Wednesday, February 16, 2005
The War on Science. Ideology Rules The Union of Concerned Scientists’ study of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Large numbers of agency scientists reported political interference in scientific determinations.
Nearly half of all respondents whose work is related to endangered species scientific findings (44 percent) reported that they "have been directed, for non-scientific reasons, to refrain from making jeopardy or other findings that are protective of species." One in five agency scientists revealed they have been instructed to compromise their scientific integrity—reporting that they have been "directed to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information from a USFWS scientific document," such as a biological opinion;
More than two out of three staff scientists (70 percent) and nearly nine out of 10 scientist managers (89 percent) knew of cases "where U.S. Department of Interior political appointees have injected themselves into Ecological Services determinations." A majority of respondents also cited interventions by members of Congress and local officeholders. http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/page.cfm?pageID=1601
In other words, Right wing “science”, only.
Wal-Mart:
Can this be? Wal-Mart and the U.S. Department of Labor playing footsie ?
Here's why the deal smells like rotting corporate sludge:
1) The deal to let the Wal-Mart corporate office look at all minimum wage and overtime complaints was kept secret until the New York Times confronted DOL about it. There was no public announcement prior to this date, despite the fact that the DOL usually announces such compliance deals with great fanfare.
2) As far as anyone can tell, no Wal-Mart employees were informed of the compliance agreement, even though it had been implemented as early as January 10 (see the email).
3) While the headlines talk about child labor violations, the email is much broader and says any information on any fair labor standards violation investigation should be turned over to Wal-Mart.
4) Were Wal-Mart employees ever informed that their complaints about their employer to the DOL were just being passed off to Wal-Mart corporate headquarters in Arkansas? Giving Wal-Mart this information secretly is a recipe for employees to face retaliation. Notably, there is no instruction in the email to assure the confidentiality of the employees who might make a complaint. http://www.nathannewman.org/laborblog/archive/002185.shtml
Some Democrats are upset.
After disclosure of a secret agreement between the U.S. Department of Labor and Wal-Mart giving the giant retailer the authority to conduct its own investigations of employee wage and hour complaints, Representative George Miller (D-California) today requested an investigation by the DOL's Inspector General to determine whether the arrangement represents a sweetheart deal between the Bush Administration and one of the nation’s most frequent violators of labor laws...
Miller said that such an arrangement could allow the giant employer to cover up evidence of a violation and would discourage aggrieved employees who might fear retribution from the company. Miller also sent a letter to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao today asking for more information about the arrangement. http://www.nathannewman.org/laborblog/archive/002185.shtml
Jeff Gannon: The Media are rather quiet, doing zip investigative reporting, apparently. As Joe Conason notes, “… our supposedly liberal media becomes quite squeamish when reporting anything that might humiliate the Bush White House and the Republican Party.” http://www.observer.com/pages/conason.asp
For now, here’s the beginning of Tuesday’s letter from Reps. Conyers and Louise Slaughter to Tom Ridge, submitted as a request under the Freedom of Information Act for release of Homeland security records relating to Jeff Gannon /James Guckert and his access to Bush.
Dear Secretary Ridge:
This letter constitutes a request pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. S 552 (FOIA). The request is submitted on behalf of the Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, Ranking Member of the House Rules Committee and Congressman John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee.
Recent news reports indicate that James D. Guckert, a Republican activist gained access to the White House press briefing room and Presidential press conferences in violation of standard security procedures and was allowed to work under the assumed name, "Jeff Gannon." News reports also indicate that Mr. Guckert would not be considered a bona fide journalist by his peers in the press corps, as most of his claims to legitimacy have already been discredited. Access to the President and his press corps is highly competitive, and many seasoned journalists have not had the honor of attending the events or enjoying the access Mr. Guckert has. http://blog.dccc.org/mt/archives/002170.html
Howard Kurtz writes about Gannon in Wednesday’s WaPost, chasing the gay escort angle, but does allude to the more important matter:
Gannon is also embroiled in the Valerie Plame story. In 2003 he interviewed Plame's husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, after unnamed administration officials leaked her role as a CIA operative to columnist Robert Novak. According to his Talon News story, Gannon asked Wilson about "an internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel [detailing] a meeting in early 2002 where your wife, a member of the agency for clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested that you could be sent to investigate the reports."
