Friday, December 24, 2004
Election’s Over, Screw the Young:
College students in virtually every state will be required to shoulder more of the cost of their education under new federal rules that govern most of the nation's financial aid.
Because of the changes, which take effect next fall and are expected to save the government $300 million in the 2005-6 academic year, at least 1.3 million students will receive smaller Pell Grants, the nation's primary scholarship for those of low income, according to two analyses of the new rules.
In addition, 89,000 students or so who would otherwise be getting some Pell Grant money will get none, the analyses found. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/23/education/23pell.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
Election’s Over, Screw the Poor
In one of the first signs of the effects of the ever tightening federal budget, in the past two months the Bush administration has reduced its contributions to global food aid programs aimed at helping millions of people climb out of poverty.
With the budget deficit growing and President Bush promising to reduce spending, the administration has told representatives of several charities that it was unable to honor some earlier promises and would have money to pay for food only in emergency crises like that in Darfur, in western Sudan. The cutbacks, estimated by some charities at up to $100 million, come at a time when the number of hungry in the world is rising for the first time in years and all food programs are being stretched. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/22/politics/22aid.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position
Election’s Over, Iraq is screwed Now they can admit that all’s not well. Attacks are everywhere. Juan Cole summarices the state of things in Mosul, which is “paralyzed” following the bombing earlier this week.
Schools, offices and shops were closed in Mosul, a city of over a million, on Wednesday as US troops conducted house to house searches in the southern and western areas of the city for the guerrillas who planned the bombing of the mess hall at the nearby US base on Tuesday. http://www.juancole.com/
William Pfaff on Torture: The etiology
This started early. Proposals to authorize torture were circulating even before there was anyone to torture. Days after the Sept. 11 attacks, the administration made it known that the United States was no longer bound by international treaties, or by American law and established U.S. military standards, concerning torture and the treatment of prisoners. By the end of 2001, the Justice Department had drafted memos on how to protect military and intelligence officers from eventual prosecution under existing U.S. law for their treatment of Afghan and other prisoners.
In January 2002, the White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales (who is soon to become attorney general), advised George W. Bush that it could be done by fiat. If the president simply declared "detainees" in Afghanistan outside the protection of the Geneva conventions, the 1996 U.S. War Crimes Act - which carries a possible death penalty for Geneva violations - would not apply.Those who protested were ignored, though the administration declared it would abide by the "spirit" of the conventions. Shortly afterward, the CIA asked for formal assurance that this pledge did not apply to its agents. http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/12/21/news/edpfaff.html
Torture: Lack of Outrage So, we know it began long ago, that it tracks on up to the very Top. So, where’s the outrage? Then again, there wasn’t that much in ’34 Germany either. Maybe the better conservatives can save us, as surely their core values must be shaken anew.
Wall Street salivating- quietly- over “private accounts”
President Bush prepares to disclose the details of his plan to funnel hundreds of billions of dollars of future Social Security funds into privately held investment accounts, Wall Street has begun a muted lobbying campaign, chastened by bolder forays that failed in years past.
So far, the chief executives of most financial firms have refused to take a public stand in support of private accounts, wary of being seen as too eager to embrace a potential new revenue stream.
At last week's White House economic meeting in Washington, they were conspicuous in their absence from the Social Security panel. Even in direct meetings with President Bush, who actively campaigned on the issue of Social Security, executives have shied away.
There are signs, however, that the industry is becoming a little more aggressive in pushing for private accounts, through a loose assemblage of trade associations, business coalitions and conservative research centers. These groups have lately begun trying to raise money from business interests and to marshal support on Capitol Hill, while also seeking to deflect criticism that Wall Street is behind the move simply to reap rich rewards for administering the accounts. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/business/21lobby.html?pagewanted=print&position
The Robust / Fragile Economy Business pages are split between cheerleading and warning of burgeoning trouble. Friday’s NY Times was no exception, noting “positive economic reports” while contrasting headlines included “Growing Global Unease Over Ballooning Deficits.”
The latter:
White House officials are already trying to assuage bond investors about the administration's attempt to overhaul Social Security, a project that is likely to require the government to borrow as much as $2 trillion over the next decade or two.
Anxiety about a potentially steep fall in the dollar could prompt foreign investors to demand higher interest rates on Treasury bonds to compensate for the risk of a plunge in the value of those bonds.
But the more immediate pressure, and potentially a greater danger for Mr. Bush, is that foreign investors may be losing their appetite for the flood of Treasury bonds being sold to finance the federal budget deficit.
Foreign capital inflows to the United States, which finance the trade deficit and to some extent the budget deficit, have slowed significantly. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/24/business/24dollar.html?oref=login
Right Wing Glee: Newsmax celebrates: Fun to be a Rightie…
Americans Flee to the 'Red' States The Census Bureau reveals that people continue the exodus from intolerant, high-cost states such as Massachusetts to enjoy the greater freedom of Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Texas ... Massachusetts was the only state that had a population decline, albeit down a slight 3,800 people, or 0.1 percent, to 6.41 million. Demographers speculated it could have been caused by an exodus of people leaving to escape rising costs in the Boston area. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/12/22/84715.shtml
The reality:
"Arizona, Florida, Texas and Utah would each gain one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives if districts were reapportioned today," according to an analysis by American City Business Journals. "Iowa, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, on the other hand, would each lose a seat." http://buffalo.bizjournals.com/bizoutlook/?jst=b_ol_lk
How the Other Half… Wall Street Journal item
When Nick Hexum went looking for a home in South Florida a little over a year ago, he wanted something right on the ocean. But while some buyers were paying more than $1 million an acre, he found a spot with the right price and plenty of beach -- in all directions.
