Friday, July 09, 2004
If we ever get a clear national debate about health care and taxes, I don't see how President Bush will win it.-Paul Krugman, today
July Surprise I: Federal Marriage Amendment Vote? Troublemaking, i.e. smart gamesmanship, from the Republicans. Kristin Lombardi for the Boston Phoenix:
IF BUSH POLITICAL strategist Karl Rove gets his way in the 2004 presidential race, the contentious issue of gay marriage will play a role in the campaign. It’s not something President Bush will necessarily tout on the national stage. Rather, the dream scenario casts gay marriage as more of a sleeper issue, always there, always lurking in the background. That way, at strategic moments Republicans can exploit the issue to fire up their base of religious conservatives, frighten those all-important undecided voters, and pummel the presumptive Democratic nominee, John Kerry, as Mr. Anti-family —thereby drawing out a pro-Bush shadow vote come November.
Call it the GOP master plan. Ever since the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled last November that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, most observers have expected Republican strategists to use the issue to their advantage. Their strategy became clear last month when the US Senate Republican leadership accelerated its push to amend the US Constitution to ban same-sex nuptials by defining marriage as "the union of a man and a woman." For months, Senate majority leader Bill Frist, the Tennessee Republican, had been signaling to supporters of the Federal Marriage Amendment, or FMA, that he would not schedule a vote on it before November. He even stated that he didn’t think amending the Constitution was something to rush. On June 18, though, Frist quickly changed his tune: he announced that he would schedule Senate debate and a vote on the FMA for the week of July 12 — just two weeks before the Democratic National Convention, in Boston. http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/top/features/documents/03965603.asp
July Surprise II: Get bin Laden! I wrote about this several weeks ago. It’s again making the rounds, and since the time is almost here… From the New Republic:
This spring, the administration significantly increased its pressure on Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, or the Taliban's Mullah Mohammed Omar, all of whom are believed to be hiding in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. A succession of high-level American officials--from outgoing CIA Director George Tenet to Secretary of State Colin Powell to Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca to State Department counterterrorism chief Cofer Black to a top CIA South Asia official--have visited Pakistan in recent months to urge General Pervez Musharraf's government to do more in the war on terrorism. In April, Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, publicly chided the Pakistanis for providing a "sanctuary" for Al Qaeda and Taliban forces crossing the Afghan border. "The problem has not been solved and needs to be solved, the sooner the better," he said...
An official who works under ISI's director, Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq, informed tnr that the Pakistanis "have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs before [the] election is [an] absolute must." What's more, this source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: "The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during [ul-Haq's] meetings in Washington. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040719&s=aaj071904
Thank goodness they haven’t politicized the “war on terror.”
Kenny Boy:
While the White House is making the pitch that Ken Lay’s prosecution is evidence of their even-handedness, the more telling was Bush’s walking away from the media when asked about Lay at an informal question-answer period.
From the Financial Times
The rash of corporate fraud also did not appear to hurt Republicans, the traditional party of big business, in mid-term Congressional elections two years ago.
Even so, the Lay indictment could still damage the president if it adds to a perception articulated by opponents that his administration is run chiefly by and for large corporate interests, with little sympathy for ordinary voters.
The Enron link has re-emerged as the White House has been fending off allegations about its relationship with another politically-connected Texas energy company, Halliburton. Democrats have accused the administration of rewarding the energy services company formerly run by vice-president Dick Cheney with billions of dollars of wasteful contracts in Iraq.
While neither George W. Bush nor his father ever worked for Enron, the relationship with Mr Lay runs deep. Their alliance was a natural one given their overlap in Houston energy and Washington political circles. http://financialtimes.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Lay+charges+open+a+can+of+worms&expire=&urlID=10944169&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ft.com%2Fs01%2Fservlet%2FContentServer%3Fpagename%3DFT.com%2FStoryFT%2FFullStory%26c%3DStoryFT%26cid%3D1087373572158%26p%3D1012571727291&partnerID=1743
Lay and Bush were very chummy. The record is long- business dealings in the 80’s, Bush Sr. setting up Lay with Houston business folk, Lay the Host of the Republican Convention in ’92, mammoth contributions to Junior, who helps Enron make deals in places like Tom Ridge’s Pennsylvania. Yet, the media continue to de-emphasize or ignore the connection. With the exceptions of the LA Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, most were like CNN.com, which in its large posting ignored Bush entirely. Credit to the Chicago Tribune for mentioning Lay’s comment that he was being prosecuted because of his close ties with Bush.
Edwards (continued)
Inexperience: To counter the disparagement, one should just cite Orrin Hatch’s words to G.W. Bush, from his participation in the presidential primary debates on December 6, 1999. "You've been a great governor; My only problem with you, governor, is that you've only had four and going into your fifth year of governorship. . . . Frankly, I really believe that you need more experience before you become president of the United States. That's why I'm thinking of you as a vice presidential candidate.
Gravitas: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said Edward’s detailed strategy to combat nuclear proliferation was "the most comprehensive and far-reaching of the three proposals" advanced by the candidates. Basically, Edwards called for a new "Global Compact" to heighten security for existing nuclear facilities and material, to toughen international inspections, limit production of nuclear bomb materials and nuclear fuel, and authorize strong, immediate punishment for any nation that violates and then quits the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Cheney out? Seems tempting for the Bushies. But, the Dems should simply call for Cheney to step down. Then, Bush couldn’t do it, as he would be perceived as “caving” to Democratic wishes.
Polls:
NBC: Kerry-Edwards up 8%
Rasmussen: Kerry up 5 in Florida, up 29% in Massachusetts, up 10% in New Jersey; Bush up 18% in Texas
But it’s only early July.
Florida: Progress (Report)
Florida's top election officials conceded Tuesday that they will take no legal action to force the state's 67 election supervisors to remove nearly 48,000 voters who have been identified by the state as potentially ineligible to vote.
This means the fate of these voters, some of whom appear to have been wrongly placed on the list, will be up to the election supervisor in each county, many of whom have been hesitant so far to remove any voter from the rolls. Some supervisors have said they were unsure if they had the time or staff needed to independently verify the background of voters prior to this fall's elections, but other supervisors have moved ahead anyway.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/9093023.htm?1c
Bush Money Men: The Texas Rangers:
I’m fond of talking about Bush being brought into the investment group that purchased the Rangers, then being assigned to hang with the fans. Prior to selling, several partners GAVE Bush their shares, which led to a tiny sum of about $14 million. This group went on to become major funders of Bush’s political career.
Some specifics: The tale of 3 partners who wound up ambassadors!
*Craig Stapleton: Forked over $60,500, appointed to ambassadorship of Czech Republic, 2001-03; has now returned to fundraising work for Bush.
*Mercer Reynolds III- Gave $373,173; Two years serving in Switzerland, now fundraising chair for Bush
*Jeffrey Marcus: Contributed $275,000. Appointed ambassador to Belgium, but never served, as his impending divorce led to his never showing for the job.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2004/07/baseball.html
Bush Records Destroyed I’m not making this up.
Military records that could help establish President Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon.
It said the payroll records of "numerous service members," including former First Lt. Bush, had been ruined in 1996 and 1997 by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service during a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. No back-up paper copies could be found, it added in notices dated June 25.
The destroyed records cover three months of a period in 1972 and 1973 when Mr. Bush's claims of service in Alabama are in question.
The disclosure appeared to catch some experts, both pro-Bush and con, by surprise. Even the retired lieutenant colonel who studied Mr. Bush's records for the White House, Albert C. Lloyd of Austin, said it came as news to him. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/09/politics/campaign/09records.html?hp
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Iraq Prisons: Children?
A disturbing, as-yet not fully confirmed report in a German TV newsmagazine “Report Mainz”, that the International Red Cross had found over 100 children in coalition detention centers. Since we’ve already learned that 70 to 90% of those in those prisons are innocent… The German General Secretary of Amnesty International and others are on this, but no reports here, yet. But, in Pakistan, there are headlines as to “Over 100 Children Abused in Custody in Iraq”. http://www.paknews.com/headingNews.php?id=2924&date1=2004-07-05
Morning Release of Senate Report on Intelligence:
This morning the report on pre-war intelligence is released. But, Thursday’s NY Times piece already warned that an agreement in the Republican-controlled congress means that strong examination / criticism of the Administration is out of bounds.
A bipartisan Senate report to be issued Friday that is highly critical of prewar intelligence on Iraq will sidestep the question of how the Bush administration used that information to make the case for war, Congressional officials said Wednesday.
But Democrats are maneuvering to raise the issue in separate statements. Under a deal reached this year between Republicans and Democrats, the Bush administration's role will not be addressed until the Senate Intelligence Committee completes a further stage of its inquiry, but probably not until after the November election. As a result, said the officials, both Democratic and Republican, the committee's initial, unanimous report will focus solely on misjudgments by intelligence agencies, not the White House, in the assessments about Iraq, illicit weapons and Al Qaeda that the administration used as a rationale for the war.
The effect may be to provide an opening for President Bush and his allies to deflect responsibility for what now appear to be exaggerated prewar assessments about the threat posed by Iraq, by portraying them as the fault of the Central Intelligence Agency and its departing chief, George J. Tenet, rather than Mr. Bush and his top aides. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/08/politics/08inte.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
-R
July Surprise I: Federal Marriage Amendment Vote? Troublemaking, i.e. smart gamesmanship, from the Republicans. Kristin Lombardi for the Boston Phoenix:
IF BUSH POLITICAL strategist Karl Rove gets his way in the 2004 presidential race, the contentious issue of gay marriage will play a role in the campaign. It’s not something President Bush will necessarily tout on the national stage. Rather, the dream scenario casts gay marriage as more of a sleeper issue, always there, always lurking in the background. That way, at strategic moments Republicans can exploit the issue to fire up their base of religious conservatives, frighten those all-important undecided voters, and pummel the presumptive Democratic nominee, John Kerry, as Mr. Anti-family —thereby drawing out a pro-Bush shadow vote come November.
Call it the GOP master plan. Ever since the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled last November that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, most observers have expected Republican strategists to use the issue to their advantage. Their strategy became clear last month when the US Senate Republican leadership accelerated its push to amend the US Constitution to ban same-sex nuptials by defining marriage as "the union of a man and a woman." For months, Senate majority leader Bill Frist, the Tennessee Republican, had been signaling to supporters of the Federal Marriage Amendment, or FMA, that he would not schedule a vote on it before November. He even stated that he didn’t think amending the Constitution was something to rush. On June 18, though, Frist quickly changed his tune: he announced that he would schedule Senate debate and a vote on the FMA for the week of July 12 — just two weeks before the Democratic National Convention, in Boston. http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/top/features/documents/03965603.asp
July Surprise II: Get bin Laden! I wrote about this several weeks ago. It’s again making the rounds, and since the time is almost here… From the New Republic:
This spring, the administration significantly increased its pressure on Pakistan to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman Al Zawahiri, or the Taliban's Mullah Mohammed Omar, all of whom are believed to be hiding in the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan. A succession of high-level American officials--from outgoing CIA Director George Tenet to Secretary of State Colin Powell to Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca to State Department counterterrorism chief Cofer Black to a top CIA South Asia official--have visited Pakistan in recent months to urge General Pervez Musharraf's government to do more in the war on terrorism. In April, Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, publicly chided the Pakistanis for providing a "sanctuary" for Al Qaeda and Taliban forces crossing the Afghan border. "The problem has not been solved and needs to be solved, the sooner the better," he said...
An official who works under ISI's director, Lieutenant General Ehsan ul-Haq, informed tnr that the Pakistanis "have been told at every level that apprehension or killing of HVTs before [the] election is [an] absolute must." What's more, this source claims that Bush administration officials have told their Pakistani counterparts they have a date in mind for announcing this achievement: "The last ten days of July deadline has been given repeatedly by visitors to Islamabad and during [ul-Haq's] meetings in Washington. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040719&s=aaj071904
Thank goodness they haven’t politicized the “war on terror.”
Kenny Boy:
While the White House is making the pitch that Ken Lay’s prosecution is evidence of their even-handedness, the more telling was Bush’s walking away from the media when asked about Lay at an informal question-answer period.
From the Financial Times
The rash of corporate fraud also did not appear to hurt Republicans, the traditional party of big business, in mid-term Congressional elections two years ago.
Even so, the Lay indictment could still damage the president if it adds to a perception articulated by opponents that his administration is run chiefly by and for large corporate interests, with little sympathy for ordinary voters.
The Enron link has re-emerged as the White House has been fending off allegations about its relationship with another politically-connected Texas energy company, Halliburton. Democrats have accused the administration of rewarding the energy services company formerly run by vice-president Dick Cheney with billions of dollars of wasteful contracts in Iraq.
While neither George W. Bush nor his father ever worked for Enron, the relationship with Mr Lay runs deep. Their alliance was a natural one given their overlap in Houston energy and Washington political circles. http://financialtimes.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Lay+charges+open+a+can+of+worms&expire=&urlID=10944169&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ft.com%2Fs01%2Fservlet%2FContentServer%3Fpagename%3DFT.com%2FStoryFT%2FFullStory%26c%3DStoryFT%26cid%3D1087373572158%26p%3D1012571727291&partnerID=1743
Lay and Bush were very chummy. The record is long- business dealings in the 80’s, Bush Sr. setting up Lay with Houston business folk, Lay the Host of the Republican Convention in ’92, mammoth contributions to Junior, who helps Enron make deals in places like Tom Ridge’s Pennsylvania. Yet, the media continue to de-emphasize or ignore the connection. With the exceptions of the LA Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, most were like CNN.com, which in its large posting ignored Bush entirely. Credit to the Chicago Tribune for mentioning Lay’s comment that he was being prosecuted because of his close ties with Bush.
Edwards (continued)
Inexperience: To counter the disparagement, one should just cite Orrin Hatch’s words to G.W. Bush, from his participation in the presidential primary debates on December 6, 1999. "You've been a great governor; My only problem with you, governor, is that you've only had four and going into your fifth year of governorship. . . . Frankly, I really believe that you need more experience before you become president of the United States. That's why I'm thinking of you as a vice presidential candidate.
Gravitas: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said Edward’s detailed strategy to combat nuclear proliferation was "the most comprehensive and far-reaching of the three proposals" advanced by the candidates. Basically, Edwards called for a new "Global Compact" to heighten security for existing nuclear facilities and material, to toughen international inspections, limit production of nuclear bomb materials and nuclear fuel, and authorize strong, immediate punishment for any nation that violates and then quits the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Cheney out? Seems tempting for the Bushies. But, the Dems should simply call for Cheney to step down. Then, Bush couldn’t do it, as he would be perceived as “caving” to Democratic wishes.
Polls:
NBC: Kerry-Edwards up 8%
Rasmussen: Kerry up 5 in Florida, up 29% in Massachusetts, up 10% in New Jersey; Bush up 18% in Texas
But it’s only early July.
Florida: Progress (Report)
Florida's top election officials conceded Tuesday that they will take no legal action to force the state's 67 election supervisors to remove nearly 48,000 voters who have been identified by the state as potentially ineligible to vote.
This means the fate of these voters, some of whom appear to have been wrongly placed on the list, will be up to the election supervisor in each county, many of whom have been hesitant so far to remove any voter from the rolls. Some supervisors have said they were unsure if they had the time or staff needed to independently verify the background of voters prior to this fall's elections, but other supervisors have moved ahead anyway.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/9093023.htm?1c
Bush Money Men: The Texas Rangers:
I’m fond of talking about Bush being brought into the investment group that purchased the Rangers, then being assigned to hang with the fans. Prior to selling, several partners GAVE Bush their shares, which led to a tiny sum of about $14 million. This group went on to become major funders of Bush’s political career.
Some specifics: The tale of 3 partners who wound up ambassadors!
*Craig Stapleton: Forked over $60,500, appointed to ambassadorship of Czech Republic, 2001-03; has now returned to fundraising work for Bush.
*Mercer Reynolds III- Gave $373,173; Two years serving in Switzerland, now fundraising chair for Bush
*Jeffrey Marcus: Contributed $275,000. Appointed ambassador to Belgium, but never served, as his impending divorce led to his never showing for the job.
http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2004/07/baseball.html
Bush Records Destroyed I’m not making this up.
Military records that could help establish President Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon.
It said the payroll records of "numerous service members," including former First Lt. Bush, had been ruined in 1996 and 1997 by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service during a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. No back-up paper copies could be found, it added in notices dated June 25.
The destroyed records cover three months of a period in 1972 and 1973 when Mr. Bush's claims of service in Alabama are in question.
The disclosure appeared to catch some experts, both pro-Bush and con, by surprise. Even the retired lieutenant colonel who studied Mr. Bush's records for the White House, Albert C. Lloyd of Austin, said it came as news to him. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/09/politics/campaign/09records.html?hp
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Iraq Prisons: Children?
A disturbing, as-yet not fully confirmed report in a German TV newsmagazine “Report Mainz”, that the International Red Cross had found over 100 children in coalition detention centers. Since we’ve already learned that 70 to 90% of those in those prisons are innocent… The German General Secretary of Amnesty International and others are on this, but no reports here, yet. But, in Pakistan, there are headlines as to “Over 100 Children Abused in Custody in Iraq”. http://www.paknews.com/headingNews.php?id=2924&date1=2004-07-05
Morning Release of Senate Report on Intelligence:
This morning the report on pre-war intelligence is released. But, Thursday’s NY Times piece already warned that an agreement in the Republican-controlled congress means that strong examination / criticism of the Administration is out of bounds.
A bipartisan Senate report to be issued Friday that is highly critical of prewar intelligence on Iraq will sidestep the question of how the Bush administration used that information to make the case for war, Congressional officials said Wednesday.
But Democrats are maneuvering to raise the issue in separate statements. Under a deal reached this year between Republicans and Democrats, the Bush administration's role will not be addressed until the Senate Intelligence Committee completes a further stage of its inquiry, but probably not until after the November election. As a result, said the officials, both Democratic and Republican, the committee's initial, unanimous report will focus solely on misjudgments by intelligence agencies, not the White House, in the assessments about Iraq, illicit weapons and Al Qaeda that the administration used as a rationale for the war.
The effect may be to provide an opening for President Bush and his allies to deflect responsibility for what now appear to be exaggerated prewar assessments about the threat posed by Iraq, by portraying them as the fault of the Central Intelligence Agency and its departing chief, George J. Tenet, rather than Mr. Bush and his top aides. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/08/politics/08inte.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
-R
Tuesday, July 06, 2004
Electoral Politics: Edwards:* Avoiding boring Gephardt; smart move.
* The inevitability of Hillary is no longer; if Kerry wins, Edwards is 4 or 8 years away from being the heir apparent. If Kerry loses, Edwards is still the star (and I’m in Melbourne).
* The Republican machine was ready with their opposition research yielding talking points that were everywhere, flooding the airwaves with ‘he’s another liberal, he’s lightweight, he’s inexperienced, he’s a trial lawyer, he didn’t support the troops’, etc. In the early hours they overwhelmed the Democratic presence on radio/t.v. They repeatedly ran a campaign ad w/ John McCain, now a Bush “supporter.” But keep in mind, there’s no love there.
Recall: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is launching perhaps his harshest attack yet on his own party and his gushiest praise of Democrats.
"I believe my party has gone astray," McCain said yesterday, singling out GOP stands on environmental issues and racial set-asides.
"I think the Democratic Party is a fine party, and I have no problems with it, in their views and their philosophy," he said. "But I also feel the Republican Party can be brought back to the principles I articulated before."
And he took another shot at President Bush. "You can't fly in on an aircraft carrier and declare victory and have the deaths continue. You can't do that." http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/4/2/115508.shtml
*The Repubs would be smart to counter with Giulani, Condi, Powell.
*Ignore the polls. Kerry will establish a lead this month, Bush will rebound in late August. We’ll know what’s what on Sept. 15th or so, after the conventions and the 9/11 anniversary.
*We know VP’s make little difference. Maybe, just maybe, Edwards will help with North Carolina (and Florida).
* Edwards may mobilize the business community. From the WS Journal:
Mr. Edwards's political and policy views are more moderate -- and more in line with business -- than those of Gov. Dean, Rep. Gephardt or even Sen. Kerry.
But Mr. Edwards is a trial lawyer. His campaign for the presidency was financed by trial lawyers. And there is nothing that makes America's CEOs see red these days like America's trial lawyers. "It's visceral," says one person who works with a group of chief executives. "You can feel it in a room." The nation's top executives view the plaintiff's bar as modern-day mobsters, shaking down corporations by bringing endless lawsuits that are too costly and too dangerous to litigate and that result in settlements costing billions to the corporate bottom line. The antipathy, while not new, has never been greater. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108906847567455577,00.html?mod=at%5Fleisure%5Fmain%5Feditors%5Fpicks%5Fdays%5Fonly
Speaking of Polls (ha!)North Carolina (Rasmussen) Bush 49-42%
National (Gallup): Bush up 53-41% with White men
Kerry up 81-12% with Blacks
Kerry up 57-38% with Hispanics
Sudan: Genocide
Since early 2003, tens of thousands of Sudanese citizens of African descent who live in the Darfur region have been systematically killed, raped, and displaced as their villages have been destroyed. Through coordinated land and air attacks; the burning of homes and crops; the rounding up of livestock; the destruction of wells, granaries, and irrigation works; the uprooting of trees; and the theft of all possessions, the government of Sudan and the government-supported Arab militia, Janjaweed, have displaced more than 1 million people. http://www.alternet.org/story/19147/
The Physicians for Human Rights are urging intervention via letters to Powell. Go to their website for the specifics. http://www.phrusa.org/research/sudan/action_colinpowell.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: Fascinating. The CIA was keeping the Administration in the dark about how weak the wmd ‘evidence’ was. So, they were getting back at ‘em for (Cheney’s) pressure tactics. From the lead, ironic story in Tuesday’s NY Times (James Risen):
The Central Intelligence Agency was told by relatives of Iraqi scientists before the war that Baghdad's programs to develop unconventional weapons had been abandoned, but the C.I.A. failed to give that information to President Bush, even as he publicly warned of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's illicit weapons, according to government officials.
The existence of a secret prewar C.I.A. operation to debrief relatives of Iraqi scientists — and the agency's failure to give their statements to the president and other policymakers — has been uncovered by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The panel has been investigating the government's handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq's unconventional weapons and plans to release a wide-ranging report this week on the first phase of its inquiry. The report is expected to contain a scathing indictment of the C.I.A. and its leaders for failing to recognize that the evidence they had collected did not justify their assessment that Mr. Hussein had illicit weapons. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/06/politics/06INTE.html
Controlling the New Iraq: ‘Shameless in Iraq’ (Naomi Klein)
If occupation chief Paul Bremer and his staff were capable of embarrassment, they might be a little sheepish about having spent only $3.2 billion of the $18.4 billion Congress allotted--the reason the reconstruction is so disastrously behind schedule. At first, Bremer said the money would be spent by the time Iraq was sovereign, but apparently someone had a better idea: Parcel it out over five years so Ambassador John Negroponte can use it as leverage. With $15 billion outstanding, how likely will Iraq's politicians be to refuse US demands for military bases and economic "reforms"?
Unwilling to let go of their own money, the shameless ones have had no qualms about dipping into funds belonging to Iraqis. After losing the fight to keep control of Iraq's oil money after the underhand, occupation authorities grabbed $2.5 billion of those revenues and are now spending the money on projects that are supposedly already covered by US tax dollars.
But then, if financial scandals made you blush, the entire reconstruction of Iraq would be pretty mortifying. From the start, its architects rejected the idea that it should be a New Deal-style public works project for Iraqis to reclaim their country. Instead, it was treated as an ideological experiment in privatization. The dream was for multinational firms, mostly from the United States, to swoop in and dazzle the Iraqis with their speed and efficiency http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040712&s=klein
Blair Gives it Up: Will Cheney Eventually Follow?
[Tony Blair] conceded today that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction "may never be found" but claimed that they could have been "hidden, removed or destroyed".
Appearing before the Commons liaison committee of senior MPs, the prime minister said: "I was very, very confident the Iraq Survey Group would find them - I have to accept we haven't found them and we may not find them." http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1255124,00.html
How They See Us: Pepe Escobar of the Asia Times with a snapshot:
Before hitting America's roads in the crucial 2004 electoral year, it helps to keep a few things in perspective. The US government is moving toward the red at a rate of almost US$1 million a minute. Sixty-one percent of Americans think that the narrative of God creating the world in six days is "literally true". Since 2001, under Bush, corporate tax collection has fallen by $11 billion. American adults added an estimated total of 150 million pounds (68 million kilograms) to their waistlines in 2003. One in every 115 Americans works for Wal-Mart. Halliburton has more people working in Iraq than the British army contingent. Sixty-one percent of American workers say they received "no meaningful rewards or recognition" for their work in 2003. For every 1,000 murders, Oklahoma - the land that gave us Brad Pitt - sends 51 to death (Texas sends only 20; 25 is the national average). http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FG07Aa01.html
-R
* The inevitability of Hillary is no longer; if Kerry wins, Edwards is 4 or 8 years away from being the heir apparent. If Kerry loses, Edwards is still the star (and I’m in Melbourne).
* The Republican machine was ready with their opposition research yielding talking points that were everywhere, flooding the airwaves with ‘he’s another liberal, he’s lightweight, he’s inexperienced, he’s a trial lawyer, he didn’t support the troops’, etc. In the early hours they overwhelmed the Democratic presence on radio/t.v. They repeatedly ran a campaign ad w/ John McCain, now a Bush “supporter.” But keep in mind, there’s no love there.
Recall: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is launching perhaps his harshest attack yet on his own party and his gushiest praise of Democrats.
"I believe my party has gone astray," McCain said yesterday, singling out GOP stands on environmental issues and racial set-asides.
"I think the Democratic Party is a fine party, and I have no problems with it, in their views and their philosophy," he said. "But I also feel the Republican Party can be brought back to the principles I articulated before."
And he took another shot at President Bush. "You can't fly in on an aircraft carrier and declare victory and have the deaths continue. You can't do that." http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/4/2/115508.shtml
*The Repubs would be smart to counter with Giulani, Condi, Powell.
*Ignore the polls. Kerry will establish a lead this month, Bush will rebound in late August. We’ll know what’s what on Sept. 15th or so, after the conventions and the 9/11 anniversary.
*We know VP’s make little difference. Maybe, just maybe, Edwards will help with North Carolina (and Florida).
* Edwards may mobilize the business community. From the WS Journal:
Mr. Edwards's political and policy views are more moderate -- and more in line with business -- than those of Gov. Dean, Rep. Gephardt or even Sen. Kerry.
But Mr. Edwards is a trial lawyer. His campaign for the presidency was financed by trial lawyers. And there is nothing that makes America's CEOs see red these days like America's trial lawyers. "It's visceral," says one person who works with a group of chief executives. "You can feel it in a room." The nation's top executives view the plaintiff's bar as modern-day mobsters, shaking down corporations by bringing endless lawsuits that are too costly and too dangerous to litigate and that result in settlements costing billions to the corporate bottom line. The antipathy, while not new, has never been greater. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108906847567455577,00.html?mod=at%5Fleisure%5Fmain%5Feditors%5Fpicks%5Fdays%5Fonly
Speaking of Polls (ha!)North Carolina (Rasmussen) Bush 49-42%
National (Gallup): Bush up 53-41% with White men
Kerry up 81-12% with Blacks
Kerry up 57-38% with Hispanics
Sudan: Genocide
Since early 2003, tens of thousands of Sudanese citizens of African descent who live in the Darfur region have been systematically killed, raped, and displaced as their villages have been destroyed. Through coordinated land and air attacks; the burning of homes and crops; the rounding up of livestock; the destruction of wells, granaries, and irrigation works; the uprooting of trees; and the theft of all possessions, the government of Sudan and the government-supported Arab militia, Janjaweed, have displaced more than 1 million people. http://www.alternet.org/story/19147/
The Physicians for Human Rights are urging intervention via letters to Powell. Go to their website for the specifics. http://www.phrusa.org/research/sudan/action_colinpowell.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: Fascinating. The CIA was keeping the Administration in the dark about how weak the wmd ‘evidence’ was. So, they were getting back at ‘em for (Cheney’s) pressure tactics. From the lead, ironic story in Tuesday’s NY Times (James Risen):
The Central Intelligence Agency was told by relatives of Iraqi scientists before the war that Baghdad's programs to develop unconventional weapons had been abandoned, but the C.I.A. failed to give that information to President Bush, even as he publicly warned of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's illicit weapons, according to government officials.
The existence of a secret prewar C.I.A. operation to debrief relatives of Iraqi scientists — and the agency's failure to give their statements to the president and other policymakers — has been uncovered by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The panel has been investigating the government's handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq's unconventional weapons and plans to release a wide-ranging report this week on the first phase of its inquiry. The report is expected to contain a scathing indictment of the C.I.A. and its leaders for failing to recognize that the evidence they had collected did not justify their assessment that Mr. Hussein had illicit weapons. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/06/politics/06INTE.html
Controlling the New Iraq: ‘Shameless in Iraq’ (Naomi Klein)
If occupation chief Paul Bremer and his staff were capable of embarrassment, they might be a little sheepish about having spent only $3.2 billion of the $18.4 billion Congress allotted--the reason the reconstruction is so disastrously behind schedule. At first, Bremer said the money would be spent by the time Iraq was sovereign, but apparently someone had a better idea: Parcel it out over five years so Ambassador John Negroponte can use it as leverage. With $15 billion outstanding, how likely will Iraq's politicians be to refuse US demands for military bases and economic "reforms"?
Unwilling to let go of their own money, the shameless ones have had no qualms about dipping into funds belonging to Iraqis. After losing the fight to keep control of Iraq's oil money after the underhand, occupation authorities grabbed $2.5 billion of those revenues and are now spending the money on projects that are supposedly already covered by US tax dollars.
But then, if financial scandals made you blush, the entire reconstruction of Iraq would be pretty mortifying. From the start, its architects rejected the idea that it should be a New Deal-style public works project for Iraqis to reclaim their country. Instead, it was treated as an ideological experiment in privatization. The dream was for multinational firms, mostly from the United States, to swoop in and dazzle the Iraqis with their speed and efficiency http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040712&s=klein
Blair Gives it Up: Will Cheney Eventually Follow?
[Tony Blair] conceded today that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction "may never be found" but claimed that they could have been "hidden, removed or destroyed".
Appearing before the Commons liaison committee of senior MPs, the prime minister said: "I was very, very confident the Iraq Survey Group would find them - I have to accept we haven't found them and we may not find them." http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1255124,00.html
How They See Us: Pepe Escobar of the Asia Times with a snapshot:
Before hitting America's roads in the crucial 2004 electoral year, it helps to keep a few things in perspective. The US government is moving toward the red at a rate of almost US$1 million a minute. Sixty-one percent of Americans think that the narrative of God creating the world in six days is "literally true". Since 2001, under Bush, corporate tax collection has fallen by $11 billion. American adults added an estimated total of 150 million pounds (68 million kilograms) to their waistlines in 2003. One in every 115 Americans works for Wal-Mart. Halliburton has more people working in Iraq than the British army contingent. Sixty-one percent of American workers say they received "no meaningful rewards or recognition" for their work in 2003. For every 1,000 murders, Oklahoma - the land that gave us Brad Pitt - sends 51 to death (Texas sends only 20; 25 is the national average). http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FG07Aa01.html
-R
Monday, July 05, 2004
Fahrenheit 9/11 and Israel. Robert Dreyfuss asks some questions:
Here are some questions for Moore: If Bush is so “in the pocket” of Saudi Arabia, why is he Ariel Sharon’s strongest backer? Why, when he had Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah down at the Texas ranch a few years ago, did he flip off the Saudi’s peace plan? And most important, why did he invade Iraq—since Saudi Arabia was strongly opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq? Why did he launch his Iraqi adventure over Saudi objections, with many of his advisers chortling that Saudi Arabia would be “next”? Why did he stock his administration with militant neocon crusaders who see Saudi Arabia as the main enemy? Why, Michael?
I have to conclude the Michael Moore is either blind, or a coward. Blind, if he can’t see Bush’s craven ties to Israel, driven by the neocons and the Christian Zionists and Bible-thumping fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell, who consider Israel Jesus’ next stop and see Saudi Arabia as Satanic. Or cowardly, because he knows it and decided not to mention it. Is that because attacking Israel is too hard? Moore’s photo-montage of Saudi princes borders on the racist, showing Bush & Co. clinging to grinning, Semitic-looking Arabs in flowing white robes one after another. Would we stand for a similar, racist-leaning montage of Bush palling around with grinning, Semitic-looking Jews in skullcaps? 'Course not. More important, Moore completely misses the political boat. Perhaps that’s because he relies so heavily on Craig Unger and his book, House of Bush, House of Saud , which makes the same “error.”
And more for Moore. Yes, Bush 41 and his advisers—the Carlyle Group-linked James Baker, et al.—were (and are) connected to Saudi Arabia. Did Moore notice that Baker, along with Brent Scowcroft, and other former advisers to Bush 41 (including Colin Powell) were against the Iraq adventure? And that there were reports that Bush 41 himself thought it was a stupid idea? I can’t believe that Moore can be so stupid. So I can only conclude that he produced this movie the way he did on purpose. Then I read that he didn’t bother inviting Ralph Nader to the Washington, D.C., premiere of the film, and (according to The Washington Post ), Nader called Moore “fat.” Well. Moore is fatheaded. http://www.tompaine.com/articles/blind_or_a_coward.php
Moore Interview: with CBS’s Hannah Storm:
Storm: "Some have said propaganda, do you buy that? Op-ed?"
Moore: "No, I consider the CBS Evening News propaganda. What I do is-"
Storm: "We’ll move beyond on that."
Moore: "Why? Let’s not move beyond that."
Storm: "You know what?"
Moore: "Seriously."
Storm: "No, let’s talk about your movie."
Moore: "But why don’t we talk about the Evening News on this network and the other networks that didn’t do the job they should have done at the beginning of this war?"
Storm: "You know what?"
Moore: "Demanded the evidence, ask the hard questions-"
Storm: "Okay."
Moore: "-we may not of even gone into this war had these networks done their job. I mean, it was a great disservice to the American people because we depend on people who work here and the other networks to go after those in power and say 'Hey, wait a minute. You want to send our kids off to war, we want to know where those weapons of mass destruction are. Let’s see the proof. Let’s see the proof that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11.’"
Storm: "But-"
Moore: "There was no proof and everybody just got embedded and everybody rolled over and everybody knows that now."
Storm: "Michael, the one thing that journalists try to do is to present both sides of the story. And it could be argued that you did not do that in this movie."
Moore: "I certainly didn’t. I presented my side-"
Storm: "You presented your side of the story."
Moore: "Because my side, that’s the side of millions of Americans, rarely gets told. And so, all I’m, look, this is just a humble plea on my behalf and not to you personally, Hannah. But I’m just saying to journalists in general that instead of working so hard to tell both sides of the story, why don’t you just tell that one side, which is the administration, why don’t you ask them the hard questions-"
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/25/earlyshow/leisure/celebspot/main626088.shtml
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Show Me the Money- 98% of Reconstruction $ Unspent
The Administration keeps asking for more, yet has $17 billion in unspent reconstruction funds. So what gives? Suzanne Goldenberg’s report.:
The US government spent just 2% of the $18.4bn (£10bn) it had obtained from Congress for the urgent reconstruction of Iraq before formally ending its occupation last week.
The White House budget office report, the first detailed audit of the reconstruction, showed that the US occupation authorities had spent nothing on healthcare or water and sanitation, two of the most urgent needs for Iraqis. In contrast, a total of $9m was spent on administrative expenses.
By June 22 America's reconstruction campaign had spent $366m of the sum allotted to the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction. Fund. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4963338-103550,00.html
P.R. Drive: Dana Milbank, Reliable, at the Washington Post:
With scenes of violence and mayhem in Iraq replaced by more favorable images of the new Iraqi leaders taking charge and former president Saddam Hussein in the dock, top Bush administration officials launched an effort yesterday to ease the public's concern that the war has increased the threat of terrorism against the United States.
In speeches, briefings, interviews and an online chat, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and others used the events surrounding this week's handover of political autonomy in Iraq to rebuild their case that Iraq is experiencing a "historic transformation" and Americans are safer as a result.
And, Dick stays with “the connection”.
Countering the staff of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, which found no "collaborative relationship" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda, Cheney renewed his accusation that they had "long-established ties." He listed several examples and stated: "In the early 1990s, Saddam had sent a brigadier general in the Iraqi intelligence service to Sudan to train al Qaeda in bombmaking and document forgery." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22281-2004Jul1.html
Sadr Changes Mind; Urges (Political) Resistance: Scott Wilson at the WaPost:
Moqtada Sadr, the rebellious Shiite Muslim cleric, insisted Friday that the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq had not ended with the recent handover of limited political powers to an interim government, and called on his followers to continue resisting the large presence of foreign troops in the country.
"I want to draw your attention to the fact there was no transferring of authority," said Jabir Khafaji, a top Sadr lieutenant, reading from a letter from the cleric during Friday prayers at a mosque in the southern city of Kufa where Sadr commonly preaches. "What has changed is the name only."
Khafaji also demanded that the new Iraqi government defer to the Shiite religious leadership based in the neighboring holy city of Najaf. He asserted that the Mahdi Army, Sadr's black-clad militia group that was recently decimated in two months of battle with U.S. forces, was "the army of Iraq."
"I ask the Iraqis to keep rejecting the occupation and call for independence," Khafaji said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24645-2004Jul2?language=printer
Quiet Admission re Saddam StatueTaking advantage of the holiday weekend, the Army has quietly admitted what all semi-alert folk knew back in April, 2003, that the pulling down of the statue of Saddam was no spontaneous, mass celebration of Iraqis, but rather a U.S.-orchestrated event. From David Zucchino in Saturday’s LA Times
The Army's internal study of the war in Iraq criticizes some efforts by its own psychological operations units, but one spur-of-the-moment effort last year produced the most memorable image of the invasion.
As the Iraqi regime was collapsing on April 9, 2003, Marines converged on Firdos Square in central Baghdad, site of an enormous statue of Saddam Hussein. It was a Marine colonel — not joyous Iraqi civilians, as was widely assumed from the TV images — who decided to topple the statue, the Army report said. And it was a quick-thinking Army psychological operations team that made it appear to be a spontaneous Iraqi undertaking. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-na-statue3jul03,1,5285803.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Legality of the Occupation termed “Flawed”: From the Independent (Marie Woolf)
The senior Foreign Office lawyer who resigned after ministers ignored her advice that the war in Iraq was illegal has issued a damning legal critique of the occupation, claiming that the alleged abuse of prisoners "could amount to war crimes".
In her first newspaper interview since her resignation, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office, said that the basis for going to war should always be based on "facts" rather than an "assertion" about an "imminent threat". Ms Wilmshurst said "it could be alleged that the use of force in Iraq was aggression" while "the kinds of abusive treatment of Iraqi prisoners that have been alleged could amount to war crimes".http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=537972
Renewed Conservative Attack on the Media: Too much bad news, so a new effort to intimidate. From Knight Ridder (James Kuhnhenn)
With the presidential election likely to turn on developments in Iraq and the U.S. economy, one of the summer's hottest political issues is whether news-media coverage of those topics is fair or biased.
Conservatives across the country decry news coverage of the war as relentlessly and unfairly negative. Last week Brent Bozell, a conservative activist, launched a $2.8 million advertising and talk-radio campaign to discredit the "liberal news media."
Such complaints are escalating - and increasingly conveyed in e-mails to journalists, letters to the editor and even in social settings with news executives - a phenomenon that appears to have been aroused in part by the Republican Party, President Bush's campaign and leading conservatives on talk radio, the Internet and cable TV.
"The bias that's been there is now simply out of control," said Bozell, whose conservative Media Research Center is running newspaper and billboard ads accusing the press of lying. The ads show a stern-faced Uncle Sam warning: "Don't believe the liberal media!"
Protests about media coverage have surged as bad news from Iraq and worries about jobs here at home have driven Bush's approval numbers to all-time lows. The president's supporters say journalists dwell unfairly on casualties and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and ignore positive U.S. economic signs. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9049444.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
Conservatives and (Liberal) Social Science
Thoughtful piece by Franklin Foer in the New Republic:
Conservative distrust of liberal social science — sometimes justified — has metastasized in the past few decades into a distrust of any fact-based research program that reaches non-favored conclusions. Thus the distrust of the CIA when it initially resisted neocon beliefs about Saddam's WMD and the contempt for Arabists and State Department experts who warned that occupying Iraq required real planning and real knowledge.
The disaster this has caused is obvious and immediate. Less immediate, but no less disastrous, is the administration's refusal to acknowledge the CBO's economic projections or the scientific establishment's consensus on global warming. In this administration, if the facts don't fit their agenda, all the worse for the facts.
The most common explanation for this animus is that the White House overflows with political hacks uninterested in the nitty-gritty of policy. But the administration's expert-bashing also has deep roots in ideology. Since its inception, modern American conservatism has harbored a suspicion of experts, who, through adherence to inductive reasoning and academic methodologies, claim to provide objective research and analysis.
To be sure, this social-scientific approach has its limits. Conservatives have raised genuinely troubling questions about its predilection for downplaying the role of "culture" and "values" in shaping human behavior. But the Bush administration has adopted a far more extreme version of this critique: It takes the radically postmodern view that "science," "objectivity," and "truth" are guises for an ulterior, leftist agenda; that experts are so incapable of dispassionate and disinterested analysis that their work doesn't even merit a hearing. And the results have been disastrous. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=BbMEUfpmlzBDZWCV4Imv7o%3D%3D
Biolabs. Overlooked, as it was in the mid-week business section of the NY Times. It deserves our attention.
Convincing, but on the other side is Dr. Richard Spertzel, who lead the U.N. inspection team for bioweapons in Iraq. He and others argue that the level-4 labs are absolutely essential. I can't say who is right. But to invoke Santayana, it took Russia, what, five years to develop the atomic bomb after the Manhattan Project? And Ebright's comment that BSL-4 funding is "the easiest way to bring $100 million to your university" is stinging. We need a Senator Harry Truman, who rose to fame by investigating waste and fraud during World War II, more than ever.
The government and many security experts say one crucial step is to build more high-security laboratories, where scientists can explore the threats posed not only by deadly natural germs, but also by designer pathogens - genetically modified superbugs that could outdo natural viruses and bacteria in their killing power. To this end, the Bush administration has earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars to erect such laboratories in Boston; Galveston, Tex.; and Frederick, Md., among other places, increasing eightfold the overall space devoted to the high-technology buildings.
Dr. Ebright, on the other hand, views the plans as a recipe for catastrophe. The laboratories, called biosafety level 4, or BSL-4, are costly, unnecessary and dangerous, he says.
"I'm concerned about them from the standpoint of science, safety, security, public health and economics," he added in an interview. "They lose on all counts."
Dr. Ebright said the Level 4 labs appeared to be safe. Their crux is multiple layers of protection to keep lethal germs inside - technicians in space suits, filters in air ducts, backup generators, negative pressure so any leaks around sealed doors or windows let clean air in rather than poisonous air out and so on.
But Dr. Ebright noted that the deadly SARS virus recently escaped from BSL-4 and BSL-3 labs in Taiwan, Singapore and Beijing, in each case setting off minor epidemics that killed or sickened people.
The smart alternative, he says, is for national authorities to focus germ-defense research on more realistic threats like simple anthrax, which needs just a Level 2 or Level 3 laboratory for preparation, while still being powerful enough to knock out whole cities.
In the end, Dr. Ebright says, it is simple greed, not science or national security, that lies behind some of the Level 4 offensive.
"It's the easiest way to bring $100 million to your university," he said. "Perhaps the only way." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/29/science/29cont.html?pagewanted=print&position=
If Kerry Wins, what happens to the GOP? E.J. Dionne:
Former representative Steve Gunderson, a Wisconsin Republican, speaks of "a coming civil war in the party" spurred by the efforts of conservatives to purge moderates from its ranks. This civil war over social issues is compounded by new divisions over deficits and the use of tax cuts not only to "promote growth" -- there is, says Gunderson, "nothing wrong with that" -- but also to "shut down the legitimate role of government."
Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, as close as there is in Congress to an old-time liberal Republican, believes that "there would be an acceptance from moderate Republicans for rolling back some of the upper-income tax cuts to address the deficit." Both Chafee and Leach believe that because the 2001 Bush tax cuts are set to expire by 2011, Kerry might successfully negotiate some increases in exchange for making parts of the tax cut permanent. Leach is particularly interested in reforming rather than repealing the estate tax. http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=b68186b1cbddf5c84ccacfec9ec273c4&lat=1088790354&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW6RH05A1C14ECEBA439543FE1E4670
Baptists Criticize Bush Campaign
The Southern Baptist Convention, a conservative denomination closely aligned with President Bush, said it was offended by the Bush-Cheney campaign's effort to use church rosters for campaign purposes.
''I'm appalled that the Bush-Cheney campaign would intrude on a local congregation in this way," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
''The bottom line is, when a church does it, it's nonpartisan and appropriate. When a campaign does it, it's partisan and inappropriate," he said. ''I suspect that this will rub a lot of pastors' fur the wrong way." http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/articles/2004/07/03/bush_camps_outreach_hit_by_church_groups?mode=PF
Florida Felons List:
Follow-up: The Miami Herald finds that at least 2119 were wrongly excluded from the voter roles, that 62% of that number were Democrats, practically 50% were black. The math: A loss of some 1200 votes. Again, at least…
More than 2,100 Florida voters -- many of them black Democrats -- could be wrongly barred from voting in November because Tallahassee elections officials included them on a list of felons potentially ineligible to vote, a Herald investigation has found.
A Florida Division of Elections database lists more than 47,000 people the department said may be ineligible to vote because of felony records. The state is directing local elections offices to check the list and scrub felons from voter rolls.
But a Herald review shows that at least 2,119 of those names -- including 547 in South Florida -- shouldn't be on the list because their rights to vote were formally restored through the state's clemency process. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/9062928.htm
Polls: Kerry up 10 in Michigan (Survey USA)
Unemployment / Underemployment
Unemployment stuck at high level of 5.6%; underemployment higher than at recovery's start
After a few months of healthy job growth, employment grew by just 112,000 jobs in June 2004. The employment growth that began in September 2003 has not been vigorous enough to reduce unemployment, which has remained at 5.6% since January 2004, the same rate as when the recovery began in November 2001 and far higher than the 4.2% level when the recession began in March 2001. Unfortunately, underemployment in the form of involuntary part-time work, discouraged workers, and other marginally attached workers (i.e., those who have looked for work in the last year but are not counted as unemployed) has increased. Specifically, the total underemployment rate was 9.6% in June 2004, up from 9.4% in November 2001 when the recovery began, and far higher than the 7.3% in March 2001 when the recession began. http://www.jobwatch.org/
Massachusetts Tax Update: More revenues means the centrist Democrats want to stabilize the budget; the Governor (Romney) wants to cut taxes.
Lowering the tax rate to 5 percent would cost the state between $200 million and $225 million in fiscal 2005. But it would reduce revenue by twice that amount in fiscal 2006, when it would be in effect for the entire year.
Michael J. Widmer of the Taxpayers Foundation said the revenue number is ''clearly good news after years of bad news."
Widmer said there is enough new money to replenish reserves and reduce the state's reliance on one-time revenue, but not enough to substantially restore past budget cuts or cut taxes. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/07/02/state_revenues_soar?mode=PF
-R
Here are some questions for Moore: If Bush is so “in the pocket” of Saudi Arabia, why is he Ariel Sharon’s strongest backer? Why, when he had Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah down at the Texas ranch a few years ago, did he flip off the Saudi’s peace plan? And most important, why did he invade Iraq—since Saudi Arabia was strongly opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq? Why did he launch his Iraqi adventure over Saudi objections, with many of his advisers chortling that Saudi Arabia would be “next”? Why did he stock his administration with militant neocon crusaders who see Saudi Arabia as the main enemy? Why, Michael?
