Friday, December 17, 2004
Hysteria re “War on Christianity" I would have loved to be a fly on the wall at the Radical Right meetings where this was developed. The ‘heavy weights’- Richard Viguerie, Bill O’Reilly, Newt Gingrich, etc.- are talking about ‘Christianity under Siege.’ No specifics are offered, but, as we know, that doesn’t matter. Soon, a significant percentage of the population will be mouthing the message.
Frank Rich focuses on it in this coming Sunday’s column:
In the latest and most bizarre twist on this theme, even Christmas is now said to be a target of the anti-Christian mob. "Are we going to abolish the word Christmas?" asked Newt Gingrich, warning that "it absolutely can happen here." Among those courageously leading the fight to save the holiday from its enemies is Bill O'Reilly, who has taken to calling the Anti-Defamation League "an extremist group" and put the threat this way: "Remember, more than 90 percent of American homes celebrate Christmas. But the small minority that is trying to impose its will on the majority is so vicious, so dishonest — and has to be dealt with."
If more than 90 percent of American households celebrate Christmas, you have to wonder why the guy is whining. The only evidence of what Pat Buchanan has called Christmas-season "hate crimes against Christianity" consists of a few ridiculous and isolated incidents, like the banishment of a religious float from a parade in Denver and of religious songs from a high school band concert in New Jersey. (In scale, this is nothing compared with the refusal of the world's largest retailer, Wal- Mart, to stock George Carlin's new best seller, "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?," whose cover depicts its author at the Last Supper.) Yet the hysteria is being pumped up daily by Fox News, newspapers like The New York Post and The Washington Times, and Web sites like savemerrychristmas.org. Mr. O'Reilly and Jerry Falwell have gone so far as to name Michael Bloomberg an anti-Christmas conspirator because the mayor referred to the Christmas tree as a "holiday tree" in the lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/arts/19rich.html?pagewanted=print&position=
So, we have another issue to counter.
This is an example of what’s actually going on:
Emboldened by their Election Day successes, some Christian conservatives around the country are trying to put more Christ into Christmas this season.
In Terrebonne Parish, La., an organization is petitioning to add "Merry Christmas" to the red-lighted "Season's Greetings" sign on the main government building and is selling yard signs that read, "We believe in God. Merry Christmas." And a Raleigh, N.C., church recently paid $7,600 for a full-page newspaper ad urging Christians to spend their money only with merchants who include the greeting "Merry Christmas" in ads and displays.
"There is a revival taking place. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041215/D870269G0.html
Missile Defense: Once again, under ideal conditions (remember, North Korea, you must warn us and attack us only with good weather.), insane missile defense fails. Despite the expense, despite the obviousness as to this being an unworkable idea, we’ve had almost 20 years of this nuttiness.
But, remember, as the WaPost notes, it’s well-intentioned, since they are making an “effort to build a system for defending the country…”
The Bush administration's effort to build a system for defending the country against ballistic missile attack suffered an embarrassing setback yesterday when an interceptor missile failed to launch during the first flight test of the system in two years.
Wednesday's test had been put off several times because of bad weather, and a malfunction of a recovery vessel not directly related to the equipment being tested, The Associated Press reported.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A700-2004Dec15.html
Rule of Law, Here and There As conservative judges have reprimanded the Administration here, British courts have passed judgment on Britain’s role.
Detaining foreigners without trial under emergency anti-terror powers breaks European human rights legislation, law lords ruled today.
A specially-convened committee of nine law lords upheld an appeal by nine foreigners who have been detained without charge or trial, most of them in Belmarsh prison, south-east London, for around three years.
The decision by the law lords, Britain's highest court, throws the government's security policies into chaos and was a blow for Charles Clarke on his first day as home secretary following the resignation of David Blunkett last night. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5087121-111274,00.html
Economic Policy Coherence
President Bush, facing complaints from a European ally about the weakening dollar, said Wednesday that he favored a strong dollar and would work with Congress to cut the massive federal budget deficit that puts downward pressure on the U.S. currency.But before Bush spoke, Vice President Dick Cheney reiterated to a White House economic conference that the administration supported more tax cuts, which some analysts said could deepen the budget deficit and threaten the dollar's value.The White House conference, which continues today, is intended to pave the way for Bush to promote changes to Social Security that the White House has said would probably require more federal borrowing.Despite Bush's statement of support for a strong dollar, the U.S. currency weakened further on international markets, losing more than 1% of its value against the Japanese yen and nearly 1% against the euro. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-econ16dec16,0,6199843,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
But, no one is upset with the state of things. Just sample the comments of the attendees of the Economic “Summit”
"Vice President Dick Cheney: 'If we stay on that path, the years ahead will bring even greater progress and prosperity.' "
Larry Mocha, a Tulsa, Okla., manufacturer of truck air brake systems: 'I want to thank the administration for all the positive things you've done for our economy. ... It hasn't always been this good.'
Treasury Secretary John Snow: 'We are the envy of the world.'
Harvard economics professor Martin Feldstein: 'I'm pleased to say the economy is now in very good shape.'
Social Security (cont): Krugman. So, where’s the DNC?
Yet, aside from giving the Cato Institute and other organizations promoting Social Security privatization the space to present upbeat tales from Chile, the U.S. news media have provided their readers and viewers with little information about international experience. In particular, the public hasn't been let in on two open secrets:
Privatization dissipates a large fraction of workers' contributions on fees to investment companies.
It leaves many retirees in poverty…
So the Bush administration wants to scrap a retirement system that works, and can be made financially sound for generations to come with modest reforms. Instead, it wants to buy into failure, emulating systems that, when tried elsewhere, have neither saved money nor protected the elderly from poverty. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/opinion/17krugman.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Campaigning, Allawi style. I know the Bush events were controlled, but this reaches new heights.
Dr. Allawi's campaign started on an unpropitious note, when American and Iraqi forces closed off sections of central Baghdad so he could leave the Green Zone and cross the Tigris River to declare his candidacy at a sports club. But Western reporters judged the three-mile journey to be too hazardous in the bus provided by Allawi aides, and remained behind.
Five hours later, he stood before fewer than 60 people, about half of whom were his own aides. With American bodyguards in flak jackets and cradling automatic weapons patrolling the club's auditorium, Dr. Allawi read a brief statement and returned hastily to the Green Zone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/international/middleeast/16iraq.html?oref=login&pagewanted=all&position=
National Guard’s next generation:
In the latest signs of strains on the military from the war in Iraq, the Army National Guard announced on Thursday that it had fallen 30 percent below its recruiting goals in the last two months and would offer new incentives, including enlistment bonuses of up to $15,000. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/politics/17reserves.html?hp&ex=1103346000&en=ec0828fe89a6661d&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Taking Care of Adults at the Expense of Kids.
