Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Crossfire’s Bob Novak said on Monday that Fahrenheit 9/11 shows Michael Moore to be ‘anti-American’. This from the “journalist” who revealed the name of a CIA operative, caused untold damage, and showed zero remorse.
Irony? Chutzpa? Your call.
Supreme Court: Rule of Law Prevails, or habeas corpus IS important
Basics: The courts do so have jurisdiction over Guantanamo. Congress gave considerable power re warring on and apprehending persons associated with the 9/11/01 attacks, enough to hold people as enemy combatants. But, such detentions are challengeable in court, though by what standard of evidence is not clear.
Highlight: from Scalia- really! "The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive…The writ of habeas corpus was preserved in the Constitution—the only common-law writ to be explicitly mentioned." "[i]t follows from what I have said that Hamdi is entitled a habeas decree requiring his release unless (1) criminal proceedings are promptly brought, or (2) Congress has suspended the writ of habeas corpus." And, “ "If civil rights are to be curtailed during wartime, it must be done openly and democratically, as the Constitution requires, rather than by silent erosion through an opinion of this Court."
Right and Left- interchangeable
Nick Kristof of the NY Times seeks to underscore his “moderate” label by equating the Right’s accusation that Clinton murdered Vince Foster and others with Michael Moore’s “attack” on Bush. Today’s article:
In the 1990's, nothing made conservatives look more petty and simple-minded than their demonization of Bill and Hillary Clinton, who were even accused of spending their spare time killing Vince Foster and others. Mr. Clinton, in other words, left the right wing addled. Now Mr. Bush is doing the same to the left. For example, Mr. Moore hints that the real reason Mr. Bush invaded Afghanistan was to give his cronies a chance to profit by building an oil pipeline there.
"I'm just raising what I think is a legitimate question," Mr. Moore told me, a touch defensively, adding, "I'm just posing a question."
Right. And right-wing nuts were "just posing a question" about whether Mr. Clinton was a serial killer. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/opinion/30KRIS.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Jim McDermott, (D-WA): The Big Lie The Washington Rep. on the "Floor":
Mr. Speaker, this administration is out of control. They have made obeying the law a thing of the past.
They have implemented "the big lie" theory of communications. This theory takes propaganda to a whole new level.
Under the big lie, you fabricate a story and call it the truth. You disseminate the story as widely as possible. You wrap the propaganda in the mantle of national symbols, and you prey upon the fears and emotions of your citizens. You repeat the propaganda every day in every way. You say it over and over and over again, knowing if you say it long enough people will believe it.
Anyone who dares to question the propaganda becomes the enemy. Any evidence to the contrary is hidden, called tainted or dismissed as the work of your enemies.
This is a portrait of America today painted by this administration. In the face of overwhelming evidence presented by members of its own party, the administration keeps reporting the same old false story. They say anything, and they have.
War Secretary Don Rumsfeld first told the American people, we do not have to abide by the Geneva Conventions. Then after Abu Ghraib he said, America supports the Geneva Conventions.
Now the truth emerges. Rumsfeld personally ordered an Iraqi suspect held in solitary confinement at a secret location for 7 months. The inmate was hidden from the International Red Cross and any other human rights organization. Rumsfeld made someone disappear. Rumsfeld personally committed a violation of the Geneva Conventions that is so egregious, it could qualify as a war crime. http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/sp040618a.shtml
Energy Security: It’s not only about us
Short-term thinking focuses on gas prices being at their lowest in 2 months. Thinking more broadly, Paul Roberts, foremost authority, addresses our future.
Asia's undeclared oil war is but the latest reminder that in a global economy dependent largely on a single fuel -- oil -- "energy security" means far more than hardening refineries and pipelines against terrorist attack. At its most basic level, energy security is the ability to keep the global machine humming -- that is, to produce enough fuels and electricity at affordable prices that every nation can keep its economy running, its people fed and its borders defended. A failure of energy security means that the momentum of industrialization and modernity grinds to a halt. And by that measure, we are failing.