To land his bargain, Mr. Hexum, lead singer of the rock band 311, purchased his own island. He paid $2.8 million for a six-acre piece of land a mile offshore called Money Cay, complete with a three-bedroom home. "I got a great deal," says Mr. Hexum. "It's just me and the great blue ocean." http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110323741166802618,00.html?mod=at%5Fleisure%5Fmain%5Fweekend%5Fjournal%5Fends%5Fonly
-R
College students in virtually every state will be required to shoulder more of the cost of their education under new federal rules that govern most of the nation's financial aid.
Because of the changes, which take effect next fall and are expected to save the government $300 million in the 2005-6 academic year, at least 1.3 million students will receive smaller Pell Grants, the nation's primary scholarship for those of low income, according to two analyses of the new rules.
In addition, 89,000 students or so who would otherwise be getting some Pell Grant money will get none, the analyses found. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/23/education/23pell.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
Election’s Over, Screw the Poor
In one of the first signs of the effects of the ever tightening federal budget, in the past two months the Bush administration has reduced its contributions to global food aid programs aimed at helping millions of people climb out of poverty.
With the budget deficit growing and President Bush promising to reduce spending, the administration has told representatives of several charities that it was unable to honor some earlier promises and would have money to pay for food only in emergency crises like that in Darfur, in western Sudan. The cutbacks, estimated by some charities at up to $100 million, come at a time when the number of hungry in the world is rising for the first time in years and all food programs are being stretched. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/22/politics/22aid.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position
Election’s Over, Iraq is screwed Now they can admit that all’s not well. Attacks are everywhere. Juan Cole summarices the state of things in Mosul, which is “paralyzed” following the bombing earlier this week.
Schools, offices and shops were closed in Mosul, a city of over a million, on Wednesday as US troops conducted house to house searches in the southern and western areas of the city for the guerrillas who planned the bombing of the mess hall at the nearby US base on Tuesday. http://www.juancole.com/
William Pfaff on Torture: The etiology
This started early. Proposals to authorize torture were circulating even before there was anyone to torture. Days after the Sept. 11 attacks, the administration made it known that the United States was no longer bound by international treaties, or by American law and established U.S. military standards, concerning torture and the treatment of prisoners. By the end of 2001, the Justice Department had drafted memos on how to protect military and intelligence officers from eventual prosecution under existing U.S. law for their treatment of Afghan and other prisoners.
In January 2002, the White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales (who is soon to become attorney general), advised George W. Bush that it could be done by fiat. If the president simply declared "detainees" in Afghanistan outside the protection of the Geneva conventions, the 1996 U.S. War Crimes Act - which carries a possible death penalty for Geneva violations - would not apply.Those who protested were ignored, though the administration declared it would abide by the "spirit" of the conventions. Shortly afterward, the CIA asked for formal assurance that this pledge did not apply to its agents. http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/12/21/news/edpfaff.html
Torture: Lack of Outrage So, we know it began long ago, that it tracks on up to the very Top. So, where’s the outrage? Then again, there wasn’t that much in ’34 Germany either. Maybe the better conservatives can save us, as surely their core values must be shaken anew.
Wall Street salivating- quietly- over “private accounts”
President Bush prepares to disclose the details of his plan to funnel hundreds of billions of dollars of future Social Security funds into privately held investment accounts, Wall Street has begun a muted lobbying campaign, chastened by bolder forays that failed in years past.
So far, the chief executives of most financial firms have refused to take a public stand in support of private accounts, wary of being seen as too eager to embrace a potential new revenue stream.
At last week's White House economic meeting in Washington, they were conspicuous in their absence from the Social Security panel. Even in direct meetings with President Bush, who actively campaigned on the issue of Social Security, executives have shied away.
There are signs, however, that the industry is becoming a little more aggressive in pushing for private accounts, through a loose assemblage of trade associations, business coalitions and conservative research centers. These groups have lately begun trying to raise money from business interests and to marshal support on Capitol Hill, while also seeking to deflect criticism that Wall Street is behind the move simply to reap rich rewards for administering the accounts. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/business/21lobby.html?pagewanted=print&position
The Robust / Fragile Economy Business pages are split between cheerleading and warning of burgeoning trouble. Friday’s NY Times was no exception, noting “positive economic reports” while contrasting headlines included “Growing Global Unease Over Ballooning Deficits.”
The latter:
White House officials are already trying to assuage bond investors about the administration's attempt to overhaul Social Security, a project that is likely to require the government to borrow as much as $2 trillion over the next decade or two.
Anxiety about a potentially steep fall in the dollar could prompt foreign investors to demand higher interest rates on Treasury bonds to compensate for the risk of a plunge in the value of those bonds.
But the more immediate pressure, and potentially a greater danger for Mr. Bush, is that foreign investors may be losing their appetite for the flood of Treasury bonds being sold to finance the federal budget deficit.
Foreign capital inflows to the United States, which finance the trade deficit and to some extent the budget deficit, have slowed significantly. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/24/business/24dollar.html?oref=login
Right Wing Glee: Newsmax celebrates: Fun to be a Rightie…
Americans Flee to the 'Red' States The Census Bureau reveals that people continue the exodus from intolerant, high-cost states such as Massachusetts to enjoy the greater freedom of Nevada, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Texas ... Massachusetts was the only state that had a population decline, albeit down a slight 3,800 people, or 0.1 percent, to 6.41 million. Demographers speculated it could have been caused by an exodus of people leaving to escape rising costs in the Boston area. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/12/22/84715.shtml
The reality:
"Arizona, Florida, Texas and Utah would each gain one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives if districts were reapportioned today," according to an analysis by American City Business Journals. "Iowa, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, on the other hand, would each lose a seat." http://buffalo.bizjournals.com/bizoutlook/?jst=b_ol_lk
How the Other Half… Wall Street Journal item
When Nick Hexum went looking for a home in South Florida a little over a year ago, he wanted something right on the ocean. But while some buyers were paying more than $1 million an acre, he found a spot with the right price and plenty of beach -- in all directions.