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) this week questioned how Gannon got access to the documents and asked the special prosecutor investigating the Plame leak to include Gannon in his probe. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27730-2005Feb15.html
Right Lies: It’s a 24/7 operation. O’Reilly is numero uno, but he has competition.
On the heels of Brit Hume, the Fox News anchor, claiming that FDR was in favor of transforming Social Security to private accounts- and many Right commentators repeating the lie- Sean Hannity asserts that there is “an absence of evidence” that Kerry saw combat in Vietnam.
What’s Happening, Iraq: The Elections We Didn’t Want. [Robin Wright]
When the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq two years ago, it envisioned a quick handover to handpicked allies in a secular government that would be the antithesis of Iran's theocracy -- potentially even a foil to Tehran's regional ambitions.
But, in one of the greatest ironies of the U.S. intervention, Iraqis instead went to the polls and elected a government with a strong religious base -- and very close ties to the Islamic republic next door. It is the last thing the administration expected from its costly Iraq policy -- $300 billion and counting, U.S. and regional analysts say.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21679-2005Feb13.html
Edward Herman adds his:
So with media assistance the election may have helped enable the Bush administration to fight the insurgency more aggressively for an extended period; and by domination of a technically flawed election built on an unlevel playing field, by taking advantage of the various modes of power available to the occupation (rules, agents within the government, vast sums of money), and by means of deals with Shia influentials, the election may facilitate the establishment of a parent-client relationship that will allow the achievement of major Bush aims. This all requires that the insurgency be brought under control without too great an expenditure of time, money and U.S. casualties, that the election-based deal-making and government are sufficiently accommodating, and that the Iraqi people will accept more pacification and political clienthood without widening and intensifying the resistance.
Some might argue that as the United States committed aggression in Iraq, built on a system of lies, and then proceeded to perform so poorly that a major insurgency ensued, that it ought to get out or be thrown out quickly, just as Saddam was thrown out of Kuwait in 1991. But we are dealing here with a superpower, whose aggression and occupation rights are even given sanction by the UN, IMF, and “international community.” As the officials of these governments and institutions, and others, applaud the election and ignore the occupation’s influence on its results we can hardly expect the media to do otherwise. Here, as in the past, the media provide what is now standard demonstration election apologetics: the media leopard never changes its spots. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=7240
$:Another $82 billion. Kudos to the WaPost for noting that this sum is “nearly five times the savings Bush is seeking next year in cuts to discretionary spending”.
Waste/Fraud: A few Democrats are on it, but it’s ignored by the Repubs and saved for the last 2 paragraphs in a NY Times article:
As the Bush administration sought more spending for military operations in Iraq, Congressional Democrats held a session on Monday aimed at exposing what they characterized as widespread waste and fraud in the handling of contracts for the reconstruction there.
One former official of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, Frank Willis, described a "wild West" atmosphere with lax accounting over billions of American dollars, often packaged in crisp new $100 bills. "There was leakage, no doubt," said Mr. Willis. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/15/politics/15spend.html
What’s Happening, Syria: You just know that the neocons are gleeful that they have a fresh club to use on Syria, the “low-hanging fruit compared to Iran”, as one analyst put it. One state Department official noted that “We’re going to turn up the heat on Syria, that’s for sure… even though there’s no evidence” that currently links Syria to the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/15/international/middleeast/15syria.html?
Krugman on Dean: Paul gets it exactly right. Dean is perpetually portrayed by the Right Media as an aggressive Leftie, something he’s never been. But the Republicans do fear his backbone… what the Democrats have sorely lacked.