The federal government is using money that was intended for vaccinating children to pay for experimental flu vaccines for adults, federal health officials said yesterday.
But some state health officials say that protecting adults at the expense of children is wrong.
"We should not be pitting vaccines for children against vaccines for adults," said Mary Selecky, the secretary of health in Washington State. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/health/16flu.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
You didn’t think the money was coming out of the Iraqi invasion budget, yes?
Career Path: First you sabotage Medicare, then you collect.
Representative Billy Tauzin, a principal author of the new Medicare drug law, will become president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the chief lobby for brand-name drug companies, the trade group announced Wednesday.
Mr. Tauzin (pronounced TOE-zan) and Mr. White refused to discuss Mr. Tauzin's new salary, except to say it was comparable to the pay at other large trade associations. People at other trade groups said they believed that Mr. Tauzin would receive $2 million a year or more. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/politics/16drug.html
-R
Frank Rich focuses on it in this coming Sunday’s column:
In the latest and most bizarre twist on this theme, even Christmas is now said to be a target of the anti-Christian mob. "Are we going to abolish the word Christmas?" asked Newt Gingrich, warning that "it absolutely can happen here." Among those courageously leading the fight to save the holiday from its enemies is Bill O'Reilly, who has taken to calling the Anti-Defamation League "an extremist group" and put the threat this way: "Remember, more than 90 percent of American homes celebrate Christmas. But the small minority that is trying to impose its will on the majority is so vicious, so dishonest — and has to be dealt with."
If more than 90 percent of American households celebrate Christmas, you have to wonder why the guy is whining. The only evidence of what Pat Buchanan has called Christmas-season "hate crimes against Christianity" consists of a few ridiculous and isolated incidents, like the banishment of a religious float from a parade in Denver and of religious songs from a high school band concert in New Jersey. (In scale, this is nothing compared with the refusal of the world's largest retailer, Wal- Mart, to stock George Carlin's new best seller, "When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?," whose cover depicts its author at the Last Supper.) Yet the hysteria is being pumped up daily by Fox News, newspapers like The New York Post and The Washington Times, and Web sites like savemerrychristmas.org. Mr. O'Reilly and Jerry Falwell have gone so far as to name Michael Bloomberg an anti-Christmas conspirator because the mayor referred to the Christmas tree as a "holiday tree" in the lighting ceremony at Rockefeller Center. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/arts/19rich.html?pagewanted=print&position=
So, we have another issue to counter.
This is an example of what’s actually going on:
Emboldened by their Election Day successes, some Christian conservatives around the country are trying to put more Christ into Christmas this season.
In Terrebonne Parish, La., an organization is petitioning to add "Merry Christmas" to the red-lighted "Season's Greetings" sign on the main government building and is selling yard signs that read, "We believe in God. Merry Christmas." And a Raleigh, N.C., church recently paid $7,600 for a full-page newspaper ad urging Christians to spend their money only with merchants who include the greeting "Merry Christmas" in ads and displays.
"There is a revival taking place. http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041215/D870269G0.html
Missile Defense: Once again, under ideal conditions (remember, North Korea, you must warn us and attack us only with good weather.), insane missile defense fails. Despite the expense, despite the obviousness as to this being an unworkable idea, we’ve had almost 20 years of this nuttiness.
But, remember, as the WaPost notes, it’s well-intentioned, since they are making an “effort to build a system for defending the country…”
The Bush administration's effort to build a system for defending the country against ballistic missile attack suffered an embarrassing setback yesterday when an interceptor missile failed to launch during the first flight test of the system in two years.
Wednesday's test had been put off several times because of bad weather, and a malfunction of a recovery vessel not directly related to the equipment being tested, The Associated Press reported.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A700-2004Dec15.html
Rule of Law, Here and There As conservative judges have reprimanded the Administration here, British courts have passed judgment on Britain’s role.
Detaining foreigners without trial under emergency anti-terror powers breaks European human rights legislation, law lords ruled today.
A specially-convened committee of nine law lords upheld an appeal by nine foreigners who have been detained without charge or trial, most of them in Belmarsh prison, south-east London, for around three years.
The decision by the law lords, Britain's highest court, throws the government's security policies into chaos and was a blow for Charles Clarke on his first day as home secretary following the resignation of David Blunkett last night. http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5087121-111274,00.html
Economic Policy Coherence
President Bush, facing complaints from a European ally about the weakening dollar, said Wednesday that he favored a strong dollar and would work with Congress to cut the massive federal budget deficit that puts downward pressure on the U.S. currency.But before Bush spoke, Vice President Dick Cheney reiterated to a White House economic conference that the administration supported more tax cuts, which some analysts said could deepen the budget deficit and threaten the dollar's value.The White House conference, which continues today, is intended to pave the way for Bush to promote changes to Social Security that the White House has said would probably require more federal borrowing.Despite Bush's statement of support for a strong dollar, the U.S. currency weakened further on international markets, losing more than 1% of its value against the Japanese yen and nearly 1% against the euro. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-econ16dec16,0,6199843,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines
But, no one is upset with the state of things. Just sample the comments of the attendees of the Economic “Summit”
"Vice President Dick Cheney: 'If we stay on that path, the years ahead will bring even greater progress and prosperity.' "
Larry Mocha, a Tulsa, Okla., manufacturer of truck air brake systems: 'I want to thank the administration for all the positive things you've done for our economy. ... It hasn't always been this good.'
Treasury Secretary John Snow: 'We are the envy of the world.'
Harvard economics professor Martin Feldstein: 'I'm pleased to say the economy is now in very good shape.'
Social Security (cont): Krugman. So, where’s the DNC?
Yet, aside from giving the Cato Institute and other organizations promoting Social Security privatization the space to present upbeat tales from Chile, the U.S. news media have provided their readers and viewers with little information about international experience. In particular, the public hasn't been let in on two open secrets:
Privatization dissipates a large fraction of workers' contributions on fees to investment companies.
It leaves many retirees in poverty…
So the Bush administration wants to scrap a retirement system that works, and can be made financially sound for generations to come with modest reforms. Instead, it wants to buy into failure, emulating systems that, when tried elsewhere, have neither saved money nor protected the elderly from poverty. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/opinion/17krugman.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Campaigning, Allawi style. I know the Bush events were controlled, but this reaches new heights.
Dr. Allawi's campaign started on an unpropitious note, when American and Iraqi forces closed off sections of central Baghdad so he could leave the Green Zone and cross the Tigris River to declare his candidacy at a sports club. But Western reporters judged the three-mile journey to be too hazardous in the bus provided by Allawi aides, and remained behind.
Five hours later, he stood before fewer than 60 people, about half of whom were his own aides. With American bodyguards in flak jackets and cradling automatic weapons patrolling the club's auditorium, Dr. Allawi read a brief statement and returned hastily to the Green Zone.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/international/middleeast/16iraq.html?oref=login&pagewanted=all&position=
National Guard’s next generation:
In the latest signs of strains on the military from the war in Iraq, the Army National Guard announced on Thursday that it had fallen 30 percent below its recruiting goals in the last two months and would offer new incentives, including enlistment bonuses of up to $15,000. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/politics/17reserves.html?hp&ex=1103346000&en=ec0828fe89a6661d&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Taking Care of Adults at the Expense of Kids.
The federal government is using money that was intended for vaccinating children to pay for experimental flu vaccines for adults, federal health officials said yesterday.
But some state health officials say that protecting adults at the expense of children is wrong.
"We should not be pitting vaccines for children against vaccines for adults," said Mary Selecky, the secretary of health in Washington State. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/health/16flu.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
You didn’t think the money was coming out of the Iraqi invasion budget, yes?
Career Path: First you sabotage Medicare, then you collect.
Representative Billy Tauzin, a principal author of the new Medicare drug law, will become president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the chief lobby for brand-name drug companies, the trade group announced Wednesday.
Mr. Tauzin (pronounced TOE-zan) and Mr. White refused to discuss Mr. Tauzin's new salary, except to say it was comparable to the pay at other large trade associations. People at other trade groups said they believed that Mr. Tauzin would receive $2 million a year or more. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/16/politics/16drug.html
-R
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
What’s Happening, Iraq:
“Force Protection”: Rumsfeld was not surprised by the GI last week. The following is from a May 13 visit to Iraq. Rumsfeld didn’t answer, but stood next to General Myers, who said the following.
Q How you doing, sir? (Inaudible.) I have force protection questions, sir.
SEC. RUMSFELD: You have what?
Q Force protection.
SEC. RUMSFELD: General Myers. (Laughter.)
Q Sir, my unit, the 2nd Brigade -- (inaudible) -- Cav, we have five out of the six red zones in this country. And with the up- armored humvees, the new -- (off mike) -- humvees they're bringing over with the -- (inaudible) -- those doors are not as good as the ones on the up-armored humvees -- (inaudible). We even lost quite -- we lost some soldiers due to them, and we're trying to make a change -- (inaudible). The question is, are we going to get more up-armored humvees?
Production is ramping up this month. I think it's around 220, 225 per month. We've gathered them from all other services that had them except for a few we held back for a nuclear security role back in the United States. The rest of them shipped over here. We're trying to get them to you as fast as we can http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20040513-secdef0747.html
Casualties: Apart from the Iraqis…
1,440 allied killed1,294 U.S. killed2.27 killed per day9,766 U.S. wounded in action http://icasualties.org/oif/
Hired Help in Iraq: Colombians please apply
A US company has recruited 25 retired Colombian police and army officers to provide security for oil infrastructure in Iraq, according to the newspaper El Tiempo.
The officers met in northern Bogota on December 2 with a Colombian colonel, who, on behalf of “Halliburton Latin America,” offered them monthly salaries of 7,000 dollars to provide security for oil workers and infrastructure in several Iraqi cities, according to one of the men, who spoke on condition of anonymity. http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2004/December/focusoniraq_December105.xml§ion=focusoniraq
Spain: Bush’s Model? They’re not only secretive, but the ousted Aznar regime (which, you’ll recall, blamed last March’s bombing on the Basque separatists, fearing a backlash against their support of the Iraq invasion) has destroyed all of its documents from those days, and then charged the cost to the government.
Socialists claim that Señor Aznar deliberately withheld from the public evidence of an Islamic link, fearing a backlash against his support for the American-led war in Iraq. Those claims have been denied by Señor Aznar.
Yesterday Señor Zapatero said that it had been impossible to establish the truth because computer records had been destroyed.
Giving evidence under oath he said: “In the Prime Minister’s office we did not have a single document or any data on computer because the whole Cabinet of the previous Government carried out a massive erasure.
“That means that we have nothing about what happened, information that might have been received, meetings or decisions that were taken from March 11 until March 14.”
Señor Zapatero confirmed a report in El País, the left- of-centre daily newspaper, that a wide range of policy documents covering the eight years of Señor Aznar’s administration was missing.
The newspaper said that Señor Aznar’s Government had paid a private company €12,000 (£8,000) to destroy the documents. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1402824,00.html
Social Security: The first details emerge. The b______d’s want to kill the principal program that provides our social glue. Again, minor tweaking is all that is needed. The system is fine until at least 2042, perhaps 10 more years and even then… Anyway, Medicare is much more of a problem, but we should shiver at the prospect of the Bushies dealing with it.
As President Bush gears up for a major public push to overhaul Social Security, he has focused almost all his rhetorical energy on the need to let people divert some of their taxes to private retirement accounts.
But nearly every leading Republican proposal on Capitol Hill acknowledges that private accounts by themselves do little to solve the system's projected shortfall of at least $3.5 trillion. Instead, those proposals rely on deep cuts in benefits to future retirees.
That uncomfortable political truth was driven home on Monday by the head of the investigative arm of Congress.
"The creation of private accounts for Social Security will not deal with the solvency and sustainability of the Social Security fund," that official, David M. Walker, comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office, said in a speech on Monday.
Or, as Thomas Saving, a Republican-appointed trustee to the Social Security trust fund put it last week: "Fundamentally, if you don't reduce the benefits, you don't reduce the debt."
Some of the Republican proposals would raise the age when people can start to receive benefits. Others would reduce payments to beneficiaries to account for longer life expectancies. Still others would reduce payments to married couples and scale back the annual increases that are made to keep pace with inflation. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/politics/14social.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Electoral Cheating… in the NY Times, page A23. It remains a very long shot, but at least…
The ranking Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, plans to ask the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a county prosecutor in Ohio today to explore "inappropriate and likely illegal election tampering" in at least one and perhaps several Ohio counties.
The request for an investigation, made in a letter that was also provided to The New York Times, includes accounts from at least two county employees, but is based largely on a sworn affidavit provided by the Hocking County deputy director of elections, Sherole Eaton.
Among other things, Ms. Eaton says in her affidavit that a representative of Triad Governmental Systems, the Ohio firm that created and maintains the vote-counting software in dozens of Ohio counties, made several adjustments to the Hocking County tabulator last Friday, in advance of the state's recount, which is taking place this week. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/politics/15ohio.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
U.S. vs the World: Upshot
The leaders of India, Russia and China are planning to hold a summit next year aimed at countering the dominance of the United States in international affairs, a newspaper reported on Saturday. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh discussed the possibility of a three-way dialogue at a meeting in New Delhi on Friday, the Asian Age newspaper reported. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_5-12-2004_pg4_16
Frist and the ‘Nuclear Option’: Will he or won’t he? This refers to eliminating the filibuster.
As speculation mounts that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist will step down from the Supreme Court soon because of thyroid cancer, Senate Republican leaders are preparing for a showdown to keep Democrats from blocking President Bush's judicial nominations, including a replacement for Rehnquist.
Republicans say that Democrats have abused the filibuster by blocking 10 of the president's 229 judicial nominees in his first term -- although confirmation of Bush nominees exceeds in most cases the first-term experience of presidents dating to Ronald Reagan. Describing the filibusters as intolerable, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has hinted he may resort to an unusual parliamentary maneuver, dubbed the "nuclear option," to thwart such filibusters.
"One way or another, the filibuster of judicial nominees must end," he said in a speech to the Federalist Society last month, labeling the use of filibusters against judicial nominees a "formula for tyranny by the minority."
So far, at least, Democrats are refusing to forgo filibusters and say they will fight any effort by Frist to act unilaterally to end them for judicial nominations. They warn that it could poison the well for bipartisan cooperation on other issues in the upcoming Congress.
"If they, for whatever reason, decide to do this, it's not only wrong, they will rue the day they did it, because we will do whatever we can do to strike back," incoming Senate Democratic leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) said last week. "I know procedures around here. And I know that there will still be Senate business conducted. But I will, for lack of a better word, screw things up." http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59877-2004Dec12?language=printer
-R
“Force Protection”: Rumsfeld was not surprised by the GI last week. The following is from a May 13 visit to Iraq. Rumsfeld didn’t answer, but stood next to General Myers, who said the following.
Q How you doing, sir? (Inaudible.) I have force protection questions, sir.
SEC. RUMSFELD: You have what?
Q Force protection.
SEC. RUMSFELD: General Myers. (Laughter.)
Q Sir, my unit, the 2nd Brigade -- (inaudible) -- Cav, we have five out of the six red zones in this country. And with the up- armored humvees, the new -- (off mike) -- humvees they're bringing over with the -- (inaudible) -- those doors are not as good as the ones on the up-armored humvees -- (inaudible). We even lost quite -- we lost some soldiers due to them, and we're trying to make a change -- (inaudible). The question is, are we going to get more up-armored humvees?
Production is ramping up this month. I think it's around 220, 225 per month. We've gathered them from all other services that had them except for a few we held back for a nuclear security role back in the United States. The rest of them shipped over here. We're trying to get them to you as fast as we can http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20040513-secdef0747.html
Casualties: Apart from the Iraqis…
1,440 allied killed1,294 U.S. killed2.27 killed per day9,766 U.S. wounded in action http://icasualties.org/oif/
Hired Help in Iraq: Colombians please apply
A US company has recruited 25 retired Colombian police and army officers to provide security for oil infrastructure in Iraq, according to the newspaper El Tiempo.
The officers met in northern Bogota on December 2 with a Colombian colonel, who, on behalf of “Halliburton Latin America,” offered them monthly salaries of 7,000 dollars to provide security for oil workers and infrastructure in several Iraqi cities, according to one of the men, who spoke on condition of anonymity. http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2004/December/focusoniraq_December105.xml§ion=focusoniraq
Spain: Bush’s Model? They’re not only secretive, but the ousted Aznar regime (which, you’ll recall, blamed last March’s bombing on the Basque separatists, fearing a backlash against their support of the Iraq invasion) has destroyed all of its documents from those days, and then charged the cost to the government.
Socialists claim that Señor Aznar deliberately withheld from the public evidence of an Islamic link, fearing a backlash against his support for the American-led war in Iraq. Those claims have been denied by Señor Aznar.
Yesterday Señor Zapatero said that it had been impossible to establish the truth because computer records had been destroyed.
Giving evidence under oath he said: “In the Prime Minister’s office we did not have a single document or any data on computer because the whole Cabinet of the previous Government carried out a massive erasure.
“That means that we have nothing about what happened, information that might have been received, meetings or decisions that were taken from March 11 until March 14.”
Señor Zapatero confirmed a report in El País, the left- of-centre daily newspaper, that a wide range of policy documents covering the eight years of Señor Aznar’s administration was missing.
The newspaper said that Señor Aznar’s Government had paid a private company €12,000 (£8,000) to destroy the documents. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1402824,00.html
Social Security: The first details emerge. The b______d’s want to kill the principal program that provides our social glue. Again, minor tweaking is all that is needed. The system is fine until at least 2042, perhaps 10 more years and even then… Anyway, Medicare is much more of a problem, but we should shiver at the prospect of the Bushies dealing with it.
As President Bush gears up for a major public push to overhaul Social Security, he has focused almost all his rhetorical energy on the need to let people divert some of their taxes to private retirement accounts.
But nearly every leading Republican proposal on Capitol Hill acknowledges that private accounts by themselves do little to solve the system's projected shortfall of at least $3.5 trillion. Instead, those proposals rely on deep cuts in benefits to future retirees.
That uncomfortable political truth was driven home on Monday by the head of the investigative arm of Congress.
"The creation of private accounts for Social Security will not deal with the solvency and sustainability of the Social Security fund," that official, David M. Walker, comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office, said in a speech on Monday.
Or, as Thomas Saving, a Republican-appointed trustee to the Social Security trust fund put it last week: "Fundamentally, if you don't reduce the benefits, you don't reduce the debt."