In the United States and Europe, new demand for electricity is outpacing the new supply of power and natural gas and raising the specter of more rolling blackouts. In the "emerging" economies, such as Brazil, India and especially China, energy demand is rising so fast it may double by 2020. And this only hints at the energy crisis facing the developing world, where nearly 2 billion people -- a third of the world's population -- have almost no access to electricity or liquid fuels and are thus condemned to a medieval existence that breeds despair, resentment and, ultimately, conflict…
This escalation (rivalry for remaining oil) will not only drive up the risk of conflict but will make it harder for governments to focus on long-term energy challenges, such as avoiding climate change, developing alternative fuels and alleviating Third World energy poverty -- challenges that are themselves critical to long-term energy security but which, ironically, will be seen as distracting from the current campaign to keep the oil flowing.
This, ultimately, is the real energy-security dilemma. The more obvious it becomes that an oil-dominated energy economy is inherently insecure, the harder it becomes to move on to something beyond oil. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10714-2004Jun27.html
Pharmaceuticals:
Robert Pear’s NY Times addresses overcharging:
Federal investigators said Tuesday that drug companies had repeatedly overcharged public hospitals and clinics for low-income patients, making them pay more than the maximum prices allowed by federal law.
Such taxpayer-supported hospitals, community health centers and clinics for people with AIDS are supposed to have access to the government's best prices for outpatient drugs. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/politics/30drug.html
Marcia Angell’s essay addresses “the truth about drug companies.”
Over the past two decades the pharmaceutical industry has moved very far from its original high purpose of discovering and producing useful new drugs. Now primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit, this industry uses its wealth and power to co-opt every institution that might stand in its way, including the US Congress, the FDA, academic medical centers, and the medical profession itself. (Most of its marketing efforts are focused on influencing doctors, since they must write the prescriptions.) http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17244
What’s Happening, Iraq:
The New U.S. Embassy: with somewhere between 1,700 – 3,000 on the staff.
Yes, limited sovereignty!
And, Bremer left a calling card. Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Walter Pincus from the Post:
U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer has issued a raft of edicts revising Iraq's legal code and has appointed at least two dozen Iraqis to government jobs with multi-year terms in an attempt to promote his concepts of governance long after the planned handover of political authority on Wednesday.
Some of the orders signed by Bremer, which will remain in effect unless overturned by Iraq's interim government, restrict the power of the interim government and impose U.S.-crafted rules for the country's democratic transition. Among the most controversial orders is the enactment of an elections law that gives a seven-member commission the power to disqualify political parties and any of the candidates they support.
The effect of other regulations could last much longer. Bremer has ordered that the national security adviser and the national intelligence chief chosen by the interim prime minister he selected, Ayad Allawi, be given five-year terms, imposing Allawi's choices on the elected government that is to take over next year.
Bremer also has appointed Iraqis handpicked by his aides to influential positions in the interim government. He has installed inspectors-general for five-year terms in every ministry. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8665-2004Jun26?language=printer
Another from Bremer: Immunity Provision Extended for U.S. Firms With Reconstruction Contracts Ellen McCarthy for the Post.
U.S. contractors working in Iraq will be exempted from the legal processes of the country's new interim government when they are performing official duties and most reconstruction contracts will continue uninterrupted, U.S. officials said yesterday.
Under an order signed Sunday by L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq, the contractors' immunity provision covers "official acts that they perform in contracts in support of the Iraq reconstruction effort," said Scott Castle, general counsel for the occupation authority. In matters unrelated to their contract work, they will be subject to Iraqi rules. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13297-2004Jun28?language=printer
Fisk on the Handover: The Independent’s outspoken correspondent:
So in the end, America's enemies set the date. The handover of "full sovereignty" was secretly brought forward so that the ex-CIA intelligence officer who is now "Prime Minister" of Iraq could avoid another bloody offensive by America's enemies. What is supposed to be the most important date in Iraq's modern history was changed - like a birthday party - because it might rain on Wednesday.
Pitiful is the word that comes to mind. Here we were, handing "full sovereignty" to the people of Iraq - "full", of course, providing we forget the 160,000 foreign soldiers whom the Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, has apparently asked to stay in Iraq, "full" providing we forget the 3,000 US diplomats in Baghdad who will constitute the largest US embassy in the world - without even telling the Iraqi people that we had changed the date. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp
The Lesson of the Invasion/Occupation: Robin Wright comments that the Bush doctrine has taken a hit.