The Republicans know the America they want, and they are not afraid to use any means to get there," Howard Dean said in accepting the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee. "But there is something that this administration and the Republican Party are very afraid of. It is that we may actually begin fighting for what we believe." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/15/opinion/15krugman.html?hp
Budget Reminder, i.e. that there’s plenty to Speak out on: for example, the Budget problem, a developing crisis for all except very wealthy Republicans.
For President Bush, the budget sent to Congress last week outlines a painful path to meeting his promise to bring down the federal budget deficit by the time he leaves office in 2009. But for the senators and governors already jockeying to succeed him, the numbers released in recent days add up to a budgetary landmine that could blow up just as the next president moves into the Oval Office.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21721-2005Feb13.html
Follow-up: Venezuela: U.S. officials express grave concern; Chavez reacts:
Mr. Chávez has reacted angrily to the criticism, saying that Venezuela has the right to purchase arms from any suitable seller and that the United States lacks the moral heft to question the arms sales.
"They sold weapons to Saddam Hussein, and they armed Al Qaeda, but the serpent turned against them," Mr. Chávez said http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/15/international/americas/15venezuela.html
Doesn’t he know Latin America is ours? Doesn’t he understand the Monroe Doctrine?
Kyoto Takes Effect:
As the agreement takes effect on Feb. 16, worries about its fairness are mixed with mild resentment. Europeans have set some of the most stringent targets for reducing greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the earth's atmosphere and have been linked by climate experts to global warming.
It is bad enough, in their view, that American and Chinese companies will not bear these extra costs. But worse, the ultimate goal of curbing greenhouse gases will not be realized because carbon dioxide emissions, unlike polluted rivers, are a global rather than a local problem.
"We have already done so much in the past that we feel others should not get a free ride," Mr. Strube said. "We could reach a situation where the leader is a lonely rider going into the sunset, and everyone else sits back and says, O.K., let's wait and see when he will return."
The pressure, he says, should be on the United States, which generates a fifth of the world's greenhouse gases but is staying out of the Kyoto system, or on nations with rapidly growing economies like China and India, which approved the agreement but are not required to reduce emissions - even though together, they already account for 14 percent of the world's total. .http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/16/business/worldbusiness/16kyoto.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Breaking Ranks: 'We Don’t Really Care About Faith-Based…’
It’s rare to see even a former Administration official to come clean. David Kuo, former deputy director of the faith-based office makes clear that the interest in such doesn’t survive the campaign, i.e. the Religious Right was used by those who only care about political power and $ being funneled to themselves and their wealthy supporters. So, they scream and get a brief nod of ‘I support a protect marriage amendment’ in the State of the Union speech, and now will do zip until the 2006 campaign is well underway..
Can’t forget that Kuo’s resignation was preceded by John DiIulio’s (from the same position), so there’s plenty of 'smoke' here.
A former White House official said yesterday that President Bush has failed to deliver on his promise to help religious groups serve the poor, the homeless and drug addicts because the administration lacks a genuine commitment to its "compassionate conservative" agenda.
David Kuo, who was deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for much of Bush's first term, said in published remarks that the White House reaped political benefits from the president's promise to help religious organizations win taxpayer funding to care for "the least, the last and the lost" in the United States. But he wrote: "There was minimal senior White House commitment to the faith-based agenda." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24561-2005Feb14.html
-R
Large numbers of agency scientists reported political interference in scientific determinations.
Nearly half of all respondents whose work is related to endangered species scientific findings (44 percent) reported that they "have been directed, for non-scientific reasons, to refrain from making jeopardy or other findings that are protective of species." One in five agency scientists revealed they have been instructed to compromise their scientific integrity—reporting that they have been "directed to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information from a USFWS scientific document," such as a biological opinion;
More than two out of three staff scientists (70 percent) and nearly nine out of 10 scientist managers (89 percent) knew of cases "where U.S. Department of Interior political appointees have injected themselves into Ecological Services determinