Thursday, July 15, 2004
"Bin Laden would have been caught long ago. Tell me, how is it possible that we can't find a guy who's six-foot-six and supposedly needs a dialysis machine? Can you explain that one to me? We have all our energies focused on one place, where they shouldn't be focused.” - Donald Trump http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=857&u=/nm/20040714/od_uk_nm/oukoe_media_trump_2&printer=1
Most Interesting Job in America:
George Bush's lawyer in the Plame investigation, James E. Sharp, just happens to be representing Ken Lay in the Enron case.
J.K. Galbraith on Corporate Power: He writes that corporate power is what drives U.S. foreign policy, that it’s a “cloud over civilization”, that it’s “widely accepted in Washington today that there is nothing wrong with a democracy dominated by the people with money. But of course there is. Money has democracy in a stranglehold and is suffocating it."
The corporate appropriation of public initiative and authority is unpleasantly visible in its effect on the environment, and dangerous as regards military and foreign policy. Wars are a major threat to civilised existence, and a corporate commitment to weapons procurement and use nurtures this threat. It accords legitimacy, and even heroic virtue, to devastation and death.
Power in the modern great corporation belongs to the management. The board of directors is an amiable entity, meeting with self-approval but fully subordinate to the real power of the managers. The relationship resembles that of an honorary degree recipient to a member of a university faculty.
The myths of investor authority, the ritual meetings of directors and the annual stockholder meeting persist, but no mentally viable observer of the modern corporation can escape the reality. Corporate power lies with management - a bureaucracy in control of its task and its compensation. Rewards can verge on larceny. On frequent recent occasions, it has been referred to as the corporate scandal.
As the corporate interest moves to power in what was the public sector, it serves the corporate interest. It is most clearly evident in the largest such movement, that of nominally private firms into the defence establishment. From this comes a primary influence on the military budget, on foreign policy, military commitment and, ultimately, military action. War. Although this is a normal and expected use of money and its power, the full effect is disguised by almost all conventional expression. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1261747,00.html
Our “Disappeareds” The Washington Post with an admirable editorial:
The CIA is still playing games with the Red Cross- hiding "high value" prisoners somewhere in the elaborate gulag the Bush administration has built around the world.
The Washington Post ‘steps up.’
For decades, the United States led the denunciation of despots whose enemies "disappear" -- vanish into official custody, with no accounting for their whereabouts or treatment, no notification of their families and sometimes, no acknowledgement that they are being held. Now that same term is being applied to prisoners held by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism. According to the International Red Cross, a number of people apparently in U.S. custody are unaccounted for. Most are believed to be held by the CIA in secret facilities outside the United States. Contrary to the Geneva Conventions, the detainees have never been visited by the Red Cross; contrary to U.S. and international law, some reportedly have been subjected to interrogation techniques that most legal authorities regard as torture. According to the independent group Human Rights Watch, this exceptional practice is "perhaps unprecedented in U.S. history." Like the Pentagon's mishandling of Iraqi detainees, it cries out for congressional review and reform. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50490-2004Jul14.html
That [terribly] flawed UN Speech by Colin
Days before Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was to present the case for war with Iraq to the United Nations, State Department analysts found dozens of factual problems in drafts of his speech, according to new documents contained in the Senate report on intelligence failures released last week.Two memos included with the Senate report listed objections that State Department experts lodged as they reviewed successive drafts of the Powell speech. Although many of the claims considered inflated or unsupported were removed through painstaking debate by Powell and intelligence officials, the speech he ultimately presented contained material that was in dispute among State Department experts…
The analysts, describing many of the claims as "weak" and assigning grades to arguments on a 5-star scale, warned Powell against making an array of allegations they deemed implausible. They also warned against including Iraqi communications intercepts they deemed ambiguous and against speculating that terrorists might "come through Baghdad and pick-up biological weapons" as if they were stocked on store shelves. The documents underscore the extent to which administration and intelligence officials were culling a vast collection of thinly sourced claims as they sought to assemble the case for war. But the origin and full scope of some errors remain unclear because Senate investigators were denied access to a number of relevant documents, according to aides involved in the probe. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-powell15jul15,1,2621877,print.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
Medicare Law Is Seen Leading to Cuts in Drug Benefits for Retirees
Are we surprised?
New government estimates suggest that employers will reduce or eliminate prescription drug benefits for 3.8 million retirees when Medicare offers such coverage in 2006.
That represents one-third of all the retirees with employer-sponsored drug coverage, according to documents from the Department of Health and Human Services.
No aspect of the new Medicare law causes more concern among retirees than the possibility that they might lose benefits they already have.
Democrats are likely to cite the new estimates as evidence to support their contention that the new law will prompt some employers to curtail drug coverage for retirees, forcing them, in some cases, to rely on Medicare's leaner benefits. Republicans do not want to see the government supplant employers in providing drug benefits to retirees.
Senior officials at the department have been saying for weeks that they believe federal subsidies will induce more employers to continue providing drug benefits to retirees. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/14/politics/14medicare.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
Outfoxed: One can find places to view here: http://action.moveon.org/outfoxed/
U.S. Economy: Industrial Production:
Output at U.S. factories, mines and utilities fell unexpectedly in June, recording its largest drop in more than a year, the Federal Reserve reported on Thursday.
The Fed said industrial production fell 0.3 percent in June after a downwardly revised 0.9 percent May increase. Wall Street had expected the June reading to be flat. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=5680520
U.S. Economy: Retail Sales Fall Most Since Feb. 2003
U.S. retail sales fell in June by the most since February 2003, underscoring forecasts that consumer spending slowed in the second quarter from the previous three months.
The 1.1 percent decline reflected a drop in spending at automobile dealerships and department stores and followed a revised 1.4 percent increase in May, the Commerce Department said in Washington. Economists had forecast a 0.8 percent decrease. http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=anSEMaeu0rjk&refer=news_index
Health Care I- David Broder:
That means dealing simultaneously with the problems of the uninsured, of cost controls, of uneven quality and of lagging technology. It will require government action, in cooperation with business, the medical establishment and patients themselves. It will be expensive, but private economists and government budget experts testify that without these needed reforms, pension systems, corporate balance sheets and federal budgets all face near-certain disaster in coming decades.
Last month G. Richard Wagoner Jr., the chairman of General Motors, was quoted in the Detroit Free Press as telling a business conference that rising health care costs are crippling the competitiveness of U.S. business and should be the top issue for the winner of November's presidential election.
"It is well beyond time for all of us to put partisan politics behind us," Wagoner said, "and get together to address this health care crisis."
The message is coming through -- loud and clear. Whoever is president will find the issue waiting for him. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50500-2004Jul14.html
Health Care II: Constitutional Amendment [in Mass.]Advances
Comprehensive and affordable health care coverage would become a constitutionally-protected right for all Massachusetts citizens under an amendment overwhelming approved Wednesday by a joint session of the House and Senate.
If approved by lawmakers again during the 2005-2006 session, the question would go before voters in November 2006. If successful, the state would then develop a specific plan for providing and paying for health care.
Under a change approved Wednesday, which made the amendment more palatable to some lawmakers, the payment and coverage plan would go back to voters for further approval, in November 2008 at the earliest.
"We're trying to provide justice in health care so that every single citizen has a health care plan," said Sen. Steven Tolman, D-Boston. "It is the citizens of Massachusetts that we are all looking out for here."
The amendment, which would make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to constitutionally guarantee health coverage for its citizens, was initiated by a petition signed by more than 70,000 registered voters
"The Legislature responded to their hopes that we can find a solution to their to their number one worry, which is the affordability of health insurance," said campaign co-chairwoman Barbara Roop.
