Friday, November 14, 2003
Pakistan: Long established is that Pakistan is no mere ally of the U.S., but rather is a hotbed of terrorism- the security forces, if not the Government, more than play footsie with bin Laden. They’ve always been much more of a “threat” than Saddam. This contribution from the Daily Times of Pakistan:
“In Pakistan, there are legions of bin Ladin followers, plenty of links between government officials and terrorists and nuclear weapons that could fall into the hands of anti-American terrorists. This is not speculation,” according to Leon Hadar, a research fellow at the right-wing think tank the Cato Institute.
He maintains that President Pervez Musharraf seems to be undermining stability in neighbouring Afghanistan. Pakistan, he added, is also reportedly harbouring Islamic militants, fighting Indian forces in Kashmir and playing an active role in the proliferation of nuclear weapons, which it has already developed. Several news outlets have reported that members of a resurgent Taliban, enjoying the support of Pashtun tribes as well as sympathetic Pakistani military officers led by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), are using Pakistan as a base for strikes against the US-backed government in Kabul. Some intelligence experts suspect that Osama bin Ladin and other Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders may have found sanctuaries in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan, he added.
Hadar writes, “At the same time, some members of the Pakistani security forces continue to provide assistance to Islamic militants fighting against India’s rule in Kashmir. Indeed, US officials admit that Mr Musharraf has failed to crack down on those who support the fighters in Kashmir, who threaten to ignite war - possibly one that could turn nuclear - between Pakistan and India. More of a concern for the United States is the growing evidence that Pakistan’s nuclear programme - an arsenal believed to contain between 35 and 60 nuclear weapons - may have become a source of technology for North Korea and Iran. Also, some evidence points to some Pakistani nuclear scientists maintaining ties to Al Qaeda and other extremist Islamic groups. All of this suggests that under various scenarios, including the collapse of Mr Musharraf’s rule or a coup staged by radical Islamists, Pakistan could turn into a nuclear-armed ally of Al Qaeda. Ironically, while Washington has been shoring up Pakistan’s military regime and perpetuating Pakistan’s mismanaged and corrupt economic system, the US has refused to take a step that could help members of Pakistan’s middle class and its Western-oriented entrepreneurs - open American markets to Pakistani textiles.” http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_13-11-2003_pg7_42
What’s Happening, Iraq: We’re still very alone, despite the British (below). The Japanese and South Koreans now are having second thoughts about their marginal troop commitments. And the military is on the offensive, yet mighty confused as to what they’ll accomplish, other than looking strong while we try to get out of the crosshairs. This sorry commentary made the front page of Friday’s NY Times.
After the start of a well-publicized offensive against Iraqi insurgents, American commanders said Thursday that they were intent on sending the rebels "a message."
But here at the site of one of the operation's primary targets, local Iraqis said they were uncertain what that message was supposed to be.
On the southern edge of the capital, a large building that American commanders said was a "meeting, planning, storage and rendezvous point" for the insurgents still stood, despite the military's claim that it had been destroyed in an airstrike the night before.
American soldiers came to the neighborhood several hours before the attack, local residents said, warning of the impending strike and making sure that everyone in the area was evacuated. Then an American AC-130 gunship strafed the building, knocking holes in the walls and wrecking much of the textile machinery arrayed inside.
After the strike, the Americans came back but detained no suspects, not even the owner of the building, and found no weapons.
The owner, Waad Dakhil Bolane, who said the Americans had warned his guards of the impending air raid, shook his head in befuddlement.
"Does this look like a military base to you?" he asked, standing inside his factory, which was still filled with textile machinery. "The Americans came here, told the guards to leave and then attacked. I don't understand."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/14/international/middleeast/14RAID.html
Meanwhile, the British remain the faithful ally, ready to send more troops.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1084325,00.html
Krugman on Medicare: As promised, he’s addressed the Right’s attack on Medicare.
But one of the proposals being negotiated behind closed doors — misleadingly described as "cost containment" — would set a limit on Medicare's use of general revenue, and would require action seven years before projections say that limit will be breached. This rule is reinforced with a peculiar new definition of "general revenue" that includes interest on the Medicare trust fund, accumulated out of past payroll taxes. The effect would be to force the government to declare a Medicare crisis in 2010 or 2011.
You might say it's a good idea to face up to Medicare's problems early. But the legislation would allow only two responses: either an increase in the payroll tax (a regressive tax that bears more heavily on middle-class families than on the wealthy) or benefit cuts. Other possibilities, like increases in other taxes or other spending cuts, would be ruled out. In short, this is an attempt to pre-empt discussion of how we want to deal with Medicare's future and impose a solution reflecting a particular ideology.