The occupation of Iraq has increasingly undermined, and in some cases discredited, the core tenets of President Bush's foreign policy, according to a wide range of Republican and Democratic analysts and U.S. officials.
When the war began 15 months ago, the president's Iraq policy rested on four broad principles: The United States should act preemptively to prevent strikes on U.S. targets. Washington should be willing to act unilaterally, alone or with a select coalition, when the United Nations or allies balk. Iraq was the next cornerstone in the global war on terrorism. And Baghdad's transformation into a new democracy would spark regionwide change.
But these central planks of Bush doctrine have been tainted by spiraling violence, limited reconstruction, failure to find weapons of mass destruction or prove Iraq's ties to al Qaeda, and mounting Arab disillusionment with U.S. leadership.
"Of the four principles, three have failed, and the fourth -- democracy promotion -- is hanging by a sliver," said Geoffrey Kemp, a National Security Council staff member in the Reagan administration and now director of regional strategic programs at the Nixon Center. http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=97af648ae15e69415870ccff1b1b1ea3&lat=1088440258&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW5RH05A3FC53BEBA439543FE422900
The New Number One: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
The new key to terrorism, or at least the “insurgency” in Iraq, according to the Administration, is to kill al-Zarqawi. Osama, we hardly knew ye…
Dominating one wall of the huge room, faced by ranks of soldiers with telephones and monitors, is a screen showing a large map of a substantial chunk of Iraq, direct feeds from predator pilotless surveillance drones, live TV pictures and three slogans: "What has happened? What is happening? What is to be done?"
The screen covers a portion of Iraq populated by nearly four million people. One man is at the top of the "What is to be done?" list.
Fadel al-Khalailah, better known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is Washington's public enemy number one, almost supplanting Osama bin Laden as the main focus of the global counter-terrorist hunt. The US believes that the 38-year-old Jordanian is the mastermind behind much of the recent violence in Iraq. Kill or capture him, the logic goes, and the insurgency falls apart. The reward for his capture is now US$10 million.
Unlike many senior militants, al-Zarqawi is from a poor background. Of Bedouin stock, he once ran a video shop and his family still live in a rundown house not far from Amman, the Jordanian capital. In the late 1980s, he joined the thousands of young Arabs helping the Afghans to fight the Soviet forces, then returned home determined to continue the battle "against unbelief" there. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/06/28/2003176868/print
Troop Shortage: Ongoing problem; the latest “solution”
The U.S. Army is planning an involuntary mobilization of thousands of reserve troops to maintain adequate force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense officials said on Monday. The move -- involving the seldom-tapped Individual Ready Reserve -- represents the latest evidence of the strain being placed on the U.S. military, particularly the Army, by operations in those two countries. http://news.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=5536118
The latest to establish distance from Bush: Jesse Helms
"I would not have voted for [President Bush's] tax cut, based on what I know. . . . There is no doubt that the people at the top who need a tax break the least will get the most benefit. . . . Too often presidents do things that don't end up helping the people they should be helping, and their staffs won't tell them their actions stink on ice."
-- Former senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), in a recent interview with Business North Carolina magazine. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13191-2004Jun28.html
Poll: CBS: 42% approval for Bush, yet Kerry disliked more than liked, and more trust Bush in a crisis than Kerry. Still Even.
But, it’s only the end of June… http://www.iht.com/articles/527088.html
French President Chirac is lecturing President Bush (CNN):
French President Jacques Chirac has taken U.S. President George W. Bush to task over his call for Turkey's admission to the European Union.
”"If President Bush really said that in the way that I read, then not only did he go too far, but he went into territory that isn't his," Chirac said of a remark Bush made over the weekend.
"It is is not his purpose and his goal to give any advice to the EU, and in this area it was a bit as if I were to tell Americans how they should handle their relationship with Mexico."
TV Week magazine: PBS is experiencing its worst crisis in history.
“Faced with a major drop in corporate, private and government funding, lower ratings and an ongoing revolt over excessive programming costs by dozens of its 349 member stations, the Public Broadcasting System is in one of the worst crises of its history.
Confession: Michael Ignatieff:
Someone like me who supported the war on human rights grounds has nowhere to hide: we didn't suppose the administration was particularly nice, but we did assume it would be competent. There isn't much excuse for its incompetence, but equally, there isn't much excuse for our naivete either. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/27/magazine/27WWLN.html
-R
Irony? Chutzpa? Your call.