I have to conclude the Michael Moore is either blind, or a coward. Blind, if he can’t see Bush’s craven ties to Israel, driven by the neocons and the Christian Zionists and Bible-thumping fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell, who consider Israel Jesus’ next stop and see Saudi Arabia as Satanic. Or cowardly, because he knows it and decided not to mention it. Is that because attacking Israel is too hard? Moore’s photo-montage of Saudi princes borders on the racist, showing Bush & Co. clinging to grinning, Semitic-looking Arabs in flowing white robes one after another. Would we stand for a similar, racist-leaning montage of Bush palling around with grinning, Semitic-looking Jews in skullcaps? 'Course not. More important, Moore completely misses the political boat. Perhaps that’s because he relies so heavily on Craig Unger and his book, House of Bush, House of Saud , which makes the same “error.”
And more for Moore. Yes, Bush 41 and his advisers—the Carlyle Group-linked James Baker, et al.—were (and are) connected to Saudi Arabia. Did Moore notice that Baker, along with Brent Scowcroft, and other former advisers to Bush 41 (including Colin Powell) were against the Iraq adventure? And that there were reports that Bush 41 himself thought it was a stupid idea? I can’t believe that Moore can be so stupid. So I can only conclude that he produced this movie the way he did on purpose. Then I read that he didn’t bother inviting Ralph Nader to the Washington, D.C., premiere of the film, and (according to The Washington Post ), Nader called Moore “fat.” Well. Moore is fatheaded. http://www.tompaine.com/articles/blind_or_a_coward.php
Moore Interview: with CBS’s Hannah Storm:
Storm: "Some have said propaganda, do you buy that? Op-ed?"
Moore: "No, I consider the CBS Evening News propaganda. What I do is-"
Storm: "We’ll move beyond on that."
Moore: "Why? Let’s not move beyond that."
Storm: "You know what?"
Moore: "Seriously."
Storm: "No, let’s talk about your movie."
Moore: "But why don’t we talk about the Evening News on this network and the other networks that didn’t do the job they should have done at the beginning of this war?"
Storm: "You know what?"
Moore: "Demanded the evidence, ask the hard questions-"
Storm: "Okay."
Moore: "-we may not of even gone into this war had these networks done their job. I mean, it was a great disservice to the American people because we depend on people who work here and the other networks to go after those in power and say 'Hey, wait a minute. You want to send our kids off to war, we want to know where those weapons of mass destruction are. Let’s see the proof. Let’s see the proof that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11.’"
Storm: "But-"
Moore: "There was no proof and everybody just got embedded and everybody rolled over and everybody knows that now."
Storm: "Michael, the one thing that journalists try to do is to present both sides of the story. And it could be argued that you did not do that in this movie."
Moore: "I certainly didn’t. I presented my side-"
Storm: "You presented your side of the story."
Moore: "Because my side, that’s the side of millions of Americans, rarely gets told. And so, all I’m, look, this is just a humble plea on my behalf and not to you personally, Hannah. But I’m just saying to journalists in general that instead of working so hard to tell both sides of the story, why don’t you just tell that one side, which is the administration, why don’t you ask them the hard questions-"
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/06/25/earlyshow/leisure/celebspot/main626088.shtml
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Show Me the Money- 98% of Reconstruction $ Unspent
The Administration keeps asking for more, yet has $17 billion in unspent reconstruction funds. So what gives? Suzanne Goldenberg’s report.:
The US government spent just 2% of the $18.4bn (£10bn) it had obtained from Congress for the urgent reconstruction of Iraq before formally ending its occupation last week.
The White House budget office report, the first detailed audit of the reconstruction, showed that the US occupation authorities had spent nothing on healthcare or water and sanitation, two of the most urgent needs for Iraqis. In contrast, a total of $9m was spent on administrative expenses.
By June 22 America's reconstruction campaign had spent $366m of the sum allotted to the Iraq Relief and Reconstruction. Fund. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4963338-103550,00.html
P.R. Drive: Dana Milbank, Reliable, at the Washington Post:
With scenes of violence and mayhem in Iraq replaced by more favorable images of the new Iraqi leaders taking charge and former president Saddam Hussein in the dock, top Bush administration officials launched an effort yesterday to ease the public's concern that the war has increased the threat of terrorism against the United States.
In speeches, briefings, interviews and an online chat, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and others used the events surrounding this week's handover of political autonomy in Iraq to rebuild their case that Iraq is experiencing a "historic transformation" and Americans are safer as a result.
And, Dick stays with “the connection”.
Countering the staff of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, which found no "collaborative relationship" between Hussein's Iraq and al Qaeda, Cheney renewed his accusation that they had "long-established ties." He listed several examples and stated: "In the early 1990s, Saddam had sent a brigadier general in the Iraqi intelligence service to Sudan to train al Qaeda in bombmaking and document forgery." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22281-2004Jul1.html
Sadr Changes Mind; Urges (Political) Resistance: Scott Wilson at the WaPost:
Moqtada Sadr, the rebellious Shiite Muslim cleric, insisted Friday that the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq had not ended with the recent handover of limited political powers to an interim government, and called on his followers to continue resisting the large presence of foreign troops in the country.
"I want to draw your attention to the fact there was no transferring of authority," said Jabir Khafaji, a top Sadr lieutenant, reading from a letter from the cleric during Friday prayers at a mosque in the southern city of Kufa where Sadr commonly preaches. "What has changed is the name only."
Khafaji also demanded that the new Iraqi government defer to the Shiite religious leadership based in the neighboring holy city of Najaf. He asserted that the Mahdi Army, Sadr's black-clad militia group that was recently decimated in two months of battle with U.S. forces, was "the army of Iraq."
"I ask the Iraqis to keep rejecting the occupation and call for independence," Khafaji said. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24645-2004Jul2?language=printer
Quiet Admission re Saddam StatueTaking advantage of the holiday weekend, the Army has quietly admitted what all semi-alert folk knew back in April, 2003, that the pulling down of the statue of Saddam was no spontaneous, mass celebration of Iraqis, but rather a U.S.-orchestrated event. From David Zucchino in Saturday’s LA Times
The Army's internal study of the war in Iraq criticizes some efforts by its own psychological operations units, but one spur-of-the-moment effort last year produced the most memorable image of the invasion.
As the Iraqi regime was collapsing on April 9, 2003, Marines converged on Firdos Square in central Baghdad, site of an enormous statue of Saddam Hussein. It was a Marine colonel — not joyous Iraqi civilians, as was widely assumed from the TV images — who decided to topple the statue, the Army report said. And it was a quick-thinking Army psychological operations team that made it appear to be a spontaneous Iraqi undertaking. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-na-statue3jul03,1,5285803.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Legality of the Occupation termed “Flawed”: From the Independent (Marie Woolf)
The senior Foreign Office lawyer who resigned after ministers ignored her advice that the war in Iraq was illegal has issued a damning legal critique of the occupation, claiming that the alleged abuse of prisoners "could amount to war crimes".
In her first newspaper interview since her resignation, Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former deputy legal adviser to the Foreign Office, said that the basis for going to war should always be based on "facts" rather than an "assertion" about an "imminent threat". Ms Wilmshurst said "it could be alleged that the use of force in Iraq was aggression" while "the kinds of abusive treatment of Iraqi prisoners that have been alleged could amount to war crimes".http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=537972
Renewed Conservative Attack on the Media: Too much bad news, so a new effort to intimidate. From Knight Ridder (James Kuhnhenn)
With the presidential election likely to turn on developments in Iraq and the U.S. economy, one of the summer's hottest political issues is whether news-media coverage of those topics is fair or biased.
Conservatives across the country decry news coverage of the war as relentlessly and unfairly negative. Last week Brent Bozell, a conservative activist, launched a $2.8 million advertising and talk-radio campaign to discredit the "liberal news media."
Such complaints are escalating - and increasingly conveyed in e-mails to journalists, letters to the editor and even in social settings with news executives - a phenomenon that appears to have been aroused in part by the Republican Party, President Bush's campaign and leading conservatives on talk radio, the Internet and cable TV.