Meanwhile, another proposal — to force Medicare to compete with private insurers — seems intended to undermine the whole system.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/14/opinion/14KRUG.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Moyers on the Media. An excerpt from a terrific talk:
When Joseph Pulitzer, a one-time immigrant reporter for a German-language paper in St. Louis, took over the New York World in 1883 he was already a millionaire in the making. But here’s his recommended short platform for politicians:
1.Tax luxuries
2. Tax Inheritances
3. Tax Large Incomes
4. Tax monopolies
5. Tax the Privileged Corporation
6. A Tariff for Revenue
7. Reform the Civil Service
8. Punish Corrupt Officers
9. Punish Vote Buying.
10. Punish Employers who Coerce their Employees in Elections
Also not a bad mission statement. Can you imagine one of today’s huge newspaper chains taking that on as an agenda?
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1112-10.htm
Columbia: Trouble, as the U.S.-backed president Alvaro Uribe loses his defense minister, armed forces chief, environmental ministers who all have quit. Trouble began when Uribe granted amnesty to right-wing death squads. Uribe’s government is replete w/ businessmen, apparently sharpening class issues. More via Frances Robles in the Seattle Times:
In mid-September, Uribe proposed a law that would in effect grant amnesty to Colombian paramilitaries. It would allow members of the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) to avoid jail for crimes they have committed if they agree to lay down their arms.
This recent proposal would, according to Uribe, compel the leaders of the death squads to admit their crimes, turn over some land, pay some fines and provide community services when they turn in their weapons.
According to the Sept. 15 New York Times, the Bush administration is backing the proposed legislation.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2001790149&zsection_id=268448413&slug=colombians14&date=20031113
Poll: Here’s one from the Pew Research Center: Independent women supported any Democrat over Bush 49-26 percent in October -- a huge shift from April, when the same group backed Bush 46-27 percent.
Gore Vidal: An excerpt from an interview in the LA Times:
We are talking about despotism. I have read not only the first PATRIOT Act but also the second one, which has not yet been totally made public nor approved by Congress and to which there is already great resistance. An American citizen can be fingered as a terrorist, and with what proof? No proof. All you need is the word of the attorney general or maybe the president himself. You can then be locked up without access to a lawyer, and then tried by military tribunal and even executed. Or, in a brand-new wrinkle, you can be exiled, stripped of your citizenship and packed off to another place not even organized as a country — like Tierra del Fuego or some rock in the Pacific. All of this is in the USA PATRIOT Act. The Founding Fathers would have found this to be despotism in spades. And they would have hanged anybody who tried to get this through the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Hanged.
Q: So if George W. Bush or John Ashcroft had been around in the early days of the republic, they would have been indicted and then hanged by the Founders?
No. It would have been better and worse. [Laughs.] Bush and Ashcroft would have been considered so disreputable as to not belong in this country at all. They might be invited to go down to Bolivia or Paraguay and take part in the military administration of some Spanish colony, where they would feel so much more at home. They would not be called Americans — most Americans would not think of them as citizens.
Do you not think of Bush and Ashcroft as Americans?
I think of them as an alien army. They have managed to take over everything, and quite in the open. We have a deranged president. We have despotism. We have no due process.
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/printme.php?eid=48666
-R
“In Pakistan, there are legions of bin Ladin followers, plenty of links between government officials and terrorists and nuclear weapons that could fall into the hands of anti-American terrorists. This is not speculation,” according to Leon Hadar, a research fellow at the right-wing think tank the Cato Institute.
He maintains that President Pervez Musharraf seems to be undermining stability in neighbouring Afghanistan. Pakistan, he added, is also reportedly harbouring Islamic militants, fighting Indian forces in Kashmir and playing an active role in the proliferation of nuclear weapons, which it has already developed. Several news outlets have reported that members of a resurgent Taliban, enjoying the support of Pashtun tribes as well as sympathetic Pakistani military officers led by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), are using Pakistan as a base for strikes against the US-backed government in Kabul. Some intelligence experts suspect that Osama bin Ladin and other Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders may have found sanctuaries in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan, he added.
Hadar writes, “At the same time, some members of the Pakistani security forces continue to provide assistance to Islamic militants fighting against India’s rule in Kashmir. Indeed, US officials admit that Mr Musharraf has failed to crack down on those who support the fighters in Kashmir, who threaten to ignite war - possibly one that could turn nuclear - between Pakistan and India. More of a concern for the United States is the growing evidence that Pakistan’s nuclear programme - an arsenal believed to contain between 35 and 60 nuclear weapons - may have become a source of technology for North Korea and Iran. Also, some evidence points to some Pakistani nuclear scientists maintaining ties to Al Qaeda and other extremist Islamic groups. All of this suggests that under various scenarios, including the collapse of Mr Musharraf’s rule or a coup staged by radical Islamists, Pakistan could turn into a nuclear-armed ally of Al Qaeda. Ironically, while Washington has been shoring up Pakistan’s military regime and perpetuating Pakistan’s mismanaged and corrupt economic system, the US has refused to take a step that could help members of Pakistan’s middle class and its Western-oriented entrepreneurs - open American markets to Pakistani textiles.” http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_13-11-2003_pg7_42
What’s Happening, Iraq: We’re still very alone, despite the British (below). The Japanese and South Koreans now are having second thoughts about their marginal troop commitments. And the military is on the offensive, yet mighty confused as to what they’ll accomplish, other than looking strong while we try to get out of the crosshairs. This sorry commentary made the front page of Friday’s NY Times.
After the start of a well-publicized offensive against Iraqi insurgents, American commanders said Thursday that they were intent on sending the rebels "a message."
But here at the site of one of the operation's primary targets, local Iraqis said they were uncertain what that message was supposed to be.
On the southern edge of the capital, a large building that American commanders said was a "meeting, planning, storage and rendezvous point" for the insurgents still stood, despite the military's claim that it had been destroyed in an airstrike the night before.
American soldiers came to the neighborhood several hours before the attack, local residents said, warning of the impending strike and making sure that everyone in the area was evacuated. Then an American AC-130 gunship strafed the building, knocking holes in the walls and wrecking much of the textile machinery arrayed inside.
After the strike, the Americans came back but detained no suspects, not even the owner of the building, and found no weapons.
The owner, Waad Dakhil Bolane, who said the Americans had warned his guards of the impending air raid, shook his head in befuddlement.
"Does this look like a military base to you?" he asked, standing inside his factory, which was still filled with textile machinery. "The Americans came here, told the guards to leave and then attacked. I don't understand."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/14/international/middleeast/14RAID.html
Meanwhile, the British remain the faithful ally, ready to send more troops.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1084325,00.html
Krugman on Medicare: As promised, he’s addressed the Right’s attack on Medicare.
But one of the proposals being negotiated behind closed doors — misleadingly described as "cost containment" — would set a limit on Medicare's use of general revenue, and would require action seven years before projections say that limit will be breached. This rule is reinforced with a peculiar new definition of "general revenue" that includes interest on the Medicare trust fund, accumulated out of past payroll taxes. The effect would be to force the government to declare a Medicare crisis in 2010 or 2011.
You might say it's a good idea to face up to Medicare's problems early. But the legislation would allow only two responses: either an increase in the payroll tax (a regressive tax that bears more heavily on middle-class families than on the wealthy) or benefit cuts. Other possibilities, like increases in other taxes or other spending cuts, would be ruled out. In short, this is an attempt to pre-empt discussion of how we want to deal with Medicare's future and impose a solution reflecting a particular ideology.
Meanwhile, another proposal — to force Medicare to compete with private insurers — seems intended to undermine the whole system.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/14/opinion/14KRUG.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Moyers on the Media. An excerpt from a terrific talk:
When Joseph Pulitzer, a one-time immigrant reporter for a German-language paper in St. Louis, took over the New York World in 1883 he was already a millionaire in the making. But here’s his recommended short platform for politicians:
1.Tax luxuries
2. Tax Inheritances
3. Tax Large Incomes
4. Tax monopolies
5. Tax the Privileged Corporation
6. A Tariff for Revenue
7. Reform the Civil Service
8. Punish Corrupt Officers
9. Punish Vote Buying.
10. Punish Employers who Coerce their Employees in Elections
Also not a bad mission statement. Can you imagine one of today’s huge newspaper chains taking that on as an agenda?
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1112-10.htm
Columbia: Trouble, as the U.S.-backed president Alvaro Uribe loses his defense minister, armed forces chief, environmental ministers who all have quit. Trouble began when Uribe granted amnesty to right-wing death squads. Uribe’s government is replete w/ businessmen, apparently sharpening class issues. More via Frances Robles in the Seattle Times:
In mid-September, Uribe proposed a law that would in effect grant amnesty to Colombian paramilitaries. It would allow members of the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) to avoid jail for crimes they have committed if they agree to lay down their arms.
This recent proposal would, according to Uribe, compel the leaders of the death squads to admit their crimes, turn over some land, pay some fines and provide community services when they turn in their weapons.
