bribes, and received kickbacks. Under the federal False Claims Act of 1863, employees who say they witnessed such corruption can sue their employers for defrauding the US government and reap a percentage of any money that's recovered.
The federal government normally investigates such cases to determine whether to participate in the suit and bring its investigative and legal resources to bear against the accused company. But if the government declines, whistle-blowers often face an uphill battle in court and often decide to drop the matter -- which has happened in at least three of the Iraq whistle - blower cases..."
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Cheney & Addington's 'Unitary' Executive
Washington Post: Cheney Under Fire for Stance on Secrecy
"The House Oversight Committee is demanding that Vice President Cheney explain himself. Is his office part of the executive branch? Part of the legislative branch? Or is Cheney suggesting that as far as federal rules are concerned, his office essentially doesn't exist?
The issue at hand is Cheney's insistence that his office is exempt from an executive order issued by President Bush in 2003 requiring all federal agencies or 'any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information' to report annually on its activities regarding the classification, safeguarding and declassification of national security information.
As Mark Silva reported in the Chicago Tribune in April 2006, Cheney's office maintains that its dual executive and legislative duties (the vice president also serves as president of the Senate) make it uniquely exempt from such rules..."
NY Times Editorial: Don’t Veto, Don’t Obey
"President Bush is notorious for issuing statements taking exception to hundreds of bills as he signs them. This week, we learned that in a shocking number of cases, the Bush administration has refused to enact those laws. Congress should use its powers to insist that its laws are obeyed.
The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, investigated 19 provisions to which Mr. Bush objected. It found that six of them, or nearly a third, have not been implemented as the law requires. The G.A.O. did not investigate some of the most infamous signing statements, like the challenge to a ban on torture. But the ones it looked into are disturbing enough.
In one case, Congress directed the Pentagon in its 2007 budget request to account separately for the cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a perfectly appropriate request, but Mr. Bush issued a signing statement critical of the rule, and the Pentagon withheld the information. In two other cases, federal agencies ignored laws requiring them to get permission from Congressional committees before taking particular actions.
The Bush administration’s disregard for these laws is part of its extraordinary theory of the 'unitary executive.' The administration asserts that the president has the sole authority to supervise and direct executive officers, and that Congress and the courts cannot interfere. This theory, which has no support in American history or the Constitution, is a formula for autocracy..."
Robert Parry: Bush's Mafia Whacks the Republic
"In years to come, historians may look back on U.S. press coverage of George W. Bush’s presidency and wonder why there was not a single front-page story announcing one of the most monumental events of mankind’s modern era – the death of the American Republic and the elimination of the 'unalienable rights' pledged to 'posterity' by the Founders.
The historians will, of course, find stories about elements of this extraordinary event – Bush’s denial of habeas corpus rights to a fair trial, his secret prisons, his tolerance of torture, his violation of Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches, his 'signing statements' overriding laws, the erosion of constitutional checks and balances.
But the historians will scroll through front pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post and every other major newspaper – as well as scan the national network news and the 24-hour cable channels – and find not a single story connecting the dots, explaining the larger picture: the end of a remarkable democratic experiment which started in 1776 and which was phased out sometime in the early 21st century.
How, these historians may ask, did the U.S. press corps miss one of history’s most important developments? Was it a case like the proverbial frog that would have jumped to safety if tossed into boiling water but was slowly cooked to death when the water was brought to a slow boil?..."
Technology:
NY Times: When Computers Attack
"...governments are readying themselves for the Big One.
China, security experts believe, has long probed United States networks. According to a 2007 Defense Department annual report to Congress, China’s military has invested heavily in electronic countermeasures and defenses against attack, and concepts like 'computer network attack, computer network defense and computer network exploitation.'
According to the report, the Chinese Army sees computer network operations 'as critical to achieving ‘electromagnetic dominance’ ' — whatever that is — early in a conflict.
The United States is arming up, as well. Robert Elder, commander of the Air Force Cyberspace Command, told reporters in Washington at a recent breakfast that his newly formed command, which defends military data, communications and control networks, is learning how to disable an opponent’s computer networks and crash its databases...
...Attacks on the Internet itself, say, through what are known as root-name servers, which play a role in connecting Internet users with Web sites, could cause widespread problems, said Paul Kurtz, the chief operating officer of Safe Harbor, a security consultancy. And having so many nations with a finger on the digital button, of course, raises the prospect of a cyberconflict caused by a misidentified attacker or a simple glitch..."
Product Safety:
Christian Warren: The Little Engine That Could Poison
"Last week, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission announced that a toy maker, RC2 Corporation of Oak Brook, Ill., was recalling some 1.5 million Thomas & Friends wooden railway toys because their bright red or yellow coatings contain lead.
The commission routinely issues recalls of lead-tainted children’s products, but usually these are trinkets — bubble-gum-machine toys, cheap imported novelties and no-brand children’s jewelry — and provoke little public outcry. Thomas & Friends products are a different story: they are purchased in upscale toy stores for $10 to $70 apiece, often by politically empowered parents who are extremely averse to exposing their children to contaminants of any kind.
The Product Safety Commission has not disclosed the actual lead content in the recalled toys. But a commission spokesman said RC2’s Chinese manufacturer appears to have substituted highly leaded pigments for some portion of the lead-free paint the corporation had specified..."
Spirited Away...
Matt Renner: FBI's 9/11 Saudi Flight Documents Released
"Newly released documents reveal the FBI suspected that a plane hired to transport members of the bin Laden family from the United States back to Saudi Arabia might have been chartered by Osama bin Laden himself. The documents raise new questions about the FBI investigation into the 9/11 attacks.
Truthout reviewed the 224 pages of newly released documents over the past two days.
A heavily redacted FBI report on the incident begins by describing a private jet that was hired to pick up members of the bin Laden family that were in the US eight days after the 9/11 attacks. 'The plane was chartered either by the Saudi Arabian Royal Family or Osama bin Laden,' according to the declassified pages of the FBI investigation titled PENTTBOMB (page 3). Subsequent references to the chartered flight in the released documents state that it was 'chartered by the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, DC' (page 106). The possibility that the flight was arranged or paid for by Osama bin Laden was not addressed again in the subsequent 221 pages released by the FBI..."
Acting In The Name Of We The People?
AP: 70s' Documents Portray a Lawless CIA
"Little-known documents made public Thursday detail illegal and scandalous activities by the CIA more than 30 years ago - wiretappings of journalists, kidnappings, warrantless searches and more.
The documents provide a glimpse of nearly 700 pages of materials that the agency has declassified and plans to release next week.
A six-page summary memo declassified in 2000 and released by The National Security Archive at George Washington University outlines 18 activities by the CIA that 'presented legal questions' and were discussed with President Ford in 1975..."
Washington Post: Cheney Under Fire for Stance on Secrecy
"The House Oversight Committee is demanding that Vice President Cheney explain himself. Is his office part of the executive branch? Part of the legislative branch? Or is Cheney suggesting that as far as federal rules are concerned, his office essentially doesn't exist?
The issue at hand is Cheney's insistence that his office is exempt from an executive order issued by President Bush in 2003 requiring all federal agencies or 'any other entity within the executive branch that comes into the possession of classified information' to report annually on its activities regarding the classification, safeguarding and declassification of national security information.
As Mark Silva reported in the Chicago Tribune in April 2006, Cheney's office maintains that its dual executive and legislative duties (the vice president also serves as president of the Senate) make it uniquely exempt from such rules..."
NY Times Editorial: Don’t Veto, Don’t Obey
"President Bush is notorious for issuing statements taking exception to hundreds of bills as he signs them. This week, we learned that in a shocking number of cases, the Bush administration has refused to enact those laws. Congress should use its powers to insist that its laws are obeyed.
The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, investigated 19 provisions to which Mr. Bush objected. It found that six of them, or nearly a third, have not been implemented as the law requires. The G.A.O. did not investigate some of the most infamous signing statements, like the challenge to a ban on torture. But the ones it looked into are disturbing enough.
In one case, Congress directed the Pentagon in its 2007 budget request to account separately for the cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. It was a perfectly appropriate request, but Mr. Bush issued a signing statement critical of the rule, and the Pentagon withheld the information. In two other cases, federal agencies ignored laws requiring them to get permission from Congressional committees before taking particular actions.
The Bush administration’s disregard for these laws is part of its extraordinary theory of the 'unitary executive.' The administration asserts that the president has the sole authority to supervise and direct executive officers, and that Congress and the courts cannot interfere. This theory, which has no support in American history or the Constitution, is a formula for autocracy..."
Robert Parry: Bush's Mafia Whacks the Republic
"In years to come, historians may look back on U.S. press coverage of George W. Bush’s presidency and wonder why there was not a single front-page story announcing one of the most monumental events of mankind’s modern era – the death of the American Republic and the elimination of the 'unalienable rights' pledged to 'posterity' by the Founders.
The historians will, of course, find stories about elements of this extraordinary event – Bush’s denial of habeas corpus rights to a fair trial, his secret prisons, his tolerance of torture, his violation of Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches, his 'signing statements' overriding laws, the erosion of constitutional checks and balances.
But the historians will scroll through front pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post and every other major newspaper – as well as scan the national network news and the 24-hour cable channels – and find not a single story connecting the dots, explaining the larger picture: the end of a remarkable democratic experiment which started in 1776 and which was phased out sometime in the early 21st century.
How, these historians may ask, did the U.S. press corps miss one of history’s most important developments? Was it a case like the proverbial frog that would have jumped to safety if tossed into boiling water but was slowly cooked to death when the water was brought to a slow boil?..."
Technology:
NY Times: When Computers Attack
"...governments are readying themselves for the Big One.
China, security experts believe, has long probed United States networks. According to a 2007 Defense Department annual report to Congress, China’s military has invested heavily in electronic countermeasures and defenses against attack, and concepts like 'computer network attack, computer network defense and computer network exploitation.'
According to the report, the Chinese Army sees computer network operations 'as critical to achieving ‘electromagnetic dominance’ ' — whatever that is — early in a conflict.
The United States is arming up, as well. Robert Elder, commander of the Air Force Cyberspace Command, told reporters in Washington at a recent breakfast that his newly formed command, which defends military data, communications and control networks, is learning how to disable an opponent’s computer networks and crash its databases...
...Attacks on the Internet itself, say, through what are known as root-name servers, which play a role in connecting Internet users with Web sites, could cause widespread problems, said Paul Kurtz, the chief operating officer of Safe Harbor, a security consultancy. And having so many nations with a finger on the digital button, of course, raises the prospect of a cyberconflict caused by a misidentified attacker or a simple glitch..."
Product Safety:
Christian Warren: The Little Engine That Could Poison
"Last week, the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission announced that a toy maker, RC2 Corporation of Oak Brook, Ill., was recalling some 1.5 million Thomas & Friends wooden railway toys because their bright red or yellow coatings contain lead.
The commission routinely issues recalls of lead-tainted children’s products, but usually these are trinkets — bubble-gum-machine toys, cheap imported novelties and no-brand children’s jewelry — and provoke little public outcry. Thomas & Friends products are a different story: they are purchased in upscale toy stores for $10 to $70 apiece, often by politically empowered parents who are extremely averse to exposing their children to contaminants of any kind.
The Product Safety Commission has not disclosed the actual lead content in the recalled toys. But a commission spokesman said RC2’s Chinese manufacturer appears to have substituted highly leaded pigments for some portion of the lead-free paint the corporation had specified..."
Spirited Away...
Matt Renner: FBI's 9/11 Saudi Flight Documents Released
"Newly released documents reveal the FBI suspected that a plane hired to transport members of the bin Laden family from the United States back to Saudi Arabia might have been chartered by Osama bin Laden himself. The documents raise new questions about the FBI investigation into the 9/11 attacks.
Truthout reviewed the 224 pages of newly released documents over the past two days.
A heavily redacted FBI report on the incident begins by describing a private jet that was hired to pick up members of the bin Laden family that were in the US eight days after the 9/11 attacks. 'The plane was chartered either by the Saudi Arabian Royal Family or Osama bin Laden,' according to the declassified pages of the FBI investigation titled PENTTBOMB (page 3). Subsequent references to the chartered flight in the released documents state that it was 'chartered by the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, DC' (page 106). The possibility that the flight was arranged or paid for by Osama bin Laden was not addressed again in the subsequent 221 pages released by the FBI..."
Acting In The Name Of We The People?
AP: 70s' Documents Portray a Lawless CIA
"Little-known documents made public Thursday detail illegal and scandalous activities by the CIA more than 30 years ago - wiretappings of journalists, kidnappings, warrantless searches and more.
The documents provide a glimpse of nearly 700 pages of materials that the agency has declassified and plans to release next week.
A six-page summary memo declassified in 2000 and released by The National Security Archive at George Washington University outlines 18 activities by the CIA that 'presented legal questions' and were discussed with President Ford in 1975..."
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
On Torture and Lies:
Seymour Hersh: The General’s Report
"How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties...
... A few weeks after his report became public, Taguba, who was still in Kuwait, was in the back seat of a Mercedes sedan with Abizaid. Abizaid’s driver and his interpreter, who also served as a bodyguard, were in front. Abizaid turned to Taguba and issued a quiet warning: 'You and your report will be investigated.'
'I wasn’t angry about what he said but disappointed that he would say that to me,' Taguba said. 'I’d been in the Army thirty-two years by then, and it was the first time that I thought I was in the Mafia,'...
...Abu Ghraib had opened the door on the issue of the treatment of detainees, and from the beginning the Administration feared that the publicity would expose more secret operations and practices. Shortly after September 11th, Rumsfeld, with the support of President Bush, had set up military task forces whose main target was the senior leadership of Al Qaeda. Their essential tactic was seizing and interrogating terrorists and suspected terrorists; they also had authority from the President to kill certain high-value targets on sight. The most secret task-force operations were categorized as Special Access Programs, or S.A.P.s.
The military task forces were under the control of the Joint Special Operations Command, the branch of the Special Operations Command that is responsible for counterterrorism. One of Miller’s unacknowledged missions had been to bring the J.S.O.C.’s 'strategic interrogation' techniques to Abu Ghraib. In special cases, the task forces could bypass the chain of command and deal directly with Rumsfeld’s office. A former senior intelligence official told me that the White House was also briefed on task-force operations.
The former senior intelligence official said that when the images of Abu Ghraib were published, there were some in the Pentagon and the White House who 'didn’t think the photographs were that bad'—in that they put the focus on enlisted soldiers, rather than on secret task-force operations...
...An aggressive congressional inquiry into Abu Ghraib could have provoked unwanted questions about what the Pentagon was doing, in Iraq and elsewhere, and under what authority. By law, the President must make a formal finding authorizing a C.I.A. covert operation, and inform the senior leadership of the House and the Senate Intelligence Committees. However, the Bush Administration unilaterally determined after 9/11 that intelligence operations conducted by the military—including the Pentagon’s covert task forces—for the purposes of 'preparing the battlefield' could be authorized by the President, as Commander-in-Chief, without telling Congress..."
The Retalliatory Smear Against Bush Critics:
Bill Moyers: Begging His Pardon
"We have yet another remarkable revelation of the mindset of Washington's ruling clique of neoconservative elites - the people who took us to war from the safety of their Beltway bunkers. Even as Iraq grows bloodier by the day, their passion of the week is to keep one of their own from going to jail.
It is well-known that I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby - once Vice President Cheney's most trusted adviser - has been sentenced to 30 months in jail for perjury. Lying. Not a white lie, mind you. A killer lie. Scooter Libby deliberately poured poison into the drinking water of democracy by lying to federal investigators, for the purpose of obstructing justice..."
The Fourth Estate:
Transcripts of the shows are online, as are the programs (for broadband users).
FRONTLINE (PBS): News War
"...Drawing on more than 80 interviews with key figures in the print, broadcast and electronic media, and with unequaled, behind-the-scenes access to some of today's most important news organizations, FRONTLINE correspondent Lowell Bergman examines the challenges facing the mainstream news media, and the media's reaction, in 'News War,' a special four-part series.
Bergman traces the recent history of American journalism, from the Nixon administration's attacks on the media and the post-Watergate popularity of the press to new obstacles presented by the war on terror and changing economics in the media business and the Internet..."
The Rule of Law:
Washington Post: FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data - washingtonpost.com
"An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that ignited bipartisan congressional criticism.
The new audit covers just 10 percent of the bureau's national security investigations since 2002, and so the mistakes in the FBI's domestic surveillance efforts probably number several thousand, bureau officials said in interviews. The earlier report found 22 violations in a much smaller sampling.
The vast majority of the new violations were instances in which telephone companies and Internet providers gave agents phone and e-mail records the agents did not request and were not authorized to collect. The agents retained the information anyway in their files, which mostly concerned suspected terrorist or espionage activities.
But two dozen of the newly-discovered violations involved agents' requests for information that U.S. law did not allow them to have, according to the audit results provided to The Washington Post. Only two such examples were identified earlier in the smaller sample.
FBI officials said the results confirmed what agency supervisors and outside critics feared, namely that many agents did not understand or follow the required legal procedures and paperwork requirements when collecting personal information with one of the most sensitive and powerful intelligence-gathering tools of the post-Sept. 11 era -- the National Security Letter, or NSL..."
New York Times Editorial: Presidential Stone Walls
"...Hiding secrets and embarrassments may be a predictable part of a politician’s instinct for survival. But attempting to enshrine this instinct timelessly is a stain on the Constitution and an insult to history. The administration insists that only 64 of more than two million pages have been sealed thus far. They would be a good place to start reading once Congress re-establishes the public’s right to know."
Cheney's Next Target - Iran:
IPS: Cheney's Iran-Arms-to-Taliban Gambit Rebuffed
"A media campaign portraying Iran as supplying arms to the Taliban guerrillas fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, orchestrated by advocates of a more confrontational stance toward Iran in the George W. Bush administration, appears to have backfired last week when Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan McNeil, issued unusually strong denials.
The allegation that Iran has reversed a decade-long policy and is now supporting the Taliban, conveyed in a series of press articles quoting 'senior officials' in recent weeks, is related to a broader effort by officials aligned with Vice President Dick Cheney to portray Iran as supporting Sunni insurgents, including al Qaeda, to defeat the United States in both Iraq and Afghanistan..."
The Cost Of The So-Called War On Terror:
Washington Post: The War Inside
"Troops are returning from the battlefield with psychological wounds, but the mental-health system that serves them makes healing difficult..."
Energy:
WIRED Magazine:Yes Men Strike Oil
"'Without oil, at least four billion people would starve. This spiral of trouble would make the oil infrastructure utterly useless' -- unless their bodies could be turned into fuel.
That was the satirical message delivered by two corporate ethics activists to the Gas and Oil Exposition 2007 in Calgary, Alberta. The activists, part of political trickster collective the Yes Men, used the Exposition to stage their latest theatre of corporate absurdity, with Exxon/Mobil and the Natural Petroleum Council playing the fools.
The prank, intended as a critique of the fossil fuel industry's influence on energy policy, caused confusion and consternation on the final day of the Exposition, one of the industry's largest gatherings..."
The Environment:
CS Monitor: Common bird species in dramatic decline
"New data show the populations of some of America's well-known birds in a tailspin, thanks to the one-two punch of habitat fragmentation and, increasingly, global warming.
From the heartland's whippoorwills and meadowlarks to the Northern bobwhite and common terns of the nation's coasts, 20 common bird species tracked by the National Audubon Society have seen their numbers fall 54 percent overall since 1967, with some down about 80 percent, the group reported Thursday.
Most of the trouble lies with loss of bird habitat, and has for decades, due to expanding agriculture and suburban development. The Rufous hummingbird's population has fallen 58 percent due to logging and development in its Pacific Northwest breeding range – and in its winter range in Mexico. The same thing has happened to whipporwills, whose numbers are down 57 percent due to loss of their forest habitat. At the same time, scientists say changes in migration patterns due to global warming are emerging, too..."
Seymour Hersh: The General’s Report
"How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties...
... A few weeks after his report became public, Taguba, who was still in Kuwait, was in the back seat of a Mercedes sedan with Abizaid. Abizaid’s driver and his interpreter, who also served as a bodyguard, were in front. Abizaid turned to Taguba and issued a quiet warning: 'You and your report will be investigated.'
'I wasn’t angry about what he said but disappointed that he would say that to me,' Taguba said. 'I’d been in the Army thirty-two years by then, and it was the first time that I thought I was in the Mafia,'...
...Abu Ghraib had opened the door on the issue of the treatment of detainees, and from the beginning the Administration feared that the publicity would expose more secret operations and practices. Shortly after September 11th, Rumsfeld, with the support of President Bush, had set up military task forces whose main target was the senior leadership of Al Qaeda. Their essential tactic was seizing and interrogating terrorists and suspected terrorists; they also had authority from the President to kill certain high-value targets on sight. The most secret task-force operations were categorized as Special Access Programs, or S.A.P.s.
The military task forces were under the control of the Joint Special Operations Command, the branch of the Special Operations Command that is responsible for counterterrorism. One of Miller’s unacknowledged missions had been to bring the J.S.O.C.’s 'strategic interrogation' techniques to Abu Ghraib. In special cases, the task forces could bypass the chain of command and deal directly with Rumsfeld’s office. A former senior intelligence official told me that the White House was also briefed on task-force operations.
The former senior intelligence official said that when the images of Abu Ghraib were published, there were some in the Pentagon and the White House who 'didn’t think the photographs were that bad'—in that they put the focus on enlisted soldiers, rather than on secret task-force operations...
...An aggressive congressional inquiry into Abu Ghraib could have provoked unwanted questions about what the Pentagon was doing, in Iraq and elsewhere, and under what authority. By law, the President must make a formal finding authorizing a C.I.A. covert operation, and inform the senior leadership of the House and the Senate Intelligence Committees. However, the Bush Administration unilaterally determined after 9/11 that intelligence operations conducted by the military—including the Pentagon’s covert task forces—for the purposes of 'preparing the battlefield' could be authorized by the President, as Commander-in-Chief, without telling Congress..."
The Retalliatory Smear Against Bush Critics:
Bill Moyers: Begging His Pardon
"We have yet another remarkable revelation of the mindset of Washington's ruling clique of neoconservative elites - the people who took us to war from the safety of their Beltway bunkers. Even as Iraq grows bloodier by the day, their passion of the week is to keep one of their own from going to jail.
It is well-known that I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby - once Vice President Cheney's most trusted adviser - has been sentenced to 30 months in jail for perjury. Lying. Not a white lie, mind you. A killer lie. Scooter Libby deliberately poured poison into the drinking water of democracy by lying to federal investigators, for the purpose of obstructing justice..."
The Fourth Estate:
Transcripts of the shows are online, as are the programs (for broadband users).
FRONTLINE (PBS): News War
"...Drawing on more than 80 interviews with key figures in the print, broadcast and electronic media, and with unequaled, behind-the-scenes access to some of today's most important news organizations, FRONTLINE correspondent Lowell Bergman examines the challenges facing the mainstream news media, and the media's reaction, in 'News War,' a special four-part series.
Bergman traces the recent history of American journalism, from the Nixon administration's attacks on the media and the post-Watergate popularity of the press to new obstacles presented by the war on terror and changing economics in the media business and the Internet..."
The Rule of Law:
Washington Post: FBI Finds It Frequently Overstepped in Collecting Data - washingtonpost.com
"An internal FBI audit has found that the bureau potentially violated the law or agency rules more than 1,000 times while collecting data about domestic phone calls, e-mails and financial transactions in recent years, far more than was documented in a Justice Department report in March that ignited bipartisan congressional criticism.
The new audit covers just 10 percent of the bureau's national security investigations since 2002, and so the mistakes in the FBI's domestic surveillance efforts probably number several thousand, bureau officials said in interviews. The earlier report found 22 violations in a much smaller sampling.
The vast majority of the new violations were instances in which telephone companies and Internet providers gave agents phone and e-mail records the agents did not request and were not authorized to collect. The agents retained the information anyway in their files, which mostly concerned suspected terrorist or espionage activities.
But two dozen of the newly-discovered violations involved agents' requests for information that U.S. law did not allow them to have, according to the audit results provided to The Washington Post. Only two such examples were identified earlier in the smaller sample.
FBI officials said the results confirmed what agency supervisors and outside critics feared, namely that many agents did not understand or follow the required legal procedures and paperwork requirements when collecting personal information with one of the most sensitive and powerful intelligence-gathering tools of the post-Sept. 11 era -- the National Security Letter, or NSL..."
New York Times Editorial: Presidential Stone Walls
"...Hiding secrets and embarrassments may be a predictable part of a politician’s instinct for survival. But attempting to enshrine this instinct timelessly is a stain on the Constitution and an insult to history. The administration insists that only 64 of more than two million pages have been sealed thus far. They would be a good place to start reading once Congress re-establishes the public’s right to know."
Cheney's Next Target - Iran:
IPS: Cheney's Iran-Arms-to-Taliban Gambit Rebuffed
"A media campaign portraying Iran as supplying arms to the Taliban guerrillas fighting U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, orchestrated by advocates of a more confrontational stance toward Iran in the George W. Bush administration, appears to have backfired last week when Defence Secretary Robert Gates and the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Dan McNeil, issued unusually strong denials.
The allegation that Iran has reversed a decade-long policy and is now supporting the Taliban, conveyed in a series of press articles quoting 'senior officials' in recent weeks, is related to a broader effort by officials aligned with Vice President Dick Cheney to portray Iran as supporting Sunni insurgents, including al Qaeda, to defeat the United States in both Iraq and Afghanistan..."
The Cost Of The So-Called War On Terror:
Washington Post: The War Inside
"Troops are returning from the battlefield with psychological wounds, but the mental-health system that serves them makes healing difficult..."
Energy:
WIRED Magazine:Yes Men Strike Oil
"'Without oil, at least four billion people would starve. This spiral of trouble would make the oil infrastructure utterly useless' -- unless their bodies could be turned into fuel.
That was the satirical message delivered by two corporate ethics activists to the Gas and Oil Exposition 2007 in Calgary, Alberta. The activists, part of political trickster collective the Yes Men, used the Exposition to stage their latest theatre of corporate absurdity, with Exxon/Mobil and the Natural Petroleum Council playing the fools.
The prank, intended as a critique of the fossil fuel industry's influence on energy policy, caused confusion and consternation on the final day of the Exposition, one of the industry's largest gatherings..."
The Environment:
CS Monitor: Common bird species in dramatic decline
"New data show the populations of some of America's well-known birds in a tailspin, thanks to the one-two punch of habitat fragmentation and, increasingly, global warming.
From the heartland's whippoorwills and meadowlarks to the Northern bobwhite and common terns of the nation's coasts, 20 common bird species tracked by the National Audubon Society have seen their numbers fall 54 percent overall since 1967, with some down about 80 percent, the group reported Thursday.
Most of the trouble lies with loss of bird habitat, and has for decades, due to expanding agriculture and suburban development. The Rufous hummingbird's population has fallen 58 percent due to logging and development in its Pacific Northwest breeding range – and in its winter range in Mexico. The same thing has happened to whipporwills, whose numbers are down 57 percent due to loss of their forest habitat. At the same time, scientists say changes in migration patterns due to global warming are emerging, too..."
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Our (Fleeting) Civil Liberties:
A decision that should have come years ago was finally issued on June 11 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (Richmond, VA). The court ruled that the President has no right to hold a U.S. citizen without charge or access to legal counsel, irrespective of the President's designation of that person as an 'enemy combattant.' The court ruled that the detainee shall be transferred to civilian authorities such that he can be afforded the due process of law (be charged with the crime the government believes he committed and be tried in a court). It is a tragedy that it has taken this long to re-establish this fundamental principle of the rule of law. The detainee in question has been held in a Navy Brig for four years.
'Bandar Bush' Makes Millions On UK Arms Deal:
BBC News: Saudi prince 'received arms cash'
"A Saudi prince who negotiated a £40bn arms deal between Britain and Saudi Arabia received secret payments for over a decade, a BBC probe has found.
The UK's biggest arms dealer, BAE Systems, paid hundreds of millions of pounds to the ex-Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
The payments were made with the full knowledge of the Ministry of Defence.
Prince Bandar 'categorically' denied receiving any improper payments and BAE said it acted lawfully at all times..."
Domestic Surveillance:
The Washington Post: Cheney Strong-Armed DOJ on Domestic Spying Program
"Vice President Cheney told Justice Department officials that he disagreed with their objections to a secret surveillance program during a high-level White House meeting in March 2004, a former senior Justice official told senators yesterday.
The meeting came one day before White House officials tried to get approval for the same program from then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who lay recovering from surgery in a hospital, according to former deputy attorney general James B. Comey.
Comey's disclosures, made in response to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicate that Cheney and his aides were more closely involved than previously known in a fierce internal battle over the legality of the warrantless surveillance program. The program allowed the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails between the United States and overseas..."
The Disappeared and the Tortured:
Monsters like Chile's Pinnochet were known for 'disappearing' people. Now the U.S. government is doing this in the name of its people?
The NY Times: Report: 39 People Disappear in US Custody
"Six human rights groups on Wednesday released a list of 39 people they believe have been secretly imprisoned by the United States and whose whereabouts are unknown, calling on the Bush administration to abandon such detentions.
The list, compiled from news media reports, interviews and government documents, includes terrorism suspects and those thought to have ties to militant groups. In some suspects' cases, officials acknowledge that they were at one time in United States custody. In others, the rights groups say, there is other evidence, sometimes sketchy, that they had at least once been in American hands.
The list includes, for instance, Hassan Ghul, a Pakistani who is accused of being a member of Al Qaeda and whose capture in northern Iraq in January 2004 was announced by President Bush. At the other extreme, two unnamed Somali nationals are on the list because they were overheard in 2005 by another prisoner who was later released, Marwan Jabour, in the cell next to his at a secret American detention center, possibly in Afghanistan..."
On Privacy:
AP: Watchdog Group Slams Google on Privacy
"Google Inc.'s privacy practices are the worst among the Internet's top destinations, according to a watchdog group seeking to intensify the recent focus on how the online search leader handles personal information about its users.
In a report released Saturday, London-based Privacy International assigned Google its lowest possible grade. The category is reserved for companies with 'comprehensive consumer surveillance and entrenched hostility to privacy,'..."
Billions and Billions (Off The Books, Of Course)
R.J Hillhouse: Office of Nation's Top Spy Inadvertently Reveals Key to Classified National Intel Budget
"In a holdover from the Cold War when the number really did matter to national security, the size of the US national intelligence budget remains one of the government's most closely guarded secrets. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the highest intelligence agency in the country that oversees all federal intelligence agencies, appears to have inadvertently released the keys to that number in an unclassified PowerPoint presentation now posted on the website of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). By reverse engineering the numbers in an underlying data element embedded in the presentation, it seems that the total budget of the 16 US intelligence agencies in fiscal year 2005 was $60 billion, almost 25% higher than previously believed.
In the presentation originally made to a DIA conference in Colorado on May 14, Terri Everett, an Office of the Director of National Intelligence senior procurement executive, revealed that 70% of the total Intelligence Community budget is spent on contractors..."
Big Pharma:
CBS/AP: Top Diabetes Doctor Says Glaxo Threatened Him
"The controversy surrounding GlaxoSmithKline's diabetes drug Avandia grew Wednesday as a medical expert told Congress that executives threatened to sue when he first raised questions in 1999 about the treatment's safety.
That testimony, coupled with a recent medical journal analysis highlighting the heart attack risks associated with Avandia, prompted some Democratic lawmakers to rebuke the Food and Drug Administration for failing to protect consumers, and to call for stricter industry regulation.
'Despite additional warnings from outside experts, despite the millions of patients who rely on Avandia to control their blood sugar, and despite the potential risks involved, FDA never required the manufacturer to conduct a thorough post-market study of its heart risks,' Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said.
Waxman, who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, called Wednesday's hearing after an analysis that appeared last month in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded Avandia could raise patients' risk of heart attack by more than 40 percent.
GlaxoSmithKline calls the whole controversy overblown, reports CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews. CEO Jean Pierre Garnier acknowledged the need for more studies, but described Avandia as safe.
'In other words, with Avandia, the risk of a heart attack is very infrequent and not necessarily any more than other similar medicines.'
Glaxo argues that its own patient studies are a more reliable measure of the drug's safety, although outside experts say the company's results are inconclusive.
Dr. John Buse told lawmakers that after he drew attention in 1999 to heart problems among some patients using Avandia, SmithKline Beecham, which later combined with GlaxoWellcome, warned him that some executives wanted to hold him accountable for a $4 billion drop in the company's stock..."
A decision that should have come years ago was finally issued on June 11 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (Richmond, VA). The court ruled that the President has no right to hold a U.S. citizen without charge or access to legal counsel, irrespective of the President's designation of that person as an 'enemy combattant.' The court ruled that the detainee shall be transferred to civilian authorities such that he can be afforded the due process of law (be charged with the crime the government believes he committed and be tried in a court). It is a tragedy that it has taken this long to re-establish this fundamental principle of the rule of law. The detainee in question has been held in a Navy Brig for four years.