To land his bargain, Mr. Hexum, lead singer of the rock band 311, purchased his own island. He paid $2.8 million for a six-acre piece of land a mile offshore called Money Cay, complete with a three-bedroom home. "I got a great deal," says Mr. Hexum. "It's just me and the great blue ocean." http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110323741166802618,00.html?mod=at%5Fleisure%5Fmain%5Fweekend%5Fjournal%5Fends%5Fonly
-R
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Journalism, a Definition, via Richard Viguerie, Right-wing ideologue [on Moyers’ final program]:
[Sean] HANNITY [10/29/04]: Why would Osama bin Laden, who's been quiet for so long, come out and virtually try and influence the election today in favor of John Kerry by attacking the president the way he did?
MOYERS: Do you think what Sean Hannity said is fair?
VIGUERIE: Oh, absolutely.
MOYERS: But there's no fact to back that up. There's no effort to substantiate that with documentation.
[Richard] VIGUERIE: That's what journalism is. It's just all opinion. Just opinion. http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transcript351_full_print.html
Speaking of journalism, a bad week: Moyers’ exiting and now Jack Newfield dies, a terrific, blunt writer / journalist long associated with the Village Voice. Two notable losses.
What’s Happening, Iraq: 19 Americans killed:
Embedded Reporter {Richmond Times-Dispatch}: I don’t usually print the details, but…
The force of the explosions knocked soldiers off their feet and out of their seats. A fireball enveloped the top of the tent, and pellet-sized shrapnel sprayed into the men.
Amid the screaming and thick smoke that followed, quick-thinking soldiers turned their lunch tables upside down, placed the wounded on them and gently carried them into the parking lot.
"Medic! Medic!" soldiers shouted.
Medics rushed into the tent and hustled the rest of the wounded out on stretchers.
Scores of troops crammed into concrete bomb shelters outside. Others wobbled around the tent and collapsed, dazed by the blast.
“I can't hear! I can't hear!" one female soldier cried as a friend hugged her.
Near the front entrance to the chow hall, troops tended a soldier with a gaping head wound. Within minutes, they zipped him into a black body bag. Three more bodies were in the parking lot then.
Soldiers scrambled back into the hall to check for more wounded. The explosions blew out a huge hole in the roof of the tent. Lunch trays and overturned tables and chairs covered the floor.
Grim-faced soldiers growled angrily about the attack and swore as they stomped away.
Sgt. Evan Byler, of the 276th, steadied himself on one of the concrete bomb shelters. He was eating chicken tenders and macaroni when the bomb hit. The blast knocked him out of his chair. When the smoke cleared, Byler took off his shirt and wrapped it around a seriously wounded soldier.
Byler held the bloody shirt in his hand, not quite sure what to do with it.
"It's not the first close call I have had here," said Byler, a Fauquier County, Va., resident who survived a blast from an improvised explosive device while riding in a vehicle earlier this year.
Byler started walking back to his base when he saw a soldier collapse from shock on the side of the road. Byler and 1st Lt. Shawn Otto of Williamsburg, Va., also of the 276th, put the grieving soldier on a passing pickup truck. http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Common%2FMGArticle%2FPrintVersion&c=MGArticle&cid=1031779796661&image=timesdispatch80x60.gif&oasDN=timesdispatch.com
The Great “Victory” in Fallujah: Time for Indiana Jones?
Hollywood has joined the war. Universal Pictures announced on Thursday that it is to make The Battle for Fallujah. To prove it is serious, it has enlisted Indiana Jones himself, actor Harrison Ford, to help defeat the insurgency.
The film -- Hollywood's first foray into the second Iraq conflict -- is due to go into production next year and will be based on a yet-to-be-finished book, No True Glory: The Battle for Fallujah by Bing West, a former marine, politician and now war correspondent. http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4831
That Question to Rumsfeld: Follow-up / Clarification
Despite efforts by Right media, it WAS National Guard Specialist Thomas "Jerry" Wilson who thought up the embarrassing question to Rummy about the lack of armor. Wilson noted that he “came up with the pointed question himself”, that the Chattanooga Times Free Press embedded reporter Edward Lee Pitts merely urged him to ask Rumsfeld "intelligent questions," that he refused to soften the language after Pitts "suggested a less brash way of asking the [armor] question."
Washington Post highlights Torture. Page 1 today. Credit where credit…
Bush administration is facing a wave of new allegations that the abuse of foreign detainees in U.S. military custody was more widespread, varied and grave in the past three years than the Defense Department has long maintained.
New documents released yesterday detail a series of probes by Army criminal investigators into multiple cases of threatened executions of Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers, as well as of thefts of currency and other private property, physical assaults, and deadly shootings of detainees at detention camps in Iraq. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17883-2004Dec21.html
Torture: NY Times and Knight Ridder Reports:
F.B.I memorandums portray abuse of prisoners by American military personnel in Iraq that included detainees' being beaten and choked and having lit cigarettes placed in their ears, according to newly released government documents. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/politics/21abuse.html?ei=5006&en=5c03bc4bced03ea3&ex=1104210000&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print&position=
While the memo doesn't directly say who authorized the practices, two government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the methods were approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10462815.htm
Bush, TIME Magazine's Man Of the Year, apparently signed off on the torture. Instead of Jon Stewart, this time the ACLU is doing the media’s job.
"Documents released for the first time today by the ACLU suggest that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Other documents include an "Urgent Report" to the Director of the FBI raising concerns that detainee abuse is being covered up. "Top government officials can no longer hide from public scrutiny by pointing the finger at a few low-ranking soldiers," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero." www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17216&c=206
If you were freshly nauseated by Bush being named by TIME, remember that it’s for making a splash, not for being a good guy. Hitler was so honored in ’39.
Social Security: The public supports ‘private accounts’…or does it?
Washington Post (William Branigan)
1st paragraph:
Most Americans support reforming Social Security so that contributions can be invested in the stock market, but many do not like having to raise the national debt by as much as $2 trillion to pay for the new system, and a solid majority would not put their own Social Security money into stocks, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
6th paragraph:
But when supporters were asked a new question -- whether they still would support a stock-market option if the government had to borrow as much as $2 trillion to set it up -- 47 percent said they would not, 46 percent said they would, and 7 percent had no opinion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17151-2004Dec21.html
Time to Re-Frame: How about:
1) There is no Social Security Crisis
2) There is a looming Medicare crisis.
3) There is a very current ‘General Fund’ crisis. [Talking “Deficits” is 20+ years old, and got Mondale absolutely no where.
Krugman on The Dollar. Nothing special, but as he’s away from the Times…
...the United States is running huge twin deficits. The federal government is borrowing $1 billion a day or so for the operations. The United States as a whole is borrowing $1.5 billion to pay for imports. Those can't go on forever. It's a law that says that things that cannot go on forever don't, and it appears that the world is finally looking at it and saying, “Gee, we don't see this changing,” and so, the money flows are starting to dry up. The dollar is falling. We don't know how it plays out. If this was a Third World country, and you had the numbers we have, you would say, “Oh, my God, start stocking up on canned goods,” because we look by many of the numbers worse than places like Argentina or Indonesia. But it is the United States. We get a lot of the benefit of the doubt. The debts are in dollars, which is some protection, having the debts in our own currency. But it's going to be -- it just adds to the difficulties. http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/21/1535228
Bush Popularity (CNN) Paragraph #7 in a report on Rummy:
As for Bush, 49 percent of respondents said they approved of the job the president is doing. That number is down from his November approval rating of 55 percent. Bush is the first incumbent president to have an approval rating below 50 percent one month after winning re-election. http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/12/20/poll/index.html
Brain Drain
"Foreign students contribute $13 billion to the American economy annually. But this year brought clear signs that the United States' overwhelming dominance of international higher education may be ending. Foreign applications to American graduate schools declined 28 percent this year. Actual foreign graduate student enrollments dropped 6 percent. Enrollments of all foreign students, in undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral programs, fell for the first time in three decades in an annual census released this fall…
One expert quoted in the Times points out that it remains unclear whether the sudden decline in foreign enrollments is a one-time drop or the beginning of a long slide. Europe is a rising player in the global education market, as are India and China. A sharp drop in enrollment in U.S. schools from the latter two could work as a double whammy, given that India and China currently supply the top two pools of foreign brainpower for U.S. campuses. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/national/21global.html?ei=5090&en=3ee2e6351e33d817&ex=1261285200&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=all&position=
Polls! It’s never too early. Fox News wants to ‘stir the beast,’ so Hillary is front and center:
Clinton 40, Frist 33
Clinton 41, Pataki 35
Clinton 46, Jeb Bush 35
Kerry 45, Jeb Bush 37
It actually is way too early. Sorry.
-R
[Sean] HANNITY [10/29/04]: Why would Osama bin Laden, who's been quiet for so long, come out and virtually try and influence the election today in favor of John Kerry by attacking the president the way he did?
MOYERS: Do you think what Sean Hannity said is fair?
VIGUERIE: Oh, absolutely.
MOYERS: But there's no fact to back that up. There's no effort to substantiate that with documentation.
[Richard] VIGUERIE: That's what journalism is. It's just all opinion. Just opinion. http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transcript351_full_print.html
Speaking of journalism, a bad week: Moyers’ exiting and now Jack Newfield dies, a terrific, blunt writer / journalist long associated with the Village Voice. Two notable losses.
What’s Happening, Iraq: 19 Americans killed:
Embedded Reporter {Richmond Times-Dispatch}: I don’t usually print the details, but…
The force of the explosions knocked soldiers off their feet and out of their seats. A fireball enveloped the top of the tent, and pellet-sized shrapnel sprayed into the men.
Amid the screaming and thick smoke that followed, quick-thinking soldiers turned their lunch tables upside down, placed the wounded on them and gently carried them into the parking lot.
"Medic! Medic!" soldiers shouted.
Medics rushed into the tent and hustled the rest of the wounded out on stretchers.
Scores of troops crammed into concrete bomb shelters outside. Others wobbled around the tent and collapsed, dazed by the blast.
“I can't hear! I can't hear!" one female soldier cried as a friend hugged her.
Near the front entrance to the chow hall, troops tended a soldier with a gaping head wound. Within minutes, they zipped him into a black body bag. Three more bodies were in the parking lot then.
Soldiers scrambled back into the hall to check for more wounded. The explosions blew out a huge hole in the roof of the tent. Lunch trays and overturned tables and chairs covered the floor.
Grim-faced soldiers growled angrily about the attack and swore as they stomped away.
Sgt. Evan Byler, of the 276th, steadied himself on one of the concrete bomb shelters. He was eating chicken tenders and macaroni when the bomb hit. The blast knocked him out of his chair. When the smoke cleared, Byler took off his shirt and wrapped it around a seriously wounded soldier.
Byler held the bloody shirt in his hand, not quite sure what to do with it.
"It's not the first close call I have had here," said Byler, a Fauquier County, Va., resident who survived a blast from an improvised explosive device while riding in a vehicle earlier this year.
Byler started walking back to his base when he saw a soldier collapse from shock on the side of the road. Byler and 1st Lt. Shawn Otto of Williamsburg, Va., also of the 276th, put the grieving soldier on a passing pickup truck. http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Common%2FMGArticle%2FPrintVersion&c=MGArticle&cid=1031779796661&image=timesdispatch80x60.gif&oasDN=timesdispatch.com
The Great “Victory” in Fallujah: Time for Indiana Jones?
Hollywood has joined the war. Universal Pictures announced on Thursday that it is to make The Battle for Fallujah. To prove it is serious, it has enlisted Indiana Jones himself, actor Harrison Ford, to help defeat the insurgency.
The film -- Hollywood's first foray into the second Iraq conflict -- is due to go into production next year and will be based on a yet-to-be-finished book, No True Glory: The Battle for Fallujah by Bing West, a former marine, politician and now war correspondent. http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4831
That Question to Rumsfeld: Follow-up / Clarification
Despite efforts by Right media, it WAS National Guard Specialist Thomas "Jerry" Wilson who thought up the embarrassing question to Rummy about the lack of armor. Wilson noted that he “came up with the pointed question himself”, that the Chattanooga Times Free Press embedded reporter Edward Lee Pitts merely urged him to ask Rumsfeld "intelligent questions," that he refused to soften the language after Pitts "suggested a less brash way of asking the [armor] question."
Washington Post highlights Torture. Page 1 today. Credit where credit…
Bush administration is facing a wave of new allegations that the abuse of foreign detainees in U.S. military custody was more widespread, varied and grave in the past three years than the Defense Department has long maintained.
New documents released yesterday detail a series of probes by Army criminal investigators into multiple cases of threatened executions of Iraqi detainees by U.S. soldiers, as well as of thefts of currency and other private property, physical assaults, and deadly shootings of detainees at detention camps in Iraq. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17883-2004Dec21.html
Torture: NY Times and Knight Ridder Reports:
F.B.I memorandums portray abuse of prisoners by American military personnel in Iraq that included detainees' being beaten and choked and having lit cigarettes placed in their ears, according to newly released government documents. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/politics/21abuse.html?ei=5006&en=5c03bc4bced03ea3&ex=1104210000&partner=ALTAVISTA1&pagewanted=print&position=
While the memo doesn't directly say who authorized the practices, two government officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the methods were approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/10462815.htm
Bush, TIME Magazine's Man Of the Year, apparently signed off on the torture. Instead of Jon Stewart, this time the ACLU is doing the media’s job.
"Documents released for the first time today by the ACLU suggest that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Other documents include an "Urgent Report" to the Director of the FBI raising concerns that detainee abuse is being covered up. "Top government officials can no longer hide from public scrutiny by pointing the finger at a few low-ranking soldiers," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero." www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17216&c=206
If you were freshly nauseated by Bush being named by TIME, remember that it’s for making a splash, not for being a good guy. Hitler was so honored in ’39.
Social Security: The public supports ‘private accounts’…or does it?
Washington Post (William Branigan)
1st paragraph:
Most Americans support reforming Social Security so that contributions can be invested in the stock market, but many do not like having to raise the national debt by as much as $2 trillion to pay for the new system, and a solid majority would not put their own Social Security money into stocks, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
6th paragraph:
But when supporters were asked a new question -- whether they still would support a stock-market option if the government had to borrow as much as $2 trillion to set it up -- 47 percent said they would not, 46 percent said they would, and 7 percent had no opinion.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17151-2004Dec21.html
Time to Re-Frame: How about:
1) There is no Social Security Crisis
2) There is a looming Medicare crisis.
3) There is a very current ‘General Fund’ crisis. [Talking “Deficits” is 20+ years old, and got Mondale absolutely no where.
Krugman on The Dollar. Nothing special, but as he’s away from the Times…
...the United States is running huge twin deficits. The federal government is borrowing $1 billion a day or so for the operations. The United States as a whole is borrowing $1.5 billion to pay for imports. Those can't go on forever. It's a law that says that things that cannot go on forever don't, and it appears that the world is finally looking at it and saying, “Gee, we don't see this changing,” and so, the money flows are starting to dry up. The dollar is falling. We don't know how it plays out. If this was a Third World country, and you had the numbers we have, you would say, “Oh, my God, start stocking up on canned goods,” because we look by many of the numbers worse than places like Argentina or Indonesia. But it is the United States. We get a lot of the benefit of the doubt. The debts are in dollars, which is some protection, having the debts in our own currency. But it's going to be -- it just adds to the difficulties. http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/21/1535228
Bush Popularity (CNN) Paragraph #7 in a report on Rummy:
As for Bush, 49 percent of respondents said they approved of the job the president is doing. That number is down from his November approval rating of 55 percent. Bush is the first incumbent president to have an approval rating below 50 percent one month after winning re-election. http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/12/20/poll/index.html
Brain Drain
"Foreign students contribute $13 billion to the American economy annually. But this year brought clear signs that the United States' overwhelming dominance of international higher education may be ending. Foreign applications to American graduate schools declined 28 percent this year. Actual foreign graduate student enrollments dropped 6 percent. Enrollments of all foreign students, in undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral programs, fell for the first time in three decades in an annual census released this fall…
One expert quoted in the Times points out that it remains unclear whether the sudden decline in foreign enrollments is a one-time drop or the beginning of a long slide. Europe is a rising player in the global education market, as are India and China. A sharp drop in enrollment in U.S. schools from the latter two could work as a double whammy, given that India and China currently supply the top two pools of foreign brainpower for U.S. campuses. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/national/21global.html?ei=5090&en=3ee2e6351e33d817&ex=1261285200&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=all&position=
Polls! It’s never too early. Fox News wants to ‘stir the beast,’ so Hillary is front and center:
Clinton 40, Frist 33
Clinton 41, Pataki 35
Clinton 46, Jeb Bush 35
Kerry 45, Jeb Bush 37
It actually is way too early. Sorry.