The campaign argues that providing universal coverage, through a variety of public and private means, could be paid through with $5.7 billion in unnecessary costs currently built into the state's health care system. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/07/14/legislature_approves_health_care_coverage_as_a_constitutional_right?mode=PF
Juan Cole Answers Bush Refrain
Bush:
' The world is changing for the better because of American leadership. America is safer today because we are leading the world. Afghanistan was once the home of al-Qaeda. Now terror camps are closed, democracy is rising, and the American people are safer," he said. '
Cole:
The Afghanistan war was the right war at the right time, and it did break up the network of al-Qaeda training camps from which terrorists would have gone on hitting the United States. But the fact is that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld did not want to fight that war after September 11. Rumsfeld sniffed that "there were no good targets" in Afghanistan. Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney all wanted to leave al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and attack Iraq first. At first Wolfowitz was leaked as the proponent of this crazy idea, and although he did back it, it is now clear from insider accounts like that of Richard Clark that the three top leaders just mentioned wanted Iraq first. The UK ambassador to the US maintains that it was Tony Blair who talked Bush into going after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan first, with a promise that he would later support an Iraq war. MI6 would have been briefing Tony about the dire threat coming from Afghanistan, and he, unlike the Bush team, could see the dangers of getting bogged down in an Iraq quagmire while al-Qaeda and the Taliban were still in control of Afghanistan. (Can you imagine the full scope of that disaster that Bush had planned for us?)Even after Bush was dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing by Blair, he did it half-heartedly. He let Bin Laden and al-Zawahir escape. (I'll repeat that. He let Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri escape). Instead of rebuilding and stabilizing Afghanistan, as he promised, he put almost nothing into reconstruction for that country.Then he let the poppy growing industry come back with a vengeance. Afghanistan's GNP is $5 billion a year. At least $2 billion of that is poppies, and Afghanistan has become the top source for heroin in Europe. With al-Qaeda and the Taliban still powerful in the country or its borderlands, Afghanistan is on the way to becoming a terrorist's dream-- a place worse than Colombia from which narco-terrorism can be funded and launched. This looming disaster will certainly blow back on the American homeland. Yet Bush is doing nothing to avert it.
As for democracy and liberating 50 million people, neither the people of Afghanistan nor that of Iraq have elected national governments by popular sovereignty. It is not entirely clear when they will be able to do so. For the moment, there hasn't been any introduction of anything like democracy. The US invaded each and installed a government of its choosing. That isn't democracy. In Iraq, Paul Bremer repeatedly blocked democratic municipal elections. That was a great lesson for the people in democracy, all right. http://www.juancole.com/2004_07_01_juancole_archive.html#108969358993662374
Obama: Man to Watch
Much buzz about the candidate for Senator from Illinois.
The man who could become the third black senator since Reconstruction - Illinois Senate candidate Barack Obama - will deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.
Obama, a law professor and state senator, will speak on July 27, the second night of the convention, with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. Obama will talk about the future of America that a Democratic administration would provide, along with the need to make jobs, families and communities top priorities in the lives of Americans.
"Barack is an optimistic voice for America and a leader who knows that together we can build an America that is stronger at home and respected in the world," Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry [related, bio] said in a statement.
Obama graduated from Columbia University in New York, and received his law degree from Harvard Law School. He became the first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.
He worked as a community organizer in New York and Chicago on job-training programs and other projects, and as a civil rights lawyer. He is now a senior instructor in constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=35628
ELECTION:
Polls:
South Carolina: [DeMint]:
Bush 51Kerry 44
North Carolina: [Mason-Dixon]
Bush/Cheney 48 Kerry/Edwards 45
And, Florida firefighters have endorsed Kerry. They had endorsed Junior in 2000, and brother Jeb in 1998 and 2002.
Scientists Organize: [Wall Street Journal, Antonio Regalado]
Scientists Take To the Streets Against Bush
Groups Accuse Administration of TwistingFacts on Warming and Stem-Cell Research
In a big shift for the normally docile scientific community, some leading researchers are mounting a political campaign to unseat President Bush this fall, accusing the administration of twisting scientific facts to fit its policies on issues such as global warming, sex education and stem-cell research.