Supreme Court: Rule of Law Prevails, or habeas corpus IS important
Basics: The courts do so have jurisdiction over Guantanamo. Congress gave considerable power re warring on and apprehending persons associated with the 9/11/01 attacks, enough to hold people as enemy combatants. But, such detentions are challengeable in court, though by what standard of evidence is not clear.
Highlight: from Scalia- really! "The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive…The writ of habeas corpus was preserved in the Constitution—the only common-law writ to be explicitly mentioned." "[i]t follows from what I have said that Hamdi is entitled a habeas decree requiring his release unless (1) criminal proceedings are promptly brought, or (2) Congress has suspended the writ of habeas corpus." And, “ "If civil rights are to be curtailed during wartime, it must be done openly and democratically, as the Constitution requires, rather than by silent erosion through an opinion of this Court."
Right and Left- interchangeable
Nick Kristof of the NY Times seeks to underscore his “moderate” label by equating the Right’s accusation that Clinton murdered Vince Foster and others with Michael Moore’s “attack” on Bush. Today’s article:
In the 1990's, nothing made conservatives look more petty and simple-minded than their demonization of Bill and Hillary Clinton, who were even accused of spending their spare time killing Vince Foster and others. Mr. Clinton, in other words, left the right wing addled. Now Mr. Bush is doing the same to the left. For example, Mr. Moore hints that the real reason Mr. Bush invaded Afghanistan was to give his cronies a chance to profit by building an oil pipeline there.
"I'm just raising what I think is a legitimate question," Mr. Moore told me, a touch defensively, adding, "I'm just posing a question."
Right. And right-wing nuts were "just posing a question" about whether Mr. Clinton was a serial killer. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/opinion/30KRIS.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Jim McDermott, (D-WA): The Big Lie The Washington Rep. on the "Floor":
Mr. Speaker, this administration is out of control. They have made obeying the law a thing of the past.
They have implemented "the big lie" theory of communications. This theory takes propaganda to a whole new level.
Under the big lie, you fabricate a story and call it the truth. You disseminate the story as widely as possible. You wrap the propaganda in the mantle of national symbols, and you prey upon the fears and emotions of your citizens. You repeat the propaganda every day in every way. You say it over and over and over again, knowing if you say it long enough people will believe it.
Anyone who dares to question the propaganda becomes the enemy. Any evidence to the contrary is hidden, called tainted or dismissed as the work of your enemies.
This is a portrait of America today painted by this administration. In the face of overwhelming evidence presented by members of its own party, the administration keeps reporting the same old false story. They say anything, and they have.
War Secretary Don Rumsfeld first told the American people, we do not have to abide by the Geneva Conventions. Then after Abu Ghraib he said, America supports the Geneva Conventions.
Now the truth emerges. Rumsfeld personally ordered an Iraqi suspect held in solitary confinement at a secret location for 7 months. The inmate was hidden from the International Red Cross and any other human rights organization. Rumsfeld made someone disappear. Rumsfeld personally committed a violation of the Geneva Conventions that is so egregious, it could qualify as a war crime. http://www.house.gov/mcdermott/sp040618a.shtml
Energy Security: It’s not only about us
Short-term thinking focuses on gas prices being at their lowest in 2 months. Thinking more broadly, Paul Roberts, foremost authority, addresses our future.
Asia's undeclared oil war is but the latest reminder that in a global economy dependent largely on a single fuel -- oil -- "energy security" means far more than hardening refineries and pipelines against terrorist attack. At its most basic level, energy security is the ability to keep the global machine humming -- that is, to produce enough fuels and electricity at affordable prices that every nation can keep its economy running, its people fed and its borders defended. A failure of energy security means that the momentum of industrialization and modernity grinds to a halt. And by that measure, we are failing.