-R
Sunday, December 19, 2004
Social Security: Significant Congressional Opposition?
Republican congressional leaders have indicated they will support Bush's plan for private accounts, yet deficit concerns have sparked resistance. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa and Representative Jim Kolbe of Arizona are among Republicans who say higher taxes may be needed to win bipartisan support for private accounts.
Democratic Representatives Robert Matsui of California and John Spratt of South Carolina said the administration's first priority should be reducing the federal budget deficit and only then can it deal with Social Security. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=af_7nCvb9Rm4&refer=top_world_news
The Media and Social Security: Commentary
A "NewsNight with Aaron Brown," report recently misleadingly entitled "Social Security is in Trouble," CNN's Bruce Morton quoted Republican Senator Lindsey Graham together with pro-privatization activists from the Concord Coalition and the Cato Institute. Notably, no anti-privatization voices were aired during his report. Graham was also trotted out as the voice of privatization (or "reform" in the language of its supporters and a compliant press) by CNN anchor, Lou Dobbs, during which he claimed—unchallenged— "Social Security is going bankrupt, it's coming apart at the seams…We're short of money to pay the benefits. If we do nothing, the cost will be trillions, if we do something progressive, the cost can be managed. But to do nothing is a death blow to Social Security."
Instead of questioning the truth of Graham's statements, which are wholly unsupported by either CBO or Social Security's own data, Republican political contributor, Dobbs simply walked Graham right into his next talking point, saying "Let's talk about the idea of private accounts…"
As with the Iraq war, proponents of the Bush plan seek to tar their better-informed opposition as irresponsible and not to be trusted. New York Times' conservative columnist, David Brooks complained that "The people setting the tone for the opposition to the Bush Social Security effort depict the financial markets as huge, organized scams where the rich prey upon the weak. Their phrases are already familiar: a risky scheme, Enron accounting, a gift to the securities industry, greedy speculators preying upon Grandma's pension." Once again, we are expected to take the Bush administration's intentions, competence and veracity on faith; once again, reporters are assisting in the creation of a fictional universe in which "reality" only rears its head after the damage done to those least able to bear it is permanent and irreversible. Perhaps then some of them will learn to say they're sorry. In the meantime, the media has a ways to go to redeem themselves. Let's hope they begin sometime soon. http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=272724
AARP, AFL-CIO and ?
A number of groups opposed to restructuring Social Security, including advocates for the disabled, senior citizen groups and AFL-CIO unions, announced on Thursday they are forming a coalition to counter what is expected to be a major White House's push to promote private investment accounts.
Roger Hickey, co-director of the liberal Campaign for America's Future, called it a "broad coalition of organizations, many of them representing millions and millions of people who are going to fight the president and defeat him on Social Security privatization. We think it is a bad idea and even shocking to many Republican legislators." http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=7116094
Fighting Dems: Hardly. The Pelosi-Reid statement:
The President's economic summit should have been an opportunity to begin an honest discussion about strengthening and improving Social Security, and we have been encouraged to hear that the President would like to work on a bipartisan basis.
Oy vey. They must term it a phony crisis, the latest con.... Or else, they’ll sell us down the river…again.
New Intelligence Agency Few of us have apparently been caught up in this ‘most profound change in our intelligence network since World War II.’ Understandable. Yet, we should note some of the ramifications. For example:
The creation of the NID is an appalling idea. It puts all 14 intelligence agencies UNDER A POLITICAL APPOINTEE, which is an invitation for disaster. We all know how corrupted information was before the Iraq war; imagine what it will look like after it travels through the executive sausage-making unit. It's unlikely that anything remotely resembling the truth will ever emerge from the Bush White House. The new bill creates a new national ID card ("Let me see your papers") by federalizing driver's licenses. The plan is to establish federal guidelines in the design of licenses that can be used as a means for tracking people. These standards are unnecessary unless the government is developing a social strategy that is so heinous that it's bound to generate more enemies. The increased repression and the greater disparity in personal wealth suggest that this is the case. Democracy Now elaborates on the new national ID: "There's all sorts of new technologies that could be incorporated into the driver's license to link it to all sorts of public and private-sector databases. And you could also imagine putting an RFID chip in the license that would allow it to be tracked remotely. So, this is something the 9/11 commission had actually recommended be done, that the driver's license should be something like an internal passport of the sort that we've seen in the Soviet Union in the past, and although the Congress wasn't willing to explicitly go that far, they have laid the groundwork for that kind of checkpoint society in the future." Did you hear any complaints from Congress over this hallmark of fascist's regimes? http://www.progressivetrail.org/articles/041216Whitney.shtml
What’s Happening, Iraq: Saturday it was announced that “hundreds” of “insurgents” remained in Fallujah; now, up north…
Gunmen raked a car with machine-gun fire in the northern city of Mosul yesterday, killing three foreigners and their driver. They then cut off the head of one of their victims.
The killings show that at the same time as the US was recapturing Fallujah in a heavily publicised assault it largely lost control of Mosul, Iraq's northern capital… http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=594312
And, elsewhere:
Car bombs tore through a Najaf funeral procession and Karbala's main bus station Sunday, killing at least 60 people and wounding more than 120 in the two Shiite holy cities. In Baghdad, gunmen launched a bold ambush, executing three election officials, in their campaign to disrupt next month's parliamentary ballot. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041219/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_041219182930
Torture and Rumseld: His fingerprints…
Renewed exposure of prisoner abuse, torture and even murder by American military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan is widening already deep divisions between the Pentagon and the intelligence community -- and creating an untenable situation for Donald Rumsfeld, the beleaguered secretary of defense. A recently disclosed FBI memo indicates that "marching orders" to abandon traditional interrogation methods came from the defense secretary himself. http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/12/17/memo/index_np.html
TIME magazine honors Bush. No surprise; grimace and read…
President Bush's bold, uncompromising leadership and his clear-cut election victory made him Time magazine's ``Person of the Year'' for 2004, its managing editor said on Sunday.
Time chose Bush ``for sticking to his guns (literally and figuratively), for reshaping the rules of politics to fit his 10-gallon-hat leadership style and for persuading a majority of voters this time around that he deserved to be in the White House for another four years,'' Jim Kelly wrote in the magazine. http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-media-time-person.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
The Liberal Public:
Nearly half of all Americans believe the U.S. government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans, according to a nationwide poll. The survey conducted by Cornell University also found that Republicans and people who described themselves as highly religious were more apt to support curtailing Muslims' civil liberties than Democrats or people who are less religious. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&u=/ap/20041218/ap_on_re_us/muslims_civil_liberties&printer=1
What’s Happening, Venezuela: Chavez Rules. Will Cheney et al respond?
Record world oil prices have filled Venezuela's treasury and helped President Hugo Chávez and his "Bolivarian Revolution for the poor" win two elections in recent months. Now, freed from worries about domestic political opposition, Mr. Chávez is using his new wealth to extend his influence beyond his nation's borders - and perhaps escalate his long-running confrontation with Washington, say observers.
In recent months, Chávez has expanded Venezuela's policy of supplying oil at below-market prices to poor neighbors. He has also made a major arms purchase from Russia and pushed for the creation of a regional petroleum corporation. A firebrand populist and admirer of Cuba's Fidel Castro, Chávez has often spoken of spreading his leftist vision across this continent, in contrast to the conservative economic policies that swept South America in the 1990s.http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1220/p06s01-woam.html
Latest Environmental Travesty:
Two weeks of negotiations at a United Nations conference here on climate change ended early Saturday with a weak pledge to start limited, informal talks on ways to slow down global warming, after the United States blocked efforts to begin more substantive discussions.
The main focus was to discuss the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, which goes into force on Feb. 16 and will require industrial nations to make substantial cuts in their emissions of so-called greenhouse gases. But another goal had been to draw the United States, which withdrew from the accord in 2001, back into discussions about ways to mitigate climate change after 2012, when the Kyoto agreement expires…
"This is a new low for the United States, not just to pull out, but to block other countries from moving ahead on their own path," said Jeff Fiedler, an observer representing the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council. "It's almost spiteful to say, 'You can't move ahead without us.' If you're not going to lead, then get out of the way." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/science/19climate.html?pagewanted=all
-R
Republican congressional leaders have indicated they will support Bush's plan for private accounts, yet deficit concerns have sparked resistance. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa and Representative Jim Kolbe of Arizona are among Republicans who say higher taxes may be needed to win bipartisan support for private accounts.
Democratic Representatives Robert Matsui of California and John Spratt of South Carolina said the administration's first priority should be reducing the federal budget deficit and only then can it deal with Social Security. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=af_7nCvb9Rm4&refer=top_world_news
The Media and Social Security: Commentary
A "NewsNight with Aaron Brown," report recently misleadingly entitled "Social Security is in Trouble," CNN's Bruce Morton quoted Republican Senator Lindsey Graham together with pro-privatization activists from the Concord Coalition and the Cato Institute. Notably, no anti-privatization voices were aired during his report. Graham was also trotted out as the voice of privatization (or "reform" in the language of its supporters and a compliant press) by CNN anchor, Lou Dobbs, during which he claimed—unchallenged— "Social Security is going bankrupt, it's coming apart at the seams…We're short of money to pay the benefits. If we do nothing, the cost will be trillions, if we do something progressive, the cost can be managed. But to do nothing is a death blow to Social Security."
Instead of questioning the truth of Graham's statements, which are wholly unsupported by either CBO or Social Security's own data, Republican political contributor, Dobbs simply walked Graham right into his next talking point, saying "Let's talk about the idea of private accounts…"
As with the Iraq war, proponents of the Bush plan seek to tar their better-informed opposition as irresponsible and not to be trusted. New York Times' conservative columnist, David Brooks complained that "The people setting the tone for the opposition to the Bush Social Security effort depict the financial markets as huge, organized scams where the rich prey upon the weak. Their phrases are already familiar: a risky scheme, Enron accounting, a gift to the securities industry, greedy speculators preying upon Grandma's pension." Once again, we are expected to take the Bush administration's intentions, competence and veracity on faith; once again, reporters are assisting in the creation of a fictional universe in which "reality" only rears its head after the damage done to those least able to bear it is permanent and irreversible. Perhaps then some of them will learn to say they're sorry. In the meantime, the media has a ways to go to redeem themselves. Let's hope they begin sometime soon. http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=272724
AARP, AFL-CIO and ?
A number of groups opposed to restructuring Social Security, including advocates for the disabled, senior citizen groups and AFL-CIO unions, announced on Thursday they are forming a coalition to counter what is expected to be a major White House's push to promote private investment accounts.