Some of the Republican proposals would raise the age when people can start to receive benefits. Others would reduce payments to beneficiaries to account for longer life expectancies. Still others would reduce payments to married couples and scale back the annual increases that are made to keep pace with inflation. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/14/politics/14social.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Electoral Cheating… in the NY Times, page A23. It remains a very long shot, but at least…
The ranking Democratic member of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, plans to ask the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a county prosecutor in Ohio today to explore "inappropriate and likely illegal election tampering" in at least one and perhaps several Ohio counties.
The request for an investigation, made in a letter that was also provided to The New York Times, includes accounts from at least two county employees, but is based largely on a sworn affidavit provided by the Hocking County deputy director of elections, Sherole Eaton.
Among other things, Ms. Eaton says in her affidavit that a representative of Triad Governmental Systems, the Ohio firm that created and maintains the vote-counting software in dozens of Ohio counties, made several adjustments to the Hocking County tabulator last Friday, in advance of the state's recount, which is taking place this week. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/15/politics/15ohio.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
U.S. vs the World: Upshot
The leaders of India, Russia and China are planning to hold a summit next year aimed at countering the dominance of the United States in international affairs, a newspaper reported on Saturday. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh discussed the possibility of a three-way dialogue at a meeting in New Delhi on Friday, the Asian Age newspaper reported. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_5-12-2004_pg4_16
Frist and the ‘Nuclear Option’: Will he or won’t he? This refers to eliminating the filibuster.
As speculation mounts that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist will step down from the Supreme Court soon because of thyroid cancer, Senate Republican leaders are preparing for a showdown to keep Democrats from blocking President Bush's judicial nominations, including a replacement for Rehnquist.
Republicans say that Democrats have abused the filibuster by blocking 10 of the president's 229 judicial nominees in his first term -- although confirmation of Bush nominees exceeds in most cases the first-term experience of presidents dating to Ronald Reagan. Describing the filibusters as intolerable, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has hinted he may resort to an unusual parliamentary maneuver, dubbed the "nuclear option," to thwart such filibusters.
"One way or another, the filibuster of judicial nominees must end," he said in a speech to the Federalist Society last month, labeling the use of filibusters against judicial nominees a "formula for tyranny by the minority."
So far, at least, Democrats are refusing to forgo filibusters and say they will fight any effort by Frist to act unilaterally to end them for judicial nominations. They warn that it could poison the well for bipartisan cooperation on other issues in the upcoming Congress.
"If they, for whatever reason, decide to do this, it's not only wrong, they will rue the day they did it, because we will do whatever we can do to strike back," incoming Senate Democratic leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) said last week. "I know procedures around here. And I know that there will still be Senate business conducted. But I will, for lack of a better word, screw things up." http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59877-2004Dec12?language=printer
-R
Monday, December 13, 2004
HIV / AIDS & World Health Status report:
The HIV/AIDS pandemic is the worst catastrophe in history and is blighting childhood across the developing world, especially sub-Saharan Africa, the United Nations said Thursday. Advances in children's survival, health and education are being reversed by a "triple whammy" of AIDS, conflict and poverty, according to the U.N. children's agency, UNICEF. The disease is driving the destruction of basic services for 1 billion children and violating their right to grow and develop, said Carol Bellamy, the organization's executive director. "We believe AIDS is the worst catastrophe ever to hit the world," she told the Guardian. "It is just ripping up systems, be it health or education. Our children's childhood is being robbed from them."
But the agency and Bellamy have been strongly criticized by the editor of one of the world's leading medical journals, the Lancet. In an editorial published Friday, Richard Horton said UNICEF's "preoccupation" with children's rights meant that the fundamental right to survival was, "shamefully," not at the core of its work. "In sum, for almost a decade, child survival has failed to get the attention it deserves," he writes.
In UNICEF's 150-page annual report, "The State of the World's Children 2005," the agency paints a bleak picture of sub-Saharan Africa slipping further behind other developing regions such as southern Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Researchers also found that --
· Of the 15 million children orphaned by AIDS, 80 percent are African.
· One in six (90 million) children are severely hungry.
· One in seven (270 million) have no healthcare at all.
· Nearly half of the 3.6 million people killed in war since 1990 have been children. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/10/children_aids/print.html
Social Security ‘Big Lie’ Continues:
The system is headed towards bankruptcy down the road. If we do not act soon, Social Security will not be there for our children and grandchildren. -Bush, in weekly radio address
Like al-Qaeda and Saddam, the existence of wmd, etc., the Right / the Administration will tell this lie until a significant percentage of the population buys in. So, we (and the Democrats) have a responsibility to scream the opposite…NOW. Need specifics?: tell people that there’s enough in the system to pay out fully until 2045 and then pay 75% of promised benefits after that point, which would be equal to or higher in real dollars than current benefit levels. So, perhaps, some adjustments for 40 years hence need to be made, but that hardly justifies this crazed idea. We know the intention, to destroy the New Deal / the social “safety net”.
The media, unfortunately, are too often parroting the words of the Administration, noting that social security “reform” is necessary to respond to the “crisis.” Phooey on CBS, CNN, MSNBC.
From Media Matters for America:
Several cable and network news reports on President Bush's December 9 Oval Office meeting with Social Security trustees gave implicit support to the administration's plans to overhaul Social Security (which entails partial privatization) by repeating the crisis rhetoric of privatization proponents, suggesting that the Bush administration's plan offers a solution to the purported crisis, and bolstering the administration's plan through one-sided interviews with conservative guests. Some in the media have also mischaracterized the Democratic response to the administration's push for reform. http://mediamatters.org/items/200412100012
Note: Media Matters does terrific work and deserves our support. Besides, this week Bill O’Reilly ‘recommended’ them, terming Media Matters “the most vile, despicable human beings in the country.” A tax-deductible contribution can be made at https://mediamatters.org/etc/donate.html
Bill Moyers Tribute. He leaves PBS next week. Huge loss
At a time when TV networks--including PBS--were bowing to commercial and ideological pressures that were antithetical to journalism, Moyers created a program that many viewers recognized as the only reason to turn on the TV in the Bush era. NOW will carry on with the able crew that Moyers assembled. And whether or not the program thrives without Moyers, the legacy he created will remain. James Madison said, "A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both" and warned that "a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives." In a time of farce and tragedy, Bill Moyers did his best to arm the people with the power knowledge gives and to affirm that there's still a place for TV journalism that nurtures citizenship and democracy. http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20041227&s=editors2
Kerik: What a nominee. Before letting him go, I’ll just note that there was controversy over alleged personal improprieties / abuse of power during his brief stay in Iraq and his time in Saudi Arabia, a bunch of lawsuits, ties to and gifts from a ‘mobbed-up’ construction company, and these reports, courtesy of the NY media. [The NY Times finally covered it on Monday, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/nyregion/13kerik.html?oref=login .] Bizarrely, the Administration asserts that only the nanny problem concerned them.
In the 48 hours before his withdrawal as nominee for the nation's top security post, Bernard Kerik and his lawyer scrambled to keep damaging assertions about his past out of the public spotlight.A week after President George W. Bush announced the former city police commissioner as his choice for Homeland Security secretary, an array of charges and questions about Kerik's past were coming to a boil, threatening his crafted image as an American legend and portending a rougher Senate confirmation process than first predicted.On Thursday, the day before he took his name from contention, Kerik, 49, was forced to testify in a civil lawsuit about an alleged affair with a subordinate.The case, which involves Kerik's use of authority when he was city correction commissioner between 1998 and 2000, was brought against the city by a former deputy warden. Plaintiff Eric DeRavin III contends Kerik kept him from getting promoted because he had reprimanded the woman, Correction Officer Jeanette Pinero…
On Friday, Kerik was fending off other charges. Tacopina was in contact with at least one TV news organization in a bid to keep it from airing an interview with another ex-jail supervisor, sources said. The interview contained other allegations against Kerik, some of which have already been in print, the sources said. http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-main12,0,240731,print.story?coll=ny-homepage-big-pix
Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik accepted thousands of dollars in cash and gifts without making proper public disclosures, a Daily News investigation has revealed. http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/261266p-223749c.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: 7 marines died on Sunday and we’re bombing the city (Fallujah) that we supposedly captured.
The ‘manpower’ shortage reaches new heights.
Dr. John Caulfield thought it had to be a mistake when the Army asked him to return to active duty. After all, he's 70 years old and had already retired - twice. He left the Army in 1980 and private practice two years ago.
"My first reaction was disbelief," Caulfield said. "It never occurred to me that they would call a 70-year-old." http://www.marionstar.com/news/stories/20041211/localnews/1731211.html
The Times-on-line adds,
"While insurgents draw on deep wells of fury to expand their ranks in Iraq, the US military is fighting desertion, recruitment shortfalls and legal challenges from its own troops.
…"Many experts say that America's 1.4 million active-duty troops and 865,000 part-timers are stretched to the point where President Bush may see other foreign policy goals blunted. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1397131,00.html
Payback time. Hardball with any and all who oppose this Regime.
The Bush administration has dozens of intercepts of Mohamed ElBaradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and is scrutinizing them in search of ammunition to oust him as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to three U.S. government officials.
But the diplomatic offensive will not be easy. The administration has failed to come up with a candidate willing to oppose ElBaradei, who has run the agency since 1997, and there is disagreement among some senior officials over how hard to push for his removal, and what the diplomatic costs of a public campaign against him could be.
Although eavesdropping, even on allies, is considered a well-worn tool of national security and diplomacy, the efforts against ElBaradei demonstrate the lengths some within the administration are willing to go to replace a top international diplomat who questioned U.S. intelligence on Iraq and is now taking a cautious approach on Iran.
The intercepted calls have not produced any evidence of nefarious conduct by ElBaradei, according to three officials who have read them. But some within the administration believe they show ElBaradei lacks impartiality because he tried to help Iran navigate a diplomatic crisis over its nuclear programs. Others argue the transcripts demonstrate nothing more than standard telephone diplomacy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57928-2004Dec11?language=printer
What’s Happening, Russia. Bush looked into Putin’s soul and this time…
The Bush administration is beginning a broad review of its Russia policy that could lead to a more confrontational approach toward Moscow over its treatment of neighboring countries and its own citizens, U.S. officials said.For the past four years, the administration muted its criticism of Russia's approach to democratic values as Washington tried to build a "strategic partnership" with Moscow to fight terrorism and weapons proliferation. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-usrussia12dec12,0,5084532.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Frank Rich on Sex. Gotta read this one, huh?
Empowered by that Election Day "moral values" poll result, it is pressing for a whole host of second-term gifts from the Bush administration: further rollbacks of stem-cell research, gay civil rights, pulchritude sightings at N.F.L. games and, dare I say it aloud, reproductive rights for women. "If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them," wrote Bob Jones III, president of the eponymous South Carolina university, to President Bush after the election. "Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil." Such is the perceived clout of this Republican base at government agencies like the F.C.C. that it need only burp and 66 frightened ABC affiliates instantly dump their network's broadcast of that indecent movie "Saving Private Ryan" on Veterans Day.
In the case of "Kinsey," the Traditional Values Coalition has called for a yearlong boycott of all movies released by Fox. (With the hypocrisy we've come to expect, it does not ask its members to boycott Fox's corporate sibling in the Murdoch empire, Fox News.) But such organizations don't really care about "Kinsey" - an art-house picture that, however well reviewed or Oscar-nominated, will be seen by a relatively small audience, mostly in blue states. The film is just this month's handy pretext for advancing the larger goal of pushing sex of all nonbiblical kinds back into the closet and undermining any scientific findings, whether circa 1948 or 2004, that might challenge fundamentalist sexual orthodoxy as successfully as Darwin challenged Genesis. (Though that success, too, is in doubt: The Washington Post reports that this year some 40 states are dealing with challenges to the teaching of evolution in public schools.) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/arts/12rich.html?oref=login
For those who didn’t get or read it, the Move-On message to the DNC
"For years, the party has been led by elite Washington insiders who are closer to corporate lobbyists than they are to the Democratic base," Pariser wrote. "But we can’t afford four more years of leadership by a consulting class of professional election losers.""In the last year, grass-roots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the party doesn’t need corporate cash to be competitive," the message continued. "Now it’s our party: we bought it, we own it, and we’re going to take it back."
Electoral Cheating and the Media: Mainstream media getting on it? AP report:
As the Electoral College prepares to certify President Bush's re-election on Monday, concerns persist about the integrity of the nation's voting system — particularly in Ohio, where details continue to emerge of technology failures, voter confusion and overcrowded polling stations in minority and poor neighborhoods. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=14&u=/ap/20041210/ap_on_el_pr/unsettled_election
Gary Webb: You might remember this journalist from his 1996 reports about the CIA’s drug running in LA and using the profits to fund the Contras, the US-funded hooligans who opposed the government of Nicaragua. He had a powerful series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News and then a book, Dark Alliance. He was attacked by mainstream media and the CIA and the discovered imperfections in his articles were the basis for the media announcing that his story was “discredited.”
The NY Times ran his obituary today.
Gary Webb, a reporter who won national attention with a series of articles, later discredited, linking the Central Intelligence Agency to the spread of crack cocaine in Los Angeles, was found dead on Friday at his home in Carmichael, Calif., near Sacramento. He was 49.
The cause was an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/obituaries/13webb.html
Flights to Vietnam: If you're considering, don’t fly United. Vietnam Airlines is vastly superior.
The first commercial flight between the United States and Vietnam since their war 30 years ago landed yesterday to open a new chapter of cultural and economic exchange between the former foes.
United Airlines Flight 869, fully booked with 347 passengers on board, landed at Tan Son Nhat airport after an 18-hour journey from San Francisco.
The flight was sent on its way with an elaborate departure ceremony. An audience of invited guests and passengers gathered to listen to speeches from American and Vietnamese dignitaries.
Passengers disembarking in Ho Chi Minh City were greeted by Vietnamese women wearing traditional white tunics, or aodais, and holding lotus blossoms and silk lanterns. The flight will be followed by daily flights between the cities as United seeks to capitalise on the more than one million Vietnamese who live in the US, the largest number in a single country outside Vietnam. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1398047,00.html
-R
The HIV/AIDS pandemic is the worst catastrophe in history and is blighting childhood across the developing world, especially sub-Saharan Africa, the United Nations said Thursday. Advances in children's survival, health and education are being reversed by a "triple whammy" of AIDS, conflict and poverty, according to the U.N. children's agency, UNICEF. The disease is driving the destruction of basic services for 1 billion children and violating their right to grow and develop, said Carol Bellamy, the organization's executive director. "We believe AIDS is the worst catastrophe ever to hit the world," she told the Guardian. "It is just ripping up systems, be it health or education. Our children's childhood is being robbed from them."
But the agency and Bellamy have been strongly criticized by the editor of one of the world's leading medical journals, the Lancet. In an editorial published Friday, Richard Horton said UNICEF's "preoccupation" with children's rights meant that the fundamental right to survival was, "shamefully," not at the core of its work. "In sum, for almost a decade, child survival has failed to get the attention it deserves," he writes.
In UNICEF's 150-page annual report, "The State of the World's Children 2005," the agency paints a bleak picture of sub-Saharan Africa slipping further behind other developing regions such as southern Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Researchers also found that --
· Of the 15 million children orphaned by AIDS, 80 percent are African.
· One in six (90 million) children are severely hungry.
· One in seven (270 million) have no healthcare at all.
· Nearly half of the 3.6 million people killed in war since 1990 have been children. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/12/10/children_aids/print.html
Social Security ‘Big Lie’ Continues:
The system is headed towards bankruptcy down the road. If we do not act soon, Social Security will not be there for our children and grandchildren. -Bush, in weekly radio address
Like al-Qaeda and Saddam, the existence of wmd, etc., the Right / the Administration will tell this lie until a significant percentage of the population buys in. So, we (and the Democrats) have a responsibility to scream the opposite…NOW. Need specifics?: tell people that there’s enough in the system to pay out fully until 2045 and then pay 75% of promised benefits after that point, which would be equal to or higher in real dollars than current benefit levels. So, perhaps, some adjustments for 40 years hence need to be made, but that hardly justifies this crazed idea. We know the intention, to destroy the New Deal / the social “safety net”.
The media, unfortunately, are too often parroting the words of the Administration, noting that social security “reform” is necessary to respond to the “crisis.” Phooey on CBS, CNN, MSNBC.
From Media Matters for America:
Several cable and network news reports on President Bush's December 9 Oval Office meeting with Social Security trustees gave implicit support to the administration's plans to overhaul Social Security (which entails partial privatization) by repeating the crisis rhetoric of privatization proponents, suggesting that the Bush administration's plan offers a solution to the purported crisis, and bolstering the administration's plan through one-sided interviews with conservative guests. Some in the media have also mischaracterized the Democratic response to the administration's push for reform. http://mediamatters.org/items/200412100012
Note: Media Matters does terrific work and deserves our support. Besides, this week Bill O’Reilly ‘recommended’ them, terming Media Matters “the most vile, despicable human beings in the country.” A tax-deductible contribution can be made at https://mediamatters.org/etc/donate.html
Bill Moyers Tribute. He leaves PBS next week. Huge loss
At a time when TV networks--including PBS--were bowing to commercial and ideological pressures that were antithetical to journalism, Moyers created a program that many viewers recognized as the only reason to turn on the TV in the Bush era. NOW will carry on with the able crew that Moyers assembled. And whether or not the program thrives without Moyers, the legacy he created will remain. James Madison said, "A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both" and warned that "a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives." In a time of farce and tragedy, Bill Moyers did his best to arm the people with the power knowledge gives and to affirm that there's still a place for TV journalism that nurtures citizenship and democracy. http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20041227&s=editors2
Kerik: What a nominee. Before letting him go, I’ll just note that there was controversy over alleged personal improprieties / abuse of power during his brief stay in Iraq and his time in Saudi Arabia, a bunch of lawsuits, ties to and gifts from a ‘mobbed-up’ construction company, and these reports, courtesy of the NY media. [The NY Times finally covered it on Monday, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/nyregion/13kerik.html?oref=login .] Bizarrely, the Administration asserts that only the nanny problem concerned them.
In the 48 hours before his withdrawal as nominee for the nation's top security post, Bernard Kerik and his lawyer scrambled to keep damaging assertions about his past out of the public spotlight.A week after President George W. Bush announced the former city police commissioner as his choice for Homeland Security secretary, an array of charges and questions about Kerik's past were coming to a boil, threatening his crafted image as an American legend and portending a rougher Senate confirmation process than first predicted.On Thursday, the day before he took his name from contention, Kerik, 49, was forced to testify in a civil lawsuit about an alleged affair with a subordinate.The case, which involves Kerik's use of authority when he was city correction commissioner between 1998 and 2000, was brought against the city by a former deputy warden. Plaintiff Eric DeRavin III contends Kerik kept him from getting promoted because he had reprimanded the woman, Correction Officer Jeanette Pinero…
On Friday, Kerik was fending off other charges. Tacopina was in contact with at least one TV news organization in a bid to keep it from airing an interview with another ex-jail supervisor, sources said. The interview contained other allegations against Kerik, some of which have already been in print, the sources said. http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-main12,0,240731,print.story?coll=ny-homepage-big-pix
Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik accepted thousands of dollars in cash and gifts without making proper public disclosures, a Daily News investigation has revealed. http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/261266p-223749c.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: 7 marines died on Sunday and we’re bombing the city (Fallujah) that we supposedly captured.