In the United States and Europe, new demand for electricity is outpacing the new supply of power and natural gas and raising the specter of more rolling blackouts. In the "emerging" economies, such as Brazil, India and especially China, energy demand is rising so fast it may double by 2020. And this only hints at the energy crisis facing the developing world, where nearly 2 billion people -- a third of the world's population -- have almost no access to electricity or liquid fuels and are thus condemned to a medieval existence that breeds despair, resentment and, ultimately, conflict…
This escalation (rivalry for remaining oil) will not only drive up the risk of conflict but will make it harder for governments to focus on long-term energy challenges, such as avoiding climate change, developing alternative fuels and alleviating Third World energy poverty -- challenges that are themselves critical to long-term energy security but which, ironically, will be seen as distracting from the current campaign to keep the oil flowing.
This, ultimately, is the real energy-security dilemma. The more obvious it becomes that an oil-dominated energy economy is inherently insecure, the harder it becomes to move on to something beyond oil. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10714-2004Jun27.html
Pharmaceuticals:
Robert Pear’s NY Times addresses overcharging:
Federal investigators said Tuesday that drug companies had repeatedly overcharged public hospitals and clinics for low-income patients, making them pay more than the maximum prices allowed by federal law.
Such taxpayer-supported hospitals, community health centers and clinics for people with AIDS are supposed to have access to the government's best prices for outpatient drugs. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/30/politics/30drug.html
Marcia Angell’s essay addresses “the truth about drug companies.”
Over the past two decades the pharmaceutical industry has moved very far from its original high purpose of discovering and producing useful new drugs. Now primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit, this industry uses its wealth and power to co-opt every institution that might stand in its way, including the US Congress, the FDA, academic medical centers, and the medical profession itself. (Most of its marketing efforts are focused on influencing doctors, since they must write the prescriptions.) http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17244
What’s Happening, Iraq:
The New U.S. Embassy: with somewhere between 1,700 – 3,000 on the staff.
Yes, limited sovereignty!
And, Bremer left a calling card. Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Walter Pincus from the Post:
U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer has issued a raft of edicts revising Iraq's legal code and has appointed at least two dozen Iraqis to government jobs with multi-year terms in an attempt to promote his concepts of governance long after the planned handover of political authority on Wednesday.
Some of the orders signed by Bremer, which will remain in effect unless overturned by Iraq's interim government, restrict the power of the interim government and impose U.S.-crafted rules for the country's democratic transition. Among the most controversial orders is the enactment of an elections law that gives a seven-member commission the power to disqualify political parties and any of the candidates they support.
The effect of other regulations could last much longer. Bremer has ordered that the national security adviser and the national intelligence chief chosen by the interim prime minister he selected, Ayad Allawi, be given five-year terms, imposing Allawi's choices on the elected government that is to take over next year.
Bremer also has appointed Iraqis handpicked by his aides to influential positions in the interim government. He has installed inspectors-general for five-year terms in every ministry. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8665-2004Jun26?language=printer
Another from Bremer: Immunity Provision Extended for U.S. Firms With Reconstruction Contracts Ellen McCarthy for the Post.
U.S. contractors working in Iraq will be exempted from the legal processes of the country's new interim government when they are performing official duties and most reconstruction contracts will continue uninterrupted, U.S. officials said yesterday.
Under an order signed Sunday by L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civilian administrator of Iraq, the contractors' immunity provision covers "official acts that they perform in contracts in support of the Iraq reconstruction effort," said Scott Castle, general counsel for the occupation authority. In matters unrelated to their contract work, they will be subject to Iraqi rules. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13297-2004Jun28?language=printer
Fisk on the Handover: The Independent’s outspoken correspondent:
So in the end, America's enemies set the date. The handover of "full sovereignty" was secretly brought forward so that the ex-CIA intelligence officer who is now "Prime Minister" of Iraq could avoid another bloody offensive by America's enemies. What is supposed to be the most important date in Iraq's modern history was changed - like a birthday party - because it might rain on Wednesday.
Pitiful is the word that comes to mind. Here we were, handing "full sovereignty" to the people of Iraq - "full", of course, providing we forget the 160,000 foreign soldiers whom the Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, has apparently asked to stay in Iraq, "full" providing we forget the 3,000 US diplomats in Baghdad who will constitute the largest US embassy in the world - without even telling the Iraqi people that we had changed the date. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp
The Lesson of the Invasion/Occupation: Robin Wright comments that the Bush doctrine has taken a hit.
The occupation of Iraq has increasingly undermined, and in some cases discredited, the core tenets of President Bush's foreign policy, according to a wide range of Republican and Democratic analysts and U.S. officials.