Roger Hickey, co-director of the liberal Campaign for America's Future, called it a "broad coalition of organizations, many of them representing millions and millions of people who are going to fight the president and defeat him on Social Security privatization. We think it is a bad idea and even shocking to many Republican legislators." http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyPopup.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=7116094
Fighting Dems: Hardly. The Pelosi-Reid statement:
The President's economic summit should have been an opportunity to begin an honest discussion about strengthening and improving Social Security, and we have been encouraged to hear that the President would like to work on a bipartisan basis.
Oy vey. They must term it a phony crisis, the latest con.... Or else, they’ll sell us down the river…again.
New Intelligence Agency Few of us have apparently been caught up in this ‘most profound change in our intelligence network since World War II.’ Understandable. Yet, we should note some of the ramifications. For example:
The creation of the NID is an appalling idea. It puts all 14 intelligence agencies UNDER A POLITICAL APPOINTEE, which is an invitation for disaster. We all know how corrupted information was before the Iraq war; imagine what it will look like after it travels through the executive sausage-making unit. It's unlikely that anything remotely resembling the truth will ever emerge from the Bush White House. The new bill creates a new national ID card ("Let me see your papers") by federalizing driver's licenses. The plan is to establish federal guidelines in the design of licenses that can be used as a means for tracking people. These standards are unnecessary unless the government is developing a social strategy that is so heinous that it's bound to generate more enemies. The increased repression and the greater disparity in personal wealth suggest that this is the case. Democracy Now elaborates on the new national ID: "There's all sorts of new technologies that could be incorporated into the driver's license to link it to all sorts of public and private-sector databases. And you could also imagine putting an RFID chip in the license that would allow it to be tracked remotely. So, this is something the 9/11 commission had actually recommended be done, that the driver's license should be something like an internal passport of the sort that we've seen in the Soviet Union in the past, and although the Congress wasn't willing to explicitly go that far, they have laid the groundwork for that kind of checkpoint society in the future." Did you hear any complaints from Congress over this hallmark of fascist's regimes? http://www.progressivetrail.org/articles/041216Whitney.shtml
What’s Happening, Iraq: Saturday it was announced that “hundreds” of “insurgents” remained in Fallujah; now, up north…
Gunmen raked a car with machine-gun fire in the northern city of Mosul yesterday, killing three foreigners and their driver. They then cut off the head of one of their victims.
The killings show that at the same time as the US was recapturing Fallujah in a heavily publicised assault it largely lost control of Mosul, Iraq's northern capital… http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=594312
And, elsewhere:
Car bombs tore through a Najaf funeral procession and Karbala's main bus station Sunday, killing at least 60 people and wounding more than 120 in the two Shiite holy cities. In Baghdad, gunmen launched a bold ambush, executing three election officials, in their campaign to disrupt next month's parliamentary ballot. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041219/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_041219182930
Torture and Rumseld: His fingerprints…
Renewed exposure of prisoner abuse, torture and even murder by American military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan is widening already deep divisions between the Pentagon and the intelligence community -- and creating an untenable situation for Donald Rumsfeld, the beleaguered secretary of defense. A recently disclosed FBI memo indicates that "marching orders" to abandon traditional interrogation methods came from the defense secretary himself. http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/12/17/memo/index_np.html
TIME magazine honors Bush. No surprise; grimace and read…
President Bush's bold, uncompromising leadership and his clear-cut election victory made him Time magazine's ``Person of the Year'' for 2004, its managing editor said on Sunday.
Time chose Bush ``for sticking to his guns (literally and figuratively), for reshaping the rules of politics to fit his 10-gallon-hat leadership style and for persuading a majority of voters this time around that he deserved to be in the White House for another four years,'' Jim Kelly wrote in the magazine. http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-media-time-person.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
The Liberal Public:
Nearly half of all Americans believe the U.S. government should restrict the civil liberties of Muslim Americans, according to a nationwide poll. The survey conducted by Cornell University also found that Republicans and people who described themselves as highly religious were more apt to support curtailing Muslims' civil liberties than Democrats or people who are less religious. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&u=/ap/20041218/ap_on_re_us/muslims_civil_liberties&printer=1
What’s Happening, Venezuela: Chavez Rules. Will Cheney et al respond?
Record world oil prices have filled Venezuela's treasury and helped President Hugo Chávez and his "Bolivarian Revolution for the poor" win two elections in recent months. Now, freed from worries about domestic political opposition, Mr. Chávez is using his new wealth to extend his influence beyond his nation's borders - and perhaps escalate his long-running confrontation with Washington, say observers.
In recent months, Chávez has expanded Venezuela's policy of supplying oil at below-market prices to poor neighbors. He has also made a major arms purchase from Russia and pushed for the creation of a regional petroleum corporation. A firebrand populist and admirer of Cuba's Fidel Castro, Chávez has often spoken of spreading his leftist vision across this continent, in contrast to the conservative economic policies that swept South America in the 1990s.http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1220/p06s01-woam.html
Latest Environmental Travesty:
Two weeks of negotiations at a United Nations conference here on climate change ended early Saturday with a weak pledge to start limited, informal talks on ways to slow down global warming, after the United States blocked efforts to begin more substantive discussions.
The main focus was to discuss the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, which goes into force on Feb. 16 and will require industrial nations to make substantial cuts in their emissions of so-called greenhouse gases. But another goal had been to draw the United States, which withdrew from the accord in 2001, back into discussions about ways to mitigate climate change after 2012, when the Kyoto agreement expires…
"This is a new low for the United States, not just to pull out, but to block other countries from moving ahead on their own path," said Jeff Fiedler, an observer representing the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council. "It's almost spiteful to say, 'You can't move ahead without us.' If you're not going to lead, then get out of the way." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/science/19climate.html?pagewanted=all
-R