While science issues don't loom as large as jobs and national security, Democratic strategists argue the president's record on science and environmental matters may prove vulnerable, at least to voters who haven't made up their minds. http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB108984212977664018,00.html
-R
Most Interesting Job in America:
George Bush's lawyer in the Plame investigation, James E. Sharp, just happens to be representing Ken Lay in the Enron case.
J.K. Galbraith on Corporate Power: He writes that corporate power is what drives U.S. foreign policy, that it’s a “cloud over civilization”, that it’s “widely accepted in Washington today that there is nothing wrong with a democracy dominated by the people with money. But of course there is. Money has democracy in a stranglehold and is suffocating it."
The corporate appropriation of public initiative and authority is unpleasantly visible in its effect on the environment, and dangerous as regards military and foreign policy. Wars are a major threat to civilised existence, and a corporate commitment to weapons procurement and use nurtures this threat. It accords legitimacy, and even heroic virtue, to devastation and death.
Power in the modern great corporation belongs to the management. The board of directors is an amiable entity, meeting with self-approval but fully subordinate to the real power of the managers. The relationship resembles that of an honorary degree recipient to a member of a university faculty.
The myths of investor authority, the ritual meetings of directors and the annual stockholder meeting persist, but no mentally viable observer of the modern corporation can escape the reality. Corporate power lies with management - a bureaucracy in control of its task and its compensation. Rewards can verge on larceny. On frequent recent occasions, it has been referred to as the corporate scandal.
As the corporate interest moves to power in what was the public sector, it serves the corporate interest. It is most clearly evident in the largest such movement, that of nominally private firms into the defence establishment. From this comes a primary influence on the military budget, on foreign policy, military commitment and, ultimately, military action. War. Although this is a normal and expected use of money and its power, the full effect is disguised by almost all conventional expression. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1261747,00.html
Our “Disappeareds” The Washington Post with an admirable editorial:
The CIA is still playing games with the Red Cross- hiding "high value" prisoners somewhere in the elaborate gulag the Bush administration has built around the world.
The Washington Post ‘steps up.’
For decades, the United States led the denunciation of despots whose enemies "disappear" -- vanish into official custody, with no accounting for their whereabouts or treatment, no notification of their families and sometimes, no acknowledgement that they are being held. Now that same term is being applied to prisoners held by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism. According to the International Red Cross, a number of people apparently in U.S. custody are unaccounted for. Most are believed to be held by the CIA in secret facilities outside the United States. Contrary to the Geneva Conventions, the detainees have never been visited by the Red Cross; contrary to U.S. and international law, some reportedly have been subjected to interrogation techniques that most legal authorities regard as torture. According to the independent group Human Rights Watch, this exceptional practice is "perhaps unprecedented in U.S. history." Like the Pentagon's mishandling of Iraqi detainees, it cries out for congressional review and reform. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50490-2004Jul14.html
That [terribly] flawed UN Speech by Colin
Days before Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was to present the case for war with Iraq to the United Nations, State Department analysts found dozens of factual problems in drafts of his speech, according to new documents contained in the Senate report on intelligence failures released last week.Two memos included with the Senate report listed objections that State Department experts lodged as they reviewed successive drafts of the Powell speech. Although many of the claims considered inflated or unsupported were removed through painstaking debate by Powell and intelligence officials, the speech he ultimately presented contained material that was in dispute among State Department experts…
The analysts, describing many of the claims as "weak" and assigning grades to arguments on a 5-star scale, warned Powell against making an array of allegations they deemed implausible. They also warned against including Iraqi communications intercepts they deemed ambiguous and against speculating that terrorists might "come through Baghdad and pick-up biological weapons" as if they were stocked on store shelves. The documents underscore the extent to which administration and intelligence officials were culling a vast collection of thinly sourced claims as they sought to assemble the case for war. But the origin and full scope of some errors remain unclear because Senate investigators were denied access to a number of relevant documents, according to aides involved in the probe. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-powell15jul15,1,2621877,print.story?coll=la-headlines-nation
Medicare Law Is Seen Leading to Cuts in Drug Benefits for Retirees
Are we surprised?