The ‘manpower’ shortage reaches new heights.
Dr. John Caulfield thought it had to be a mistake when the Army asked him to return to active duty. After all, he's 70 years old and had already retired - twice. He left the Army in 1980 and private practice two years ago.
"My first reaction was disbelief," Caulfield said. "It never occurred to me that they would call a 70-year-old." http://www.marionstar.com/news/stories/20041211/localnews/1731211.html
The Times-on-line adds,
"While insurgents draw on deep wells of fury to expand their ranks in Iraq, the US military is fighting desertion, recruitment shortfalls and legal challenges from its own troops.
…"Many experts say that America's 1.4 million active-duty troops and 865,000 part-timers are stretched to the point where President Bush may see other foreign policy goals blunted. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1397131,00.html
Payback time. Hardball with any and all who oppose this Regime.
The Bush administration has dozens of intercepts of Mohamed ElBaradei's phone calls with Iranian diplomats and is scrutinizing them in search of ammunition to oust him as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to three U.S. government officials.
But the diplomatic offensive will not be easy. The administration has failed to come up with a candidate willing to oppose ElBaradei, who has run the agency since 1997, and there is disagreement among some senior officials over how hard to push for his removal, and what the diplomatic costs of a public campaign against him could be.
Although eavesdropping, even on allies, is considered a well-worn tool of national security and diplomacy, the efforts against ElBaradei demonstrate the lengths some within the administration are willing to go to replace a top international diplomat who questioned U.S. intelligence on Iraq and is now taking a cautious approach on Iran.
The intercepted calls have not produced any evidence of nefarious conduct by ElBaradei, according to three officials who have read them. But some within the administration believe they show ElBaradei lacks impartiality because he tried to help Iran navigate a diplomatic crisis over its nuclear programs. Others argue the transcripts demonstrate nothing more than standard telephone diplomacy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57928-2004Dec11?language=printer
What’s Happening, Russia. Bush looked into Putin’s soul and this time…
The Bush administration is beginning a broad review of its Russia policy that could lead to a more confrontational approach toward Moscow over its treatment of neighboring countries and its own citizens, U.S. officials said.For the past four years, the administration muted its criticism of Russia's approach to democratic values as Washington tried to build a "strategic partnership" with Moscow to fight terrorism and weapons proliferation. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-usrussia12dec12,0,5084532.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Frank Rich on Sex. Gotta read this one, huh?
Empowered by that Election Day "moral values" poll result, it is pressing for a whole host of second-term gifts from the Bush administration: further rollbacks of stem-cell research, gay civil rights, pulchritude sightings at N.F.L. games and, dare I say it aloud, reproductive rights for women. "If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them," wrote Bob Jones III, president of the eponymous South Carolina university, to President Bush after the election. "Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil." Such is the perceived clout of this Republican base at government agencies like the F.C.C. that it need only burp and 66 frightened ABC affiliates instantly dump their network's broadcast of that indecent movie "Saving Private Ryan" on Veterans Day.
In the case of "Kinsey," the Traditional Values Coalition has called for a yearlong boycott of all movies released by Fox. (With the hypocrisy we've come to expect, it does not ask its members to boycott Fox's corporate sibling in the Murdoch empire, Fox News.) But such organizations don't really care about "Kinsey" - an art-house picture that, however well reviewed or Oscar-nominated, will be seen by a relatively small audience, mostly in blue states. The film is just this month's handy pretext for advancing the larger goal of pushing sex of all nonbiblical kinds back into the closet and undermining any scientific findings, whether circa 1948 or 2004, that might challenge fundamentalist sexual orthodoxy as successfully as Darwin challenged Genesis. (Though that success, too, is in doubt: The Washington Post reports that this year some 40 states are dealing with challenges to the teaching of evolution in public schools.) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/arts/12rich.html?oref=login
For those who didn’t get or read it, the Move-On message to the DNC
"For years, the party has been led by elite Washington insiders who are closer to corporate lobbyists than they are to the Democratic base," Pariser wrote. "But we can’t afford four more years of leadership by a consulting class of professional election losers.""In the last year, grass-roots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the party doesn’t need corporate cash to be competitive," the message continued. "Now it’s our party: we bought it, we own it, and we’re going to take it back."
Electoral Cheating and the Media: Mainstream media getting on it? AP report:
As the Electoral College prepares to certify President Bush's re-election on Monday, concerns persist about the integrity of the nation's voting system — particularly in Ohio, where details continue to emerge of technology failures, voter confusion and overcrowded polling stations in minority and poor neighborhoods. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=14&u=/ap/20041210/ap_on_el_pr/unsettled_election
Gary Webb: You might remember this journalist from his 1996 reports about the CIA’s drug running in LA and using the profits to fund the Contras, the US-funded hooligans who opposed the government of Nicaragua. He had a powerful series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News and then a book, Dark Alliance. He was attacked by mainstream media and the CIA and the discovered imperfections in his articles were the basis for the media announcing that his story was “discredited.”
The NY Times ran his obituary today.
Gary Webb, a reporter who won national attention with a series of articles, later discredited, linking the Central Intelligence Agency to the spread of crack cocaine in Los Angeles, was found dead on Friday at his home in Carmichael, Calif., near Sacramento. He was 49.
The cause was an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/13/obituaries/13webb.html
Flights to Vietnam: If you're considering, don’t fly United. Vietnam Airlines is vastly superior.
The first commercial flight between the United States and Vietnam since their war 30 years ago landed yesterday to open a new chapter of cultural and economic exchange between the former foes.
United Airlines Flight 869, fully booked with 347 passengers on board, landed at Tan Son Nhat airport after an 18-hour journey from San Francisco.
The flight was sent on its way with an elaborate departure ceremony. An audience of invited guests and passengers gathered to listen to speeches from American and Vietnamese dignitaries.
Passengers disembarking in Ho Chi Minh City were greeted by Vietnamese women wearing traditional white tunics, or aodais, and holding lotus blossoms and silk lanterns. The flight will be followed by daily flights between the cities as United seeks to capitalise on the more than one million Vietnamese who live in the US, the largest number in a single country outside Vietnam. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1398047,00.html
-R