'Bandar Bush' Makes Millions On UK Arms Deal:
BBC News: Saudi prince 'received arms cash'
"A Saudi prince who negotiated a £40bn arms deal between Britain and Saudi Arabia received secret payments for over a decade, a BBC probe has found.
The UK's biggest arms dealer, BAE Systems, paid hundreds of millions of pounds to the ex-Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
The payments were made with the full knowledge of the Ministry of Defence.
Prince Bandar 'categorically' denied receiving any improper payments and BAE said it acted lawfully at all times..."
Domestic Surveillance:
The Washington Post: Cheney Strong-Armed DOJ on Domestic Spying Program
"Vice President Cheney told Justice Department officials that he disagreed with their objections to a secret surveillance program during a high-level White House meeting in March 2004, a former senior Justice official told senators yesterday.
The meeting came one day before White House officials tried to get approval for the same program from then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who lay recovering from surgery in a hospital, according to former deputy attorney general James B. Comey.
Comey's disclosures, made in response to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, indicate that Cheney and his aides were more closely involved than previously known in a fierce internal battle over the legality of the warrantless surveillance program. The program allowed the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails between the United States and overseas..."
The Disappeared and the Tortured:
Monsters like Chile's Pinnochet were known for 'disappearing' people. Now the U.S. government is doing this in the name of its people?
The NY Times: Report: 39 People Disappear in US Custody
"Six human rights groups on Wednesday released a list of 39 people they believe have been secretly imprisoned by the United States and whose whereabouts are unknown, calling on the Bush administration to abandon such detentions.
The list, compiled from news media reports, interviews and government documents, includes terrorism suspects and those thought to have ties to militant groups. In some suspects' cases, officials acknowledge that they were at one time in United States custody. In others, the rights groups say, there is other evidence, sometimes sketchy, that they had at least once been in American hands.
The list includes, for instance, Hassan Ghul, a Pakistani who is accused of being a member of Al Qaeda and whose capture in northern Iraq in January 2004 was announced by President Bush. At the other extreme, two unnamed Somali nationals are on the list because they were overheard in 2005 by another prisoner who was later released, Marwan Jabour, in the cell next to his at a secret American detention center, possibly in Afghanistan..."
On Privacy:
AP: Watchdog Group Slams Google on Privacy
"Google Inc.'s privacy practices are the worst among the Internet's top destinations, according to a watchdog group seeking to intensify the recent focus on how the online search leader handles personal information about its users.
In a report released Saturday, London-based Privacy International assigned Google its lowest possible grade. The category is reserved for companies with 'comprehensive consumer surveillance and entrenched hostility to privacy,'..."
Billions and Billions (Off The Books, Of Course)
R.J Hillhouse: Office of Nation's Top Spy Inadvertently Reveals Key to Classified National Intel Budget
"In a holdover from the Cold War when the number really did matter to national security, the size of the US national intelligence budget remains one of the government's most closely guarded secrets. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the highest intelligence agency in the country that oversees all federal intelligence agencies, appears to have inadvertently released the keys to that number in an unclassified PowerPoint presentation now posted on the website of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). By reverse engineering the numbers in an underlying data element embedded in the presentation, it seems that the total budget of the 16 US intelligence agencies in fiscal year 2005 was $60 billion, almost 25% higher than previously believed.
In the presentation originally made to a DIA conference in Colorado on May 14, Terri Everett, an Office of the Director of National Intelligence senior procurement executive, revealed that 70% of the total Intelligence Community budget is spent on contractors..."
Big Pharma:
CBS/AP: Top Diabetes Doctor Says Glaxo Threatened Him
"The controversy surrounding GlaxoSmithKline's diabetes drug Avandia grew Wednesday as a medical expert told Congress that executives threatened to sue when he first raised questions in 1999 about the treatment's safety.
That testimony, coupled with a recent medical journal analysis highlighting the heart attack risks associated with Avandia, prompted some Democratic lawmakers to rebuke the Food and Drug Administration for failing to protect consumers, and to call for stricter industry regulation.
'Despite additional warnings from outside experts, despite the millions of patients who rely on Avandia to control their blood sugar, and despite the potential risks involved, FDA never required the manufacturer to conduct a thorough post-market study of its heart risks,' Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said.
Waxman, who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, called Wednesday's hearing after an analysis that appeared last month in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded Avandia could raise patients' risk of heart attack by more than 40 percent.
GlaxoSmithKline calls the whole controversy overblown, reports CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews. CEO Jean Pierre Garnier acknowledged the need for more studies, but described Avandia as safe.
'In other words, with Avandia, the risk of a heart attack is very infrequent and not necessarily any more than other similar medicines.'
Glaxo argues that its own patient studies are a more reliable measure of the drug's safety, although outside experts say the company's results are inconclusive.
Dr. John Buse told lawmakers that after he drew attention in 1999 to heart problems among some patients using Avandia, SmithKline Beecham, which later combined with GlaxoWellcome, warned him that some executives wanted to hold him accountable for a $4 billion drop in the company's stock..."
Saturday, June 09, 2007
Iraq:
Raed Jarrar and Joshua Holland: Iraq Legislature Vote May End US Occupation
"While Washington lawmakers play procedural games with an out-of-control executive branch, Iraqi legislators are working to bring an end to the occupation of their country.
While most observers are focused on the U.S. Congress as it continues to issue new rubber stamps to legitimize Bush's permanent designs on Iraq, nationalists in the Iraqi parliament -now representing a majority of the body - continue to make progress toward bringing an end to their country's occupation.
The parliament today passed a binding resolution that will guarantee lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the UN mandate under which coalition troops now remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal in December. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose cabinet is dominated by Iraqi separatists, may veto the measure.
The law requires that any future extensions of the mandate, which have previously been made by Iraq's Prime Minister, be approved by the parliament. It is an enormous development; lawmakers reached in Baghdad today said that they do in fact plan on blocking the extension of the coalition's mandate when it comes up for renewal six months from now..."
Model Corporate Citizen?
The Independent (UK)Pfizer faces criminal charges over clinical trial
"The US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has been slapped with criminal charges in Nigeria over a notorious clinical trial it conducted on children during a meningitis epidemic a decade ago. Patients became unwitting guinea pigs for a new, untested antibiotic and many of them either died or were left with permanent disabilities.
Pfizer and its representatives will be called to account at hearings due to begin next month in the Nigerian state of Kano, where public anger over the clinical trial - and the assurances of any pharmaceutical company - remains so high that the local population won't even trust the Nigerian government to immunise their children against polio.
The episode, which has already led to one unsuccessful suit in the US courts, was the inspiration for John Le Carre's novel The Constant Gardener and is frequently held up as an instance of scientific inquiry gone shockingly awry.
The Nigerian authorities say Pfizer researchers selected 200 children and infants from a crowded epidemic camp in Kano in 1996 and gave about half of them an untested antibiotic called Trovan. The lawsuit alleges that the researchers did not obtain consent from the children's families even though they knew from their own research that Trovan might have life-threatening side effects and was 'unfit for human use'..."
How The White House Respects The Public's Right To Know:
The Pacific Institute: The Political and Selective Use of Data:
Cherry-Picking Climate Information in the White House
"Throughout the first half of 2007, the White House has falsely claimed that the United States is doing better than Europe in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This
claim was officially made by the White House on February 7 and has been repeated in various forms by White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, Council on Environmental Quality Chairman James Connaughton, and Science Advisor to the President John Marburger, most recently on May
31, 2007.1 The White House is misusing science and data to make this claim, as the Pacific
Institute first pointed out on March 8.2 The White House can only back up this claim by looking at a single greenhouse gas over a narrow timeline. Looking at the full range of gases over a longer period, the conclusion reverses completely: the European Union is curbing greenhouse gas emissions more aggressively and successfully than the United States. Interestingly, the origin of this claim is not the White House at all, but appears to be the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which published a version of this claim in the Washington Times, five days before the White House began using it..."
Raed Jarrar and Joshua Holland: Iraq Legislature Vote May End US Occupation
"While Washington lawmakers play procedural games with an out-of-control executive branch, Iraqi legislators are working to bring an end to the occupation of their country.
While most observers are focused on the U.S. Congress as it continues to issue new rubber stamps to legitimize Bush's permanent designs on Iraq, nationalists in the Iraqi parliament -now representing a majority of the body - continue to make progress toward bringing an end to their country's occupation.