When the war began 15 months ago, the president's Iraq policy rested on four broad principles: The United States should act preemptively to prevent strikes on U.S. targets. Washington should be willing to act unilaterally, alone or with a select coalition, when the United Nations or allies balk. Iraq was the next cornerstone in the global war on terrorism. And Baghdad's transformation into a new democracy would spark regionwide change.
But these central planks of Bush doctrine have been tainted by spiraling violence, limited reconstruction, failure to find weapons of mass destruction or prove Iraq's ties to al Qaeda, and mounting Arab disillusionment with U.S. leadership.
"Of the four principles, three have failed, and the fourth -- democracy promotion -- is hanging by a sliver," said Geoffrey Kemp, a National Security Council staff member in the Reagan administration and now director of regional strategic programs at the Nixon Center. http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=97af648ae15e69415870ccff1b1b1ea3&lat=1088440258&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW5RH05A3FC53BEBA439543FE422900
The New Number One: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
The new key to terrorism, or at least the “insurgency” in Iraq, according to the Administration, is to kill al-Zarqawi. Osama, we hardly knew ye…
Dominating one wall of the huge room, faced by ranks of soldiers with telephones and monitors, is a screen showing a large map of a substantial chunk of Iraq, direct feeds from predator pilotless surveillance drones, live TV pictures and three slogans: "What has happened? What is happening? What is to be done?"
The screen covers a portion of Iraq populated by nearly four million people. One man is at the top of the "What is to be done?" list.
Fadel al-Khalailah, better known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is Washington's public enemy number one, almost supplanting Osama bin Laden as the main focus of the global counter-terrorist hunt. The US believes that the 38-year-old Jordanian is the mastermind behind much of the recent violence in Iraq. Kill or capture him, the logic goes, and the insurgency falls apart. The reward for his capture is now US$10 million.
Unlike many senior militants, al-Zarqawi is from a poor background. Of Bedouin stock, he once ran a video shop and his family still live in a rundown house not far from Amman, the Jordanian capital. In the late 1980s, he joined the thousands of young Arabs helping the Afghans to fight the Soviet forces, then returned home determined to continue the battle "against unbelief" there. http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/06/28/2003176868/print
Troop Shortage: Ongoing problem; the latest “solution”
The U.S. Army is planning an involuntary mobilization of thousands of reserve troops to maintain adequate force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense officials said on Monday. The move -- involving the seldom-tapped Individual Ready Reserve -- represents the latest evidence of the strain being placed on the U.S. military, particularly the Army, by operations in those two countries. http://news.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=5536118
The latest to establish distance from Bush: Jesse Helms
"I would not have voted for [President Bush's] tax cut, based on what I know. . . . There is no doubt that the people at the top who need a tax break the least will get the most benefit. . . . Too often presidents do things that don't end up helping the people they should be helping, and their staffs won't tell them their actions stink on ice."
-- Former senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), in a recent interview with Business North Carolina magazine. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13191-2004Jun28.html
Poll: CBS: 42% approval for Bush, yet Kerry disliked more than liked, and more trust Bush in a crisis than Kerry. Still Even.
But, it’s only the end of June… http://www.iht.com/articles/527088.html
French President Chirac is lecturing President Bush (CNN):
French President Jacques Chirac has taken U.S. President George W. Bush to task over his call for Turkey's admission to the European Union.
”"If President Bush really said that in the way that I read, then not only did he go too far, but he went into territory that isn't his," Chirac said of a remark Bush made over the weekend.
"It is is not his purpose and his goal to give any advice to the EU, and in this area it was a bit as if I were to tell Americans how they should handle their relationship with Mexico."
TV Week magazine: PBS is experiencing its worst crisis in history.
“Faced with a major drop in corporate, private and government funding, lower ratings and an ongoing revolt over excessive programming costs by dozens of its 349 member stations, the Public Broadcasting System is in one of the worst crises of its history.
Confession: Michael Ignatieff:
Someone like me who supported the war on human rights grounds has nowhere to hide: we didn't suppose the administration was particularly nice, but we did assume it would be competent. There isn't much excuse for its incompetence, but equally, there isn't much excuse for our naivete either. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/27/magazine/27WWLN.html
-R