"The bias that's been there is now simply out of control," said Bozell, whose conservative Media Research Center is running newspaper and billboard ads accusing the press of lying. The ads show a stern-faced Uncle Sam warning: "Don't believe the liberal media!"
Protests about media coverage have surged as bad news from Iraq and worries about jobs here at home have driven Bush's approval numbers to all-time lows. The president's supporters say journalists dwell unfairly on casualties and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and ignore positive U.S. economic signs. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/9049444.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
Conservatives and (Liberal) Social Science
Thoughtful piece by Franklin Foer in the New Republic:
Conservative distrust of liberal social science — sometimes justified — has metastasized in the past few decades into a distrust of any fact-based research program that reaches non-favored conclusions. Thus the distrust of the CIA when it initially resisted neocon beliefs about Saddam's WMD and the contempt for Arabists and State Department experts who warned that occupying Iraq required real planning and real knowledge.
The disaster this has caused is obvious and immediate. Less immediate, but no less disastrous, is the administration's refusal to acknowledge the CBO's economic projections or the scientific establishment's consensus on global warming. In this administration, if the facts don't fit their agenda, all the worse for the facts.
The most common explanation for this animus is that the White House overflows with political hacks uninterested in the nitty-gritty of policy. But the administration's expert-bashing also has deep roots in ideology. Since its inception, modern American conservatism has harbored a suspicion of experts, who, through adherence to inductive reasoning and academic methodologies, claim to provide objective research and analysis.
To be sure, this social-scientific approach has its limits. Conservatives have raised genuinely troubling questions about its predilection for downplaying the role of "culture" and "values" in shaping human behavior. But the Bush administration has adopted a far more extreme version of this critique: It takes the radically postmodern view that "science," "objectivity," and "truth" are guises for an ulterior, leftist agenda; that experts are so incapable of dispassionate and disinterested analysis that their work doesn't even merit a hearing. And the results have been disastrous. http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=BbMEUfpmlzBDZWCV4Imv7o%3D%3D
Biolabs. Overlooked, as it was in the mid-week business section of the NY Times. It deserves our attention.
Convincing, but on the other side is Dr. Richard Spertzel, who lead the U.N. inspection team for bioweapons in Iraq. He and others argue that the level-4 labs are absolutely essential. I can't say who is right. But to invoke Santayana, it took Russia, what, five years to develop the atomic bomb after the Manhattan Project? And Ebright's comment that BSL-4 funding is "the easiest way to bring $100 million to your university" is stinging. We need a Senator Harry Truman, who rose to fame by investigating waste and fraud during World War II, more than ever.
The government and many security experts say one crucial step is to build more high-security laboratories, where scientists can explore the threats posed not only by deadly natural germs, but also by designer pathogens - genetically modified superbugs that could outdo natural viruses and bacteria in their killing power. To this end, the Bush administration has earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars to erect such laboratories in Boston; Galveston, Tex.; and Frederick, Md., among other places, increasing eightfold the overall space devoted to the high-technology buildings.
Dr. Ebright, on the other hand, views the plans as a recipe for catastrophe. The laboratories, called biosafety level 4, or BSL-4, are costly, unnecessary and dangerous, he says.
"I'm concerned about them from the standpoint of science, safety, security, public health and economics," he added in an interview. "They lose on all counts."
Dr. Ebright said the Level 4 labs appeared to be safe. Their crux is multiple layers of protection to keep lethal germs inside - technicians in space suits, filters in air ducts, backup generators, negative pressure so any leaks around sealed doors or windows let clean air in rather than poisonous air out and so on.
But Dr. Ebright noted that the deadly SARS virus recently escaped from BSL-4 and BSL-3 labs in Taiwan, Singapore and Beijing, in each case setting off minor epidemics that killed or sickened people.
The smart alternative, he says, is for national authorities to focus germ-defense research on more realistic threats like simple anthrax, which needs just a Level 2 or Level 3 laboratory for preparation, while still being powerful enough to knock out whole cities.
In the end, Dr. Ebright says, it is simple greed, not science or national security, that lies behind some of the Level 4 offensive.
"It's the easiest way to bring $100 million to your university," he said. "Perhaps the only way." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/29/science/29cont.html?pagewanted=print&position=
If Kerry Wins, what happens to the GOP? E.J. Dionne:
Former representative Steve Gunderson, a Wisconsin Republican, speaks of "a coming civil war in the party" spurred by the efforts of conservatives to purge moderates from its ranks. This civil war over social issues is compounded by new divisions over deficits and the use of tax cuts not only to "promote growth" -- there is, says Gunderson, "nothing wrong with that" -- but also to "shut down the legitimate role of government."
Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, as close as there is in Congress to an old-time liberal Republican, believes that "there would be an acceptance from moderate Republicans for rolling back some of the upper-income tax cuts to address the deficit." Both Chafee and Leach believe that because the 2001 Bush tax cuts are set to expire by 2011, Kerry might successfully negotiate some increases in exchange for making parts of the tax cut permanent. Leach is particularly interested in reforming rather than repealing the estate tax. http://65.54.186.250/cgi-bin/linkrd?_lang=EN&lah=b68186b1cbddf5c84ccacfec9ec273c4&lat=1088790354&hm___action=http%3a%2f%2fletters%2ewashingtonpost%2ecom%2fW6RH05A1C14ECEBA439543FE1E4670
Baptists Criticize Bush Campaign
The Southern Baptist Convention, a conservative denomination closely aligned with President Bush, said it was offended by the Bush-Cheney campaign's effort to use church rosters for campaign purposes.
''I'm appalled that the Bush-Cheney campaign would intrude on a local congregation in this way," said Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
''The bottom line is, when a church does it, it's nonpartisan and appropriate. When a campaign does it, it's partisan and inappropriate," he said. ''I suspect that this will rub a lot of pastors' fur the wrong way." http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/articles/2004/07/03/bush_camps_outreach_hit_by_church_groups?mode=PF
Florida Felons List:
Follow-up: The Miami Herald finds that at least 2119 were wrongly excluded from the voter roles, that 62% of that number were Democrats, practically 50% were black. The math: A loss of some 1200 votes. Again, at least…
More than 2,100 Florida voters -- many of them black Democrats -- could be wrongly barred from voting in November because Tallahassee elections officials included them on a list of felons potentially ineligible to vote, a Herald investigation has found.
A Florida Division of Elections database lists more than 47,000 people the department said may be ineligible to vote because of felony records. The state is directing local elections offices to check the list and scrub felons from voter rolls.
But a Herald review shows that at least 2,119 of those names -- including 547 in South Florida -- shouldn't be on the list because their rights to vote were formally restored through the state's clemency process. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/9062928.htm
Polls: Kerry up 10 in Michigan (Survey USA)
Unemployment / Underemployment
Unemployment stuck at high level of 5.6%; underemployment higher than at recovery's start
After a few months of healthy job growth, employment grew by just 112,000 jobs in June 2004. The employment growth that began in September 2003 has not been vigorous enough to reduce unemployment, which has remained at 5.6% since January 2004, the same rate as when the recovery began in November 2001 and far higher than the 4.2% level when the recession began in March 2001. Unfortunately, underemployment in the form of involuntary part-time work, discouraged workers, and other marginally attached workers (i.e., those who have looked for work in the last year but are not counted as unemployed) has increased. Specifically, the total underemployment rate was 9.6% in June 2004, up from 9.4% in November 2001 when the recovery began, and far higher than the 7.3% in March 2001 when the recession began. http://www.jobwatch.org/
Massachusetts Tax Update: More revenues means the centrist Democrats want to stabilize the budget; the Governor (Romney) wants to cut taxes.
Lowering the tax rate to 5 percent would cost the state between $200 million and $225 million in fiscal 2005. But it would reduce revenue by twice that amount in fiscal 2006, when it would be in effect for the entire year.
Michael J. Widmer of the Taxpayers Foundation said the revenue number is ''clearly good news after years of bad news."
Widmer said there is enough new money to replenish reserves and reduce the state's reliance on one-time revenue, but not enough to substantially restore past budget cuts or cut taxes. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2004/07/02/state_revenues_soar?mode=PF
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