The parliament today passed a binding resolution that will guarantee lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the UN mandate under which coalition troops now remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal in December. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose cabinet is dominated by Iraqi separatists, may veto the measure.
The law requires that any future extensions of the mandate, which have previously been made by Iraq's Prime Minister, be approved by the parliament. It is an enormous development; lawmakers reached in Baghdad today said that they do in fact plan on blocking the extension of the coalition's mandate when it comes up for renewal six months from now..."
Model Corporate Citizen?
The Independent (UK)Pfizer faces criminal charges over clinical trial
"The US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has been slapped with criminal charges in Nigeria over a notorious clinical trial it conducted on children during a meningitis epidemic a decade ago. Patients became unwitting guinea pigs for a new, untested antibiotic and many of them either died or were left with permanent disabilities.
Pfizer and its representatives will be called to account at hearings due to begin next month in the Nigerian state of Kano, where public anger over the clinical trial - and the assurances of any pharmaceutical company - remains so high that the local population won't even trust the Nigerian government to immunise their children against polio.
The episode, which has already led to one unsuccessful suit in the US courts, was the inspiration for John Le Carre's novel The Constant Gardener and is frequently held up as an instance of scientific inquiry gone shockingly awry.
The Nigerian authorities say Pfizer researchers selected 200 children and infants from a crowded epidemic camp in Kano in 1996 and gave about half of them an untested antibiotic called Trovan. The lawsuit alleges that the researchers did not obtain consent from the children's families even though they knew from their own research that Trovan might have life-threatening side effects and was 'unfit for human use'..."
How The White House Respects The Public's Right To Know:
The Pacific Institute: The Political and Selective Use of Data:
Cherry-Picking Climate Information in the White House
"Throughout the first half of 2007, the White House has falsely claimed that the United States is doing better than Europe in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. This
claim was officially made by the White House on February 7 and has been repeated in various forms by White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, Council on Environmental Quality Chairman James Connaughton, and Science Advisor to the President John Marburger, most recently on May
31, 2007.1 The White House is misusing science and data to make this claim, as the Pacific
Institute first pointed out on March 8.2 The White House can only back up this claim by looking at a single greenhouse gas over a narrow timeline. Looking at the full range of gases over a longer period, the conclusion reverses completely: the European Union is curbing greenhouse gas emissions more aggressively and successfully than the United States. Interestingly, the origin of this claim is not the White House at all, but appears to be the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which published a version of this claim in the Washington Times, five days before the White House began using it..."
Friday, June 08, 2007
Extraordinary Rendition
AP; Italy Trial of C.I.A. Operatives Opens
"The first trial involving the CIA's extraordinary rendition program opened in Italy Friday in the absence of all 26 American defendants accused of kidnapping an Egyptian terrorist suspect.
The trial, which has been an irritant in the historically robust U.S.-Italy relationship and coincides with the planned arrival in Rome of President Bush, was not expected to start in earnest, however.
The government has asked Italy's highest court to throw out indictments against 26 Americans -- all but one of them believed to be CIA agents -- accused of abducting Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, from a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003.
The Constitutional Court is expected to consider that and another similar appeal in the fall, and participants in the trial said they expect defense requests to postpone the trial until after the high court rules.
In addition to the Americans, seven Italians were also indicted in the case, including Nicolo Pollari, the former chief of military intelligence. Pollari, who was not present Friday, has denied any involvement by Italian intelligence in the abduction..."
AP; Italy Trial of C.I.A. Operatives Opens
"The first trial involving the CIA's extraordinary rendition program opened in Italy Friday in the absence of all 26 American defendants accused of kidnapping an Egyptian terrorist suspect.
The trial, which has been an irritant in the historically robust U.S.-Italy relationship and coincides with the planned arrival in Rome of President Bush, was not expected to start in earnest, however.
The government has asked Italy's highest court to throw out indictments against 26 Americans -- all but one of them believed to be CIA agents -- accused of abducting Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, from a Milan street on Feb. 17, 2003.
The Constitutional Court is expected to consider that and another similar appeal in the fall, and participants in the trial said they expect defense requests to postpone the trial until after the high court rules.
In addition to the Americans, seven Italians were also indicted in the case, including Nicolo Pollari, the former chief of military intelligence. Pollari, who was not present Friday, has denied any involvement by Italian intelligence in the abduction..."
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Energy Politics:
Detroit wishes to continue to build the sort of vehicles that they wish to build, rather than those that would be prudent to adapt to economic realities like rising fuel prices. They insist on being allowed to maintain the market advantage of the CAFE 'light-truck' loophole, which allows them to build and sell to consumers the types of vehicles that the law intended for commercial sector. Lighter vehicles will only be possible if the long-ovedue divorce of the auto and steel industries comes to pass. The notion that the only safe vehicle is a heavy steel car is a pernicious lie. Lighter vehicles will come at the cost of advanced materials that allow Formula One race-car drivers to survive 200 mph crashes.
The Detroit News: Carmakers: Choices of vehicles, safety at risk
"Despite rising gas prices and a growing concern about climate change, the auto industry is going on the offensive to convince Americans to oppose dramatically higher fuel economy requirements.
Led by Detroit's Big Three and Toyota Motor Corp., the industry is launching print and radio ads this weekend warning consumers that fuel regulations under consideration by the U.S. Senate would lead to higher vehicle prices and smaller and less safe vehicles.
The ads feature
rural pickup owners [click for audio] and SUV-driving soccer moms [click for audio] SUV-driving soccer moms to make the case that a Senate proposal would limit consumer choice and tie the hands of automakers..."
Detroit wishes to continue to build the sort of vehicles that they wish to build, rather than those that would be prudent to adapt to economic realities like rising fuel prices. They insist on being allowed to maintain the market advantage of the CAFE 'light-truck' loophole, which allows them to build and sell to consumers the types of vehicles that the law intended for commercial sector. Lighter vehicles will only be possible if the long-ovedue divorce of the auto and steel industries comes to pass. The notion that the only safe vehicle is a heavy steel car is a pernicious lie. Lighter vehicles will come at the cost of advanced materials that allow Formula One race-car drivers to survive 200 mph crashes.
The Detroit News: Carmakers: Choices of vehicles, safety at risk
"Despite rising gas prices and a growing concern about climate change, the auto industry is going on the offensive to convince Americans to oppose dramatically higher fuel economy requirements.
Led by Detroit's Big Three and Toyota Motor Corp., the industry is launching print and radio ads this weekend warning consumers that fuel regulations under consideration by the U.S. Senate would lead to higher vehicle prices and smaller and less safe vehicles.
The ads feature
rural pickup owners [click for audio] and SUV-driving soccer moms [click for audio] SUV-driving soccer moms to make the case that a Senate proposal would limit consumer choice and tie the hands of automakers..."
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Responding To The NeoCon Warmongers:
Dr. John P. Hubert: A Response to Norman Podhoretz: Leading Neocon says 'Bomb Iran'
"Norman Podhoretz, Neoconservative extraordinaire has recently penned a Commentary Magazine editorial piece entitled 'The Case for Bombing Iran' which unabashedly recommends an offensive first strike attack on Iran[1] in clear violation of international/US law[2] and the time-tested principles of the Just War Doctrine (JWD).
In his article, Podhoretz made multiple errors especially with regard to certain foundational assumptions the nature of which are particularly dangerous should they be widely embraced. From these spurious yet fundamental missteps he progressively went further astray..."
The Limits Of Government Power and Those Who Respect No Limits On Theirs
William Glaberson: Judge Throws Out Charges in Guantánamo Prisoner Case
"A military judge here dismissed the war crimes charges against a Canadian detainee today, saying there was a flaw in the procedure the military has used to file such charges against Guantánamo detainees.
The ruling in the case of the Canadian, Omar Khadr, is likely to stall the military’s war crimes prosecutions here. Critics of the prosecutions immediately called for Congress to reexamine the system it set up last year for military commissions to try detainees.
The military judge, Col. Peter E. Brownback III of the Army, said that Congress authorized the tribunals to try only those detainees who had been determined to be unlawful enemy combatants. But the military authorities here, he said, have determined only that Mr. Khadr was an enemy combatant, without making the added determination that his participation was 'unlawful.'
Military lawyers here said the same flaw would affect every other potential war crimes case here. The ruling, the latest in a history of legal setbacks for the government’s effort to bring war-crimes charges against detainees, appeared to raise far-reaching questions, because it involved central principles of detention procedures.
Under directives from President Bush and senior Defense Department officials, military officials here have held detainees after finding simply that they were 'enemy combatants.'
Those procedures have long drawn criticism, with some opponents of administration policies saying that they appeared to ignore principles of the international law of war, which permits the violence of battle without classifying it a war crime..."
NY Times Editorial: Dick Cheney Rules
"Americans are accustomed to Vice President Dick Cheney’s waiting out a terrorist threat in a 'secure undisclosed location.' Now it seems that Mr. Cheney wears the cloak of invisibility in secure disclosed locations.
The Associated Press reported that Mr. Cheney’s office ordered the Secret Service last September to destroy all records of visitors to the official vice presidential mansion — right after The Washington Post sued for access to the logs. That move was made in secret, naturally. It came out only because of another lawsuit, filed by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking the names of conservative religious figures who visited the vice president’s residence.
This disdain for accountability is distressing, but not surprising. Mr. Cheney has had it on display from his first days in office, when he refused to name the energy-industry executives who met with him behind closed doors to draft an energy policy.
In a similar way, Mr. Cheney seems unconcerned about little things like checks and balances and traditional American notions of judicial process. At one point, he gave himself the power to selectively declassify documents and selectively leak them to reporters. In a recent commencement address, he declaimed against prisoners who had the gall to 'demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States.'
Mr. Cheney is the driving force behind the Bush administration’s theory of the 'unitary executive,' which holds that no one, including Congress and the courts, has the power to supervise or regulate the actions of the president. Just as he pays little attention to old-fangled notions of the separation of powers, Mr. Cheney does not overly bother himself about the bright line that should exist between his last job as chief of the energy giant Halliburton and his current one on the public payroll.
From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Cheney received 'deferred salary payments' from Halliburton that far exceeded what taxpayers gave him. Mr. Cheney still holds hundreds of thousands of stock options that have ballooned by millions of dollars as Halliburton profited handsomely from the war in Iraq.
Reviewing this record — secrecy, impatience with government regulations, backroom dealings, handsome paydays — it dawned on us that Mr. Cheney is in step with the times. He has privatized the job of vice president of the United States."
The Rule Of Law:
Richard Thompson Ford: Supreme Court mix-up in Ledbetter
"...On Tuesday, in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority of the court that an employer who shortchanged a female employee for years, up until she retired, discriminated on the basis of sex only the first time this happened. Because she didn't sue right away—she probably didn't know she was being shortchanged until later—the court barred her claim as untimely, even though her employer continued to pay her less than men doing the same work until she left.
It's a bad decision. And at first, the Ledbetter opinion reads like ideological warfare: the right wing of the court struggling against precedent to gut a civil-law statute. But that may be unfair. In fact, the court's argument follows from a widespread—though misguided—obsession with state of mind that many conservatives and liberals share..."
The Foreign Policy Of Team Bush:
Jonathan Freedland: Bush's Amazing Achievement
"One of the few foreign policy achievements of the Bush administration has been the creation of a near consensus among those who study international affairs, a shared view that stretches, however improbably, from Noam Chomsky to Brent Scowcroft, from the antiwar protesters on the streets of San Francisco to the well-upholstered office of former secretary of state James Baker. This new consensus holds that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a calamity, that the presidency of George W. Bush has reduced America's standing in the world and made the United States less, not more, secure, leaving its enemies emboldened and its friends alienated. Paid-up members of the nation's foreign policy establishment, those who have held some of the most senior offices in the land, speak in a language once confined to the T-shirts of placard-wielding demonstrators. They rail against deception and dishonesty, imperialism and corruption. The only dispute between them is over the size and depth of the hole into which Bush has led the country he pledged to serve..."
The New U.S. Legacy In Iraq:
David Phinney: How the Baghdad Embassy Was Built
"In the months following September 2005, complaints began coming in to the US State Department that all was not well with its most ambitious project ever: a sprawling new embassy project on the banks of the ancient Tigris River. The largest, most heavily-fortified embassy in the world with over 20 buildings, it spans 104 acres-- comparable in size to the Vatican.
Soon after the State Department awarded $592-million building contract to First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting in July 2005, thousands of low-paid migrant workers recruited from South Asia, the Philippines and other nations poured into Baghdad, beginning work to build the gargantuan complex within two years time. But sources involved in the embassy project tell Slogger that during First Kuwaiti's rush to the finish the project by this summer on schedule, American managers and specialists involved with the project began protesting about the living and working conditions of lower-paid workers sequestered and largely unseen behind security walls bordering the embassy project inside the US-controlled Green Zone..."
Energy Politics:
James Ridgeway: The Bi-Partisan Con On Synthetic Fuels
"Global warming is well on its way to being a godsend for the coal industry. Lobbyists are busily trying to turn dirty coal into a pleasing green alternative promoted by such Democratic luminaries as Presidential hopeful Barack Obama and former House Speaker turned lobbyist Dick Gephardt. In the background, always ready to help, is veteran infighter former Senate Majority leader West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd.
Members of Congress are falling all over themselves writing legislation that would pump millions of taxpayer dollars into schemes that promise to turn coal into synthetic gas, develop oil shale, and the most popular at the moment, plans to transform coal into a liquid oil.
If any of this were to happen, huge hunks of the fragile western plains would be transformed into modern mining camps, wrecking fragile ecosystems, exhausting and polluting water supplies. Manufacture of synthetic fuels would subject workers, and the general nearby populations to cancer causing chemicals..."
Corporate Power:
Ralph Nader: Taming the Giant Corporation
"...The rich have gotten richer. The talk now is about the super-rich and the hyper-rich. The richest 1 percent of people in this country has financial wealth equal to the combined financial wealth of the bottom 95 percent.
The big corporations are more avaricious than ever. The past decade's corporate crime wave, dutifully reported in the major business media-newspapers and magazines-demonstrates how trillions of dollars were looted, or drained away, from tens of millions of small investors, pensioners and workers.
In FDR's time, the CEOs of the top 300 corporations paid themselves about 12 times the average wage in their company. Now the 'top greed' registers 400 to 500 times what the average workers eke out in a full year. WalMart is an example of that sheer self-serving power at the top..."
Dr. John P. Hubert: A Response to Norman Podhoretz: Leading Neocon says 'Bomb Iran'
"Norman Podhoretz, Neoconservative extraordinaire has recently penned a Commentary Magazine editorial piece entitled 'The Case for Bombing Iran' which unabashedly recommends an offensive first strike attack on Iran[1] in clear violation of international/US law[2] and the time-tested principles of the Just War Doctrine (JWD).
In his article, Podhoretz made multiple errors especially with regard to certain foundational assumptions the nature of which are particularly dangerous should they be widely embraced. From these spurious yet fundamental missteps he progressively went further astray..."
The Limits Of Government Power and Those Who Respect No Limits On Theirs
William Glaberson: Judge Throws Out Charges in Guantánamo Prisoner Case
"A military judge here dismissed the war crimes charges against a Canadian detainee today, saying there was a flaw in the procedure the military has used to file such charges against Guantánamo detainees.
The ruling in the case of the Canadian, Omar Khadr, is likely to stall the military’s war crimes prosecutions here. Critics of the prosecutions immediately called for Congress to reexamine the system it set up last year for military commissions to try detainees.
The military judge, Col. Peter E. Brownback III of the Army, said that Congress authorized the tribunals to try only those detainees who had been determined to be unlawful enemy combatants. But the military authorities here, he said, have determined only that Mr. Khadr was an enemy combatant, without making the added determination that his participation was 'unlawful.'
Military lawyers here said the same flaw would affect every other potential war crimes case here. The ruling, the latest in a history of legal setbacks for the government’s effort to bring war-crimes charges against detainees, appeared to raise far-reaching questions, because it involved central principles of detention procedures.
Under directives from President Bush and senior Defense Department officials, military officials here have held detainees after finding simply that they were 'enemy combatants.'
Those procedures have long drawn criticism, with some opponents of administration policies saying that they appeared to ignore principles of the international law of war, which permits the violence of battle without classifying it a war crime..."
NY Times Editorial: Dick Cheney Rules
"Americans are accustomed to Vice President Dick Cheney’s waiting out a terrorist threat in a 'secure undisclosed location.' Now it seems that Mr. Cheney wears the cloak of invisibility in secure disclosed locations.
The Associated Press reported that Mr. Cheney’s office ordered the Secret Service last September to destroy all records of visitors to the official vice presidential mansion — right after The Washington Post sued for access to the logs. That move was made in secret, naturally. It came out only because of another lawsuit, filed by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking the names of conservative religious figures who visited the vice president’s residence.
This disdain for accountability is distressing, but not surprising. Mr. Cheney has had it on display from his first days in office, when he refused to name the energy-industry executives who met with him behind closed doors to draft an energy policy.
In a similar way, Mr. Cheney seems unconcerned about little things like checks and balances and traditional American notions of judicial process. At one point, he gave himself the power to selectively declassify documents and selectively leak them to reporters. In a recent commencement address, he declaimed against prisoners who had the gall to 'demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States.'
Mr. Cheney is the driving force behind the Bush administration’s theory of the 'unitary executive,' which holds that no one, including Congress and the courts, has the power to supervise or regulate the actions of the president. Just as he pays little attention to old-fangled notions of the separation of powers, Mr. Cheney does not overly bother himself about the bright line that should exist between his last job as chief of the energy giant Halliburton and his current one on the public payroll.
From 2001 to 2005, Mr. Cheney received 'deferred salary payments' from Halliburton that far exceeded what taxpayers gave him. Mr. Cheney still holds hundreds of thousands of stock options that have ballooned by millions of dollars as Halliburton profited handsomely from the war in Iraq.
Reviewing this record — secrecy, impatience with government regulations, backroom dealings, handsome paydays — it dawned on us that Mr. Cheney is in step with the times. He has privatized the job of vice president of the United States."
The Rule Of Law:
Richard Thompson Ford: Supreme Court mix-up in Ledbetter
"...On Tuesday, in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority of the court that an employer who shortchanged a female employee for years, up until she retired, discriminated on the basis of sex only the first time this happened. Because she didn't sue right away—she probably didn't know she was being shortchanged until later—the court barred her claim as untimely, even though her employer continued to pay her less than men doing the same work until she left.
It's a bad decision. And at first, the Ledbetter opinion reads like ideological warfare: the right wing of the court struggling against precedent to gut a civil-law statute. But that may be unfair. In fact, the court's argument follows from a widespread—though misguided—obsession with state of mind that many conservatives and liberals share..."
The Foreign Policy Of Team Bush:
Jonathan Freedland: Bush's Amazing Achievement
"One of the few foreign policy achievements of the Bush administration has been the creation of a near consensus among those who study international affairs, a shared view that stretches, however improbably, from Noam Chomsky to Brent Scowcroft, from the antiwar protesters on the streets of San Francisco to the well-upholstered office of former secretary of state James Baker. This new consensus holds that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a calamity, that the presidency of George W. Bush has reduced America's standing in the world and made the United States less, not more, secure, leaving its enemies emboldened and its friends alienated. Paid-up members of the nation's foreign policy establishment, those who have held some of the most senior offices in the land, speak in a language once confined to the T-shirts of placard-wielding demonstrators. They rail against deception and dishonesty, imperialism and corruption. The only dispute between them is over the size and depth of the hole into which Bush has led the country he pledged to serve..."
The New U.S. Legacy In Iraq:
David Phinney: How the Baghdad Embassy Was Built
"In the months following September 2005, complaints began coming in to the US State Department that all was not well with its most ambitious project ever: a sprawling new embassy project on the banks of the ancient Tigris River. The largest, most heavily-fortified embassy in the world with over 20 buildings, it spans 104 acres-- comparable in size to the Vatican.
Soon after the State Department awarded $592-million building contract to First Kuwaiti General Trading and Contracting in July 2005, thousands of low-paid migrant workers recruited from South Asia, the Philippines and other nations poured into Baghdad, beginning work to build the gargantuan complex within two years time. But sources involved in the embassy project tell Slogger that during First Kuwaiti's rush to the finish the project by this summer on schedule, American managers and specialists involved with the project began protesting about the living and working conditions of lower-paid workers sequestered and largely unseen behind security walls bordering the embassy project inside the US-controlled Green Zone..."
Energy Politics:
James Ridgeway: The Bi-Partisan Con On Synthetic Fuels
"Global warming is well on its way to being a godsend for the coal industry. Lobbyists are busily trying to turn dirty coal into a pleasing green alternative promoted by such Democratic luminaries as Presidential hopeful Barack Obama and former House Speaker turned lobbyist Dick Gephardt. In the background, always ready to help, is veteran infighter former Senate Majority leader West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd.
Members of Congress are falling all over themselves writing legislation that would pump millions of taxpayer dollars into schemes that promise to turn coal into synthetic gas, develop oil shale, and the most popular at the moment, plans to transform coal into a liquid oil.
If any of this were to happen, huge hunks of the fragile western plains would be transformed into modern mining camps, wrecking fragile ecosystems, exhausting and polluting water supplies. Manufacture of synthetic fuels would subject workers, and the general nearby populations to cancer causing chemicals..."
Corporate Power:
Ralph Nader: Taming the Giant Corporation
"...The rich have gotten richer. The talk now is about the super-rich and the hyper-rich. The richest 1 percent of people in this country has financial wealth equal to the combined financial wealth of the bottom 95 percent.
The big corporations are more avaricious than ever. The past decade's corporate crime wave, dutifully reported in the major business media-newspapers and magazines-demonstrates how trillions of dollars were looted, or drained away, from tens of millions of small investors, pensioners and workers.
In FDR's time, the CEOs of the top 300 corporations paid themselves about 12 times the average wage in their company. Now the 'top greed' registers 400 to 500 times what the average workers eke out in a full year. WalMart is an example of that sheer self-serving power at the top..."
Monday, June 04, 2007
The First Amendment:
NY Times: FCC rebuffed by court on indecency fines
"If President Bush and Vice President Cheney can use vulgar language, then the government cannot punish others for doing the same thing on television.
That, in essence, was the decision today when a federal appeals court struck down the government policy of fining stations and networks that broadcast programs with profanity..."
NY Times: FCC rebuffed by court on indecency fines
"If President Bush and Vice President Cheney can use vulgar language, then the government cannot punish others for doing the same thing on television.
That, in essence, was the decision today when a federal appeals court struck down the government policy of fining stations and networks that broadcast programs with profanity..."
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Politicizing The DoJ:
The U.S. Attorney firings seem to have a sub-plot that few Americans realize...
Greg Palast: US Attorney resigns following Conyers’ request for BBC documents
"Tim Griffin, formerly right hand man to Karl Rove, resigned Thursday as US Attorney for Arkansas hours after BBC Television ‘Newsnight’ reported that Congressman John Conyers requested the network’s evidence on Griffin’s involvement in ‘caging voters.’ Greg Palast, reporting for BBC Newsnight, obtained a series of confidential emails from the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. In these emails, Griffin, then the GOP Deputy Communications Director, transmitted so-called ‘caging lists’ of voters to state party leaders.
Experts have concluded the caging lists were designed for a mass challenge of voters’ right to cast ballots. The caging lists were heavily weighted with minority voters including homeless individuals, students and soldiers sent overseas.
Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee investigating the firing of US Attorneys, met Thursday evening in New York with Palast. After reviewing key documents, Conyers stated that, despite Griffin’s resignation, 'We’re not through with him by any means.'
Conyers indicated to the BBC that he thought it unlikely that Griffin could carry out this massive ‘caging’ operation without the knowledge of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rove..."
The U.S. Attorney firings seem to have a sub-plot that few Americans realize...
Greg Palast: US Attorney resigns following Conyers’ request for BBC documents
"Tim Griffin, formerly right hand man to Karl Rove, resigned Thursday as US Attorney for Arkansas hours after BBC Television ‘Newsnight’ reported that Congressman John Conyers requested the network’s evidence on Griffin’s involvement in ‘caging voters.’ Greg Palast, reporting for BBC Newsnight, obtained a series of confidential emails from the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign. In these emails, Griffin, then the GOP Deputy Communications Director, transmitted so-called ‘caging lists’ of voters to state party leaders.
Experts have concluded the caging lists were designed for a mass challenge of voters’ right to cast ballots. The caging lists were heavily weighted with minority voters including homeless individuals, students and soldiers sent overseas.
Conyers, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee investigating the firing of US Attorneys, met Thursday evening in New York with Palast. After reviewing key documents, Conyers stated that, despite Griffin’s resignation, 'We’re not through with him by any means.'
Conyers indicated to the BBC that he thought it unlikely that Griffin could carry out this massive ‘caging’ operation without the knowledge of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Rove..."