According to the Sept. 15 New York Times, the Bush administration is backing the proposed legislation.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2001790149&zsection_id=268448413&slug=colombians14&date=20031113
Poll: Here’s one from the Pew Research Center: Independent women supported any Democrat over Bush 49-26 percent in October -- a huge shift from April, when the same group backed Bush 46-27 percent.
Gore Vidal: An excerpt from an interview in the LA Times:
We are talking about despotism. I have read not only the first PATRIOT Act but also the second one, which has not yet been totally made public nor approved by Congress and to which there is already great resistance. An American citizen can be fingered as a terrorist, and with what proof? No proof. All you need is the word of the attorney general or maybe the president himself. You can then be locked up without access to a lawyer, and then tried by military tribunal and even executed. Or, in a brand-new wrinkle, you can be exiled, stripped of your citizenship and packed off to another place not even organized as a country — like Tierra del Fuego or some rock in the Pacific. All of this is in the USA PATRIOT Act. The Founding Fathers would have found this to be despotism in spades. And they would have hanged anybody who tried to get this through the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Hanged.
Q: So if George W. Bush or John Ashcroft had been around in the early days of the republic, they would have been indicted and then hanged by the Founders?
No. It would have been better and worse. [Laughs.] Bush and Ashcroft would have been considered so disreputable as to not belong in this country at all. They might be invited to go down to Bolivia or Paraguay and take part in the military administration of some Spanish colony, where they would feel so much more at home. They would not be called Americans — most Americans would not think of them as citizens.
Do you not think of Bush and Ashcroft as Americans?
I think of them as an alien army. They have managed to take over everything, and quite in the open. We have a deranged president. We have despotism. We have no due process.
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/printme.php?eid=48666
-R
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
They have taken us much farther down the road toward an intrusive, ‘big brother’-style government — toward the dangers prophesied by George Orwell in his book ’1984’ — than anyone ever thought would be possible in the United States of America. -Al Gore
London: Gearing Up for Bush
Peace protesters are planning a march to mark Bush’s visit next week, but the police are aiming to seal off key chunks of central London. The Independent (GB) reports:
Campaigners are planning a "Stop Bush" protest march through central London on 20 November, but say the Metropolitan Police are trying to block them.
As President Bush and his wife are due to stay at Buckingham Palace, there has been speculation much of the Mall and Whitehall will be closed off along with parts of the City.
Scotland Yard says it is not revealing details of road closures yet for security reasons, but says it will facilitate lawful demonstrations.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/3259005.stm
Tony Blair urged demonstrators to take the opportunity of Bush’s visit to realize that they are not appreciating the Bush position. Blair notes this in view of Bush’s Iraq policy being condemned by 60% (vs 20% in favor) of polled Brits. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/12/international/europe/12BRIT.html
Fiscal Health: The Bushies are Big Spenders via the Washington Post (Jonathan Weisman)
The preliminary spending figures for 2003 also raise questions about the government's long-term fiscal health. Bush administration officials have said fiscal restraint and "pro-growth" tax cuts should put the government on a path to a balanced budget. Bush has demanded that spending that is subject to Congress's annual discretion be capped at 4 percent.
But the Republican-led Congress has not obliged. The federal government spent nearly $826 billion in fiscal 2003, an increase of $91.5 billion over 2002, said G. William Hoagland, a senior budget and economic aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). Military spending shot up nearly 17 percent, to $407.3 billion, but nonmilitary discretionary spending also far outpaced Bush's limit, rising 8.7 percent… http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28252-2003Nov11?language=printer
Massachusetts Health Care Constitutional Amendment
There are 7 days left to collect the last of the required 100,000 signatures from registered voters for the constitutional amendment for universal health care. It’s not too late to help.
You can help by doing one or more of the following:
1. Call to get an assignment to collect signatures in your area; staff can make suggestions and provide materials. 617-868-1280.
2. Print out petition signature sheets directly from the campaign website and collect signatures. Meetings and community events are places to get lots of signatures at once. to learn more or contribute to the effort, go to http://www.HealthCareForMass.org.
What’s Happening, Iraq: A score of Italians were killed in relatively peaceful southern Iraq; General Sanchez now uses “war” to describe the current situation; L. Paul Bremer the civilian chief of the Occupation, is in D.C., either to be back-burnered, replaced, or ??? and more involvement seems to be the trend, despite all the talk of ‘Iraqification’ of the conflict. More via Slate and the NY Times at http://slate.msn.com/id/2091122/ and http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/12/international/middleeast/12IRAQ.html?ei=5062&en=70abd998ca7137ca&ex=1069218000&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=all&position=
Iraq 'faces severe health crisis' was the headline of a BBC report
The people of Iraq may have poorer health for generations as a result of the war, according to a report. Medical charity Medact says this year's conflict disrupted immunisation programmes and destroyed water systems, increasing levels of disease.