New government estimates suggest that employers will reduce or eliminate prescription drug benefits for 3.8 million retirees when Medicare offers such coverage in 2006.
That represents one-third of all the retirees with employer-sponsored drug coverage, according to documents from the Department of Health and Human Services.
No aspect of the new Medicare law causes more concern among retirees than the possibility that they might lose benefits they already have.
Democrats are likely to cite the new estimates as evidence to support their contention that the new law will prompt some employers to curtail drug coverage for retirees, forcing them, in some cases, to rely on Medicare's leaner benefits. Republicans do not want to see the government supplant employers in providing drug benefits to retirees.
Senior officials at the department have been saying for weeks that they believe federal subsidies will induce more employers to continue providing drug benefits to retirees. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/14/politics/14medicare.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
Outfoxed: One can find places to view here: http://action.moveon.org/outfoxed/
U.S. Economy: Industrial Production:
Output at U.S. factories, mines and utilities fell unexpectedly in June, recording its largest drop in more than a year, the Federal Reserve reported on Thursday.
The Fed said industrial production fell 0.3 percent in June after a downwardly revised 0.9 percent May increase. Wall Street had expected the June reading to be flat. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=5680520
U.S. Economy: Retail Sales Fall Most Since Feb. 2003
U.S. retail sales fell in June by the most since February 2003, underscoring forecasts that consumer spending slowed in the second quarter from the previous three months.
The 1.1 percent decline reflected a drop in spending at automobile dealerships and department stores and followed a revised 1.4 percent increase in May, the Commerce Department said in Washington. Economists had forecast a 0.8 percent decrease. http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=anSEMaeu0rjk&refer=news_index
Health Care I- David Broder:
That means dealing simultaneously with the problems of the uninsured, of cost controls, of uneven quality and of lagging technology. It will require government action, in cooperation with business, the medical establishment and patients themselves. It will be expensive, but private economists and government budget experts testify that without these needed reforms, pension systems, corporate balance sheets and federal budgets all face near-certain disaster in coming decades.
Last month G. Richard Wagoner Jr., the chairman of General Motors, was quoted in the Detroit Free Press as telling a business conference that rising health care costs are crippling the competitiveness of U.S. business and should be the top issue for the winner of November's presidential election.
"It is well beyond time for all of us to put partisan politics behind us," Wagoner said, "and get together to address this health care crisis."
The message is coming through -- loud and clear. Whoever is president will find the issue waiting for him. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50500-2004Jul14.html
Health Care II: Constitutional Amendment [in Mass.]Advances
Comprehensive and affordable health care coverage would become a constitutionally-protected right for all Massachusetts citizens under an amendment overwhelming approved Wednesday by a joint session of the House and Senate.
If approved by lawmakers again during the 2005-2006 session, the question would go before voters in November 2006. If successful, the state would then develop a specific plan for providing and paying for health care.
Under a change approved Wednesday, which made the amendment more palatable to some lawmakers, the payment and coverage plan would go back to voters for further approval, in November 2008 at the earliest.
"We're trying to provide justice in health care so that every single citizen has a health care plan," said Sen. Steven Tolman, D-Boston. "It is the citizens of Massachusetts that we are all looking out for here."
The amendment, which would make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to constitutionally guarantee health coverage for its citizens, was initiated by a petition signed by more than 70,000 registered voters
"The Legislature responded to their hopes that we can find a solution to their to their number one worry, which is the affordability of health insurance," said campaign co-chairwoman Barbara Roop.
The campaign argues that providing universal coverage, through a variety of public and private means, could be paid through with $5.7 billion in unnecessary costs currently built into the state's health care system. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/07/14/legislature_approves_health_care_coverage_as_a_constitutional_right?mode=PF
Juan Cole Answers Bush Refrain
Bush:
' The world is changing for the better because of American leadership. America is safer today because we are leading the world. Afghanistan was once the home of al-Qaeda. Now terror camps are closed, democracy is rising, and the American people are safer," he said. '
Cole:
The Afghanistan war was the right war at the right time, and it did break up the network of al-Qaeda training camps from which terrorists would have gone on hitting the United States. But the fact is that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld did not want to fight that war after September 11. Rumsfeld sniffed that "there were no good targets" in Afghanistan. Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney all wanted to leave al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and attack Iraq first. At first Wolfowitz was leaked as the proponent of this crazy idea, and although he did back it, it is now clear from insider accounts like that of Richard Clark that the three top leaders just mentioned wanted Iraq first. The UK ambassador to the US maintains that it was Tony Blair who talked Bush into going after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan first, with a promise that he would later support an Iraq war. MI6 would have been briefing Tony about the dire threat coming from Afghanistan, and he, unlike the Bush team, could see the dangers of getting bogged down in an Iraq quagmire while al-Qaeda and the Taliban were still in control of Afghanistan. (Can you imagine the full scope of that disaster that Bush had planned for us?)Even after Bush was dragged kicking and screaming into doing the right thing by Blair, he did it half-heartedly. He let Bin Laden and al-Zawahir escape. (I'll repeat that. He let Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri escape). Instead of rebuilding and stabilizing Afghanistan, as he promised, he put almost nothing into reconstruction for that country.Then he let the poppy growing industry come back with a vengeance. Afghanistan's GNP is $5 billion a year. At least $2 billion of that is poppies, and Afghanistan has become the top source for heroin in Europe. With al-Qaeda and the Taliban still powerful in the country or its borderlands, Afghanistan is on the way to becoming a terrorist's dream-- a place worse than Colombia from which narco-terrorism can be funded and launched. This looming disaster will certainly blow back on the American homeland. Yet Bush is doing nothing to avert it.
As for democracy and liberating 50 million people, neither the people of Afghanistan nor that of Iraq have elected national governments by popular sovereignty. It is not entirely clear when they will be able to do so. For the moment, there hasn't been any introduction of anything like democracy. The US invaded each and installed a government of its choosing. That isn't democracy. In Iraq, Paul Bremer repeatedly blocked democratic municipal elections. That was a great lesson for the people in democracy, all right. http://www.juancole.com/2004_07_01_juancole_archive.html#108969358993662374
Obama: Man to Watch
Much buzz about the candidate for Senator from Illinois.
The man who could become the third black senator since Reconstruction - Illinois Senate candidate Barack Obama - will deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.
Obama, a law professor and state senator, will speak on July 27, the second night of the convention, with Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. Obama will talk about the future of America that a Democratic administration would provide, along with the need to make jobs, families and communities top priorities in the lives of Americans.
"Barack is an optimistic voice for America and a leader who knows that together we can build an America that is stronger at home and respected in the world," Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry [related, bio] said in a statement.
Obama graduated from Columbia University in New York, and received his law degree from Harvard Law School. He became the first black president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review.
He worked as a community organizer in New York and Chicago on job-training programs and other projects, and as a civil rights lawyer. He is now a senior instructor in constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. http://news.bostonherald.com/national/view.bg?articleid=35628
ELECTION:
Polls:
South Carolina: [DeMint]:
Bush 51Kerry 44
North Carolina: [Mason-Dixon]
Bush/Cheney 48 Kerry/Edwards 45
And, Florida firefighters have endorsed Kerry. They had endorsed Junior in 2000, and brother Jeb in 1998 and 2002.
Scientists Organize: [Wall Street Journal, Antonio Regalado]
Scientists Take To the Streets Against Bush
Groups Accuse Administration of TwistingFacts on Warming and Stem-Cell Research
In a big shift for the normally docile scientific community, some leading researchers are mounting a political campaign to unseat President Bush this fall, accusing the administration of twisting scientific facts to fit its policies on issues such as global warming, sex education and stem-cell research.
While science issues don't loom as large as jobs and national security, Democratic strategists argue the president's record on science and environmental matters may prove vulnerable, at least to voters who haven't made up their minds. http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB108984212977664018,00.html
-R