Environmental degradation and smoke from oil fires are adding to the health problems of Iraqis, it reports. Continuing insecurity in Iraq, along with the breakdown of public health services, are exacerbating the problem...
There has been a reported increase in maternal mortality rates, acute malnutrition has almost doubled from 4% to 8% in the last year and there is an increase in water-borne diseases and vaccine-preventable diseases." and 55,000 people - mainly Iraqi soldiers and civilians - died as a direct result of the war.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3259489.stm
Soros Spends some more:
George Soros, wealthy contributor to projects that promote democracy in the former Soviet Union Africa and Asia has another passion: beating Bush. Already having donated over 10 million, he is now sending MoveOn.org $5 million. Soros views the 2004 presidential race as "a matter of life and death." The Republican comment, via RNC spokesperson Christine Iverson, "It's incredibly ironic that George Soros is trying to create a more open society by using an unregulated, under-the-radar-screen, shadowy, soft-money group to do it. "George Soros has purchased the Democratic Party." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24179-2003Nov10.html
Charity Fraud: The Boston Globe ran a devastating 2-part series on charitable foundations. We typically read such and shake our heads about those individuals who abuse their position. But, we must realize that this is but one forum for systematic abuse, for the transfer of wealth to the rich from everyone else. Tax cuts/evasion, Enrons, mutual fund shenanigans are but the more publicized ways that funds have been stolen by what Paul Krugman calls "the very, very rich." This must change.
…an investigation by the Globe Spotlight Team has found scores of foundations whose tax returns show that officers and directors are themselves the principal beneficiaries of foundation assets that are intended for charitable causes.
In some cases, pay to foundation officers exceeds annual donations, draining away funds that could otherwise support hard-pressed charities. Federal rules governing foundations require that any compensation be "reasonable."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/10/09/some_officers_of_charities_steer_assets_to_selves/
9/11
James Ridgeway of the Village Voice asks fundamental questions in his weekly column.
Mindy Kleinberg, who lost her husband at the WTC, has pointed out to the commission that NORAD was not contacted by the FAA until 32 minutes after the loss of contact with Flight 11. And she called it "more baffling still" that fighters weren't scrambled from the nearest air force bases to intercept the hijacked airliners. Kleinberg noted that planes of NORAD's North East Air Defense Sector (NEADS) were actually on maneuvers that morning that should have made them immediately available. Nevertheless, at 9:41 a.m., one hour and 11 minutes after NORAD confirmed that the first plane was hijacked, the skies over D.C. were unprotected and Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. Fighter jets, she pointed out, were still miles away.
"Why," she asked, "was there a delay in the FAA notifying NORAD? Why was there a delay in NORAD scrambling fighter jets? How is this possible, when NEADS was fully staffed with planes at the ready and monitoring our Northeast airspace?"
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0346/mondo4.php
More on the phony Education ‘Miracle’
I’ve posted on this before, but some new data out of Houston adds more doubt to any success of the Bush Texas education policy. The Washington Post (Michael Dobbs) reports that a school that Bush has touted as a model for the rest of the nation -- is fending off accusations that it inflated its achievements through fuzzy math… Austin is one of more than a dozen Houston high schools caught up in a burgeoning scandal about the reliability of their dropout statistics. During a decade in which, routinely, as many as half of Austin students failed to graduate, the school's reported dropout rate fell from 14.4 percent to 0.3 percent. Even a Houston school board member calls the statistic "baloney."
If this were any other school district in the nation, few people would pay much attention. But Houston is the political springboard for U.S. Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige. He was school superintendent here before moving to Washington.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14117-2003Nov7?language=printer
-R
London: Gearing Up for Bush
Peace protesters are planning a march to mark Bush’s visit next week, but the police are aiming to seal off key chunks of central London. The Independent (GB) reports:
Campaigners are planning a "Stop Bush" protest march through central London on 20 November, but say the Metropolitan Police are trying to block them.
As President Bush and his wife are due to stay at Buckingham Palace, there has been speculation much of the Mall and Whitehall will be closed off along with parts of the City.
Scotland Yard says it is not revealing details of road closures yet for security reasons, but says it will facilitate lawful demonstrations.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/3259005.stm
Tony Blair urged demonstrators to take the opportunity of Bush’s visit to realize that they are not appreciating the Bush position. Blair notes this in view of Bush’s Iraq policy being condemned by 60% (vs 20% in favor) of polled Brits. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/12/international/europe/12BRIT.html
Fiscal Health: The Bushies are Big Spenders via the Washington Post (Jonathan Weisman)
The preliminary spending figures for 2003 also raise questions about the government's long-term fiscal health. Bush administration officials have said fiscal restraint and "pro-growth" tax cuts should put the government on a path to a balanced budget. Bush has demanded that spending that is subject to Congress's annual discretion be capped at 4 percent.
But the Republican-led Congress has not obliged. The federal government spent nearly $826 billion in fiscal 2003, an increase of $91.5 billion over 2002, said G. William Hoagland, a senior budget and economic aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). Military spending shot up nearly 17 percent, to $407.3 billion, but nonmilitary discretionary spending also far outpaced Bush's limit, rising 8.7 percent… http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28252-2003Nov11?language=printer
Massachusetts Health Care Constitutional Amendment
There are 7 days left to collect the last of the required 100,000 signatures from registered voters for the constitutional amendment for universal health care. It’s not too late to help.
You can help by doing one or more of the following:
1. Call to get an assignment to collect signatures in your area; staff can make suggestions and provide materials. 617-868-1280.
2. Print out petition signature sheets directly from the campaign website and collect signatures. Meetings and community events are places to get lots of signatures at once. to learn more or contribute to the effort, go to http://www.HealthCareForMass.org.
What’s Happening, Iraq: A score of Italians were killed in relatively peaceful southern Iraq; General Sanchez now uses “war” to describe the current situation; L. Paul Bremer the civilian chief of the Occupation, is in D.C., either to be back-burnered, replaced, or ??? and more involvement seems to be the trend, despite all the talk of ‘Iraqification’ of the conflict. More via Slate and the NY Times at http://slate.msn.com/id/2091122/ and http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/12/international/middleeast/12IRAQ.html?ei=5062&en=70abd998ca7137ca&ex=1069218000&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=all&position=
Iraq 'faces severe health crisis' was the headline of a BBC report
The people of Iraq may have poorer health for generations as a result of the war, according to a report. Medical charity Medact says this year's conflict disrupted immunisation programmes and destroyed water systems, increasing levels of disease.
Environmental degradation and smoke from oil fires are adding to the health problems of Iraqis, it reports. Continuing insecurity in Iraq, along with the breakdown of public health services, are exacerbating the problem...
There has been a reported increase in maternal mortality rates, acute malnutrition has almost doubled from 4% to 8% in the last year and there is an increase in water-borne diseases and vaccine-preventable diseases." and 55,000 people - mainly Iraqi soldiers and civilians - died as a direct result of the war.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3259489.stm
Soros Spends some more:
George Soros, wealthy contributor to projects that promote democracy in the former Soviet Union Africa and Asia has another passion: beating Bush. Already having donated over 10 million, he is now sending MoveOn.org $5 million. Soros views the 2004 presidential race as "a matter of life and death." The Republican comment, via RNC spokesperson Christine Iverson, "It's incredibly ironic that George Soros is trying to create a more open society by using an unregulated, under-the-radar-screen, shadowy, soft-money group to do it. "George Soros has purchased the Democratic Party." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24179-2003Nov10.html
Charity Fraud: The Boston Globe ran a devastating 2-part series on charitable foundations. We typically read such and shake our heads about those individuals who abuse their position. But, we must realize that this is but one forum for systematic abuse, for the transfer of wealth to the rich from everyone else. Tax cuts/evasion, Enrons, mutual fund shenanigans are but the more publicized ways that funds have been stolen by what Paul Krugman calls "the very, very rich." This must change.
…an investigation by the Globe Spotlight Team has found scores of foundations whose tax returns show that officers and directors are themselves the principal beneficiaries of foundation assets that are intended for charitable causes.
In some cases, pay to foundation officers exceeds annual donations, draining away funds that could otherwise support hard-pressed charities. Federal rules governing foundations require that any compensation be "reasonable."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/10/09/some_officers_of_charities_steer_assets_to_selves/
9/11
James Ridgeway of the Village Voice asks fundamental questions in his weekly column.
Mindy Kleinberg, who lost her husband at the WTC, has pointed out to the commission that NORAD was not contacted by the FAA until 32 minutes after the loss of contact with Flight 11. And she called it "more baffling still" that fighters weren't scrambled from the nearest air force bases to intercept the hijacked airliners. Kleinberg noted that planes of NORAD's North East Air Defense Sector (NEADS) were actually on maneuvers that morning that should have made them immediately available. Nevertheless, at 9:41 a.m., one hour and 11 minutes after NORAD confirmed that the first plane was hijacked, the skies over D.C. were unprotected and Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. Fighter jets, she pointed out, were still miles away.
"Why," she asked, "was there a delay in the FAA notifying NORAD? Why was there a delay in NORAD scrambling fighter jets? How is this possible, when NEADS was fully staffed with planes at the ready and monitoring our Northeast airspace?"
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0346/mondo4.php
More on the phony Education ‘Miracle’
I’ve posted on this before, but some new data out of Houston adds more doubt to any success of the Bush Texas education policy. The Washington Post (Michael Dobbs) reports that a school that Bush has touted as a model for the rest of the nation -- is fending off accusations that it inflated its achievements through fuzzy math… Austin is one of more than a dozen Houston high schools caught up in a burgeoning scandal about the reliability of their dropout statistics. During a decade in which, routinely, as many as half of Austin students failed to graduate, the school's reported dropout rate fell from 14.4 percent to 0.3 percent. Even a Houston school board member calls the statistic "baloney."
If this were any other school district in the nation, few people would pay much attention. But Houston is the political springboard for U.S. Education Secretary Roderick R. Paige. He was school superintendent here before moving to Washington.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14117-2003Nov7?language=printer
-R
Monday, November 10, 2003
What’s Happening, Iraq: Trends
The alarming casualties…what to say… Sunday’s Washington Post (Robin Wright, Rajiv Chandrasekaran) also reported a notable development, that the Administration is discouraged by the indecisiveness of the hand-picked “Governing Council” of Iraq, fearing that a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops will be delayed by the absence of a legitimate government.
The United States is deeply frustrated with its hand-picked council members because they have spent more time on their own political or economic interests than in planning for Iraq's political future, especially selecting a committee to write a new constitution, the officials added. "We're unhappy with all of them. They're not acting as a legislative or governing body, and we need to get moving," said a well-placed U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "They just don't make decisions when they need to.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17199-2003Nov8.html
More GOP hardball
Still more examples of their being tough on the Democrats. This time, Democratic pet projects are being thwarted; literally no government funding for projects in any district of a Democratic representative is being approved.
And, Senate Majority leader Bill Frist took the unusual step of suspending an inquiry into the possible misuse of pre-invasion intelligence; Frist claimed that the inquiry was being manipulated "to politically wound the president of the United States."
His action occurs as the dvd “Uncovered…” was being released (and pushed by moveon.org) It lays out the cooking / selective use of intelligence. A full report from the Guardian (Andrew Gumbel):
An unprecedented array of US intelligence professionals, diplomats and former Pentagon officials have gone on record to lambast the Bush administration for its distortion of the case for war against Iraq. In their view, the very foundations of intelligence-gathering have been damaged in ways that could take years, even decades, to repair.
A new documentary film beginning to circulate in the United States features one powerful condemnation after another, from the sort of people who usually stay discreetly in the shadows - a former director of the CIA, two former assistant secretaries of defence, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and even the man who served as President Bush's Secretary of the Army until just a few months ago
Between them, the two dozen interviewees reveal how the pre-war intelligence record on Iraq showed virtually the opposite of the picture the administration painted to Congress.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=461953
Our Friends, the Saudis and the Pakistanis
Everyone is learning the lessons- that the Administration will not stand by its “friends” and that it will respect those with nuclear capability. So the Pakistanis, veterans of deals with the North Koreans, are now dealing with Saudi Arabia. From the Asia Times (Stephen Blank):
…apparently defying those international concerns, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are now reported to have arranged a deal by which Pakistan will provide Saudi Arabia with nuclear technology in return for cheap oil. The US-based Defense and Foreign Affairs Daily even goes so far as to say that Pakistan will station nuclear weapons on Saudi territory. These weapons will be fitted to a new generation of Chinese-supplied long-range missiles with a reach of 4,000 to 5,000 kilometers.
There are numerous motives for this deal, as reported by different sources. In the Saudi case there is evidently growing disengagement with Washington due to the "war on terrorism" and the war on Iraq. These events have created an atmosphere where Saudi elites evidently feel less inclined to rely on American protection in the face of regional threats, specifically the likelihood of an Iranian nuclear weapon. They also see no pressure from Washington being directed against Israel's nuclear arsenal, even though there is no sign or even consideration of an attack on Saudi Arabia. They also clearly resent the evidence of a Saudi connection to al-Qaeda and accusations against them of less than wholehearted cooperation with Washington and other Western capitals in efforts to break up al-Qaeda and its source of financing=
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EK07Ak01.html
Medicare: The Assault
The House Republicans and the White House are working together to cap funding for Medicare. They seek to legislate automatic cutbacks in the program if the costs grow faster than “expected.” This would thwart Democratic vows to expand any prescription benefit that might pass, as such expansion then would force higher beneficiary premiums, lessened benefits or higher payroll taxes.
Today’s NY Times (Robert Pear) focuses on the Republicans refusing to vote for a Medicare drug bill unless it encourages competition between Medicare and private plans, while the Democrats refusing to vote for such competition, fearing that it would “undermine traditional Medicare and could raise costs for people who remain in that program.”
Paul Krugman promises to write on Medicare soon; perhaps that will further rev up media interest and fervor from the Democratic candidates.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/10/politics/10MEDI.html
-R
The alarming casualties…what to say… Sunday’s Washington Post (Robin Wright, Rajiv Chandrasekaran) also reported a notable development, that the Administration is discouraged by the indecisiveness of the hand-picked “Governing Council” of Iraq, fearing that a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops will be delayed by the absence of a legitimate government.
The United States is deeply frustrated with its hand-picked council members because they have spent more time on their own political or economic interests than in planning for Iraq's political future, especially selecting a committee to write a new constitution, the officials added. "We're unhappy with all of them. They're not acting as a legislative or governing body, and we need to get moving," said a well-placed U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "They just don't make decisions when they need to.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17199-2003Nov8.html
More GOP hardball
Still more examples of their being tough on the Democrats. This time, Democratic pet projects are being thwarted; literally no government funding for projects in any district of a Democratic representative is being approved.
And, Senate Majority leader Bill Frist took the unusual step of suspending an inquiry into the possible misuse of pre-invasion intelligence; Frist claimed that the inquiry was being manipulated "to politically wound the president of the United States."
His action occurs as the dvd “Uncovered…” was being released (and pushed by moveon.org) It lays out the cooking / selective use of intelligence. A full report from the Guardian (Andrew Gumbel):
An unprecedented array of US intelligence professionals, diplomats and former Pentagon officials have gone on record to lambast the Bush administration for its distortion of the case for war against Iraq. In their view, the very foundations of intelligence-gathering have been damaged in ways that could take years, even decades, to repair.
A new documentary film beginning to circulate in the United States features one powerful condemnation after another, from the sort of people who usually stay discreetly in the shadows - a former director of the CIA, two former assistant secretaries of defence, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and even the man who served as President Bush's Secretary of the Army until just a few months ago
Between them, the two dozen interviewees reveal how the pre-war intelligence record on Iraq showed virtually the opposite of the picture the administration painted to Congress.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=461953
Our Friends, the Saudis and the Pakistanis
Everyone is learning the lessons- that the Administration will not stand by its “friends” and that it will respect those with nuclear capability. So the Pakistanis, veterans of deals with the North Koreans, are now dealing with Saudi Arabia. From the Asia Times (Stephen Blank):
…apparently defying those international concerns, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are now reported to have arranged a deal by which Pakistan will provide Saudi Arabia with nuclear technology in return for cheap oil. The US-based Defense and Foreign Affairs Daily even goes so far as to say that Pakistan will station nuclear weapons on Saudi territory. These weapons will be fitted to a new generation of Chinese-supplied long-range missiles with a reach of 4,000 to 5,000 kilometers.
There are numerous motives for this deal, as reported by different sources. In the Saudi case there is evidently growing disengagement with Washington due to the "war on terrorism" and the war on Iraq. These events have created an atmosphere where Saudi elites evidently feel less inclined to rely on American protection in the face of regional threats, specifically the likelihood of an Iranian nuclear weapon. They also see no pressure from Washington being directed against Israel's nuclear arsenal, even though there is no sign or even consideration of an attack on Saudi Arabia. They also clearly resent the evidence of a Saudi connection to al-Qaeda and accusations against them of less than wholehearted cooperation with Washington and other Western capitals in efforts to break up al-Qaeda and its source of financing=
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EK07Ak01.html
Medicare: The Assault
The House Republicans and the White House are working together to cap funding for Medicare. They seek to legislate automatic cutbacks in the program if the costs grow faster than “expected.” This would thwart Democratic vows to expand any prescription benefit that might pass, as such expansion then would force higher beneficiary premiums, lessened benefits or higher payroll taxes.
Today’s NY Times (Robert Pear) focuses on the Republicans refusing to vote for a Medicare drug bill unless it encourages competition between Medicare and private plans, while the Democrats refusing to vote for such competition, fearing that it would “undermine traditional Medicare and could raise costs for people who remain in that program.”
Paul Krugman promises to write on Medicare soon; perhaps that will further rev up media interest and fervor from the Democratic candidates.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/10/politics/10MEDI.html
-R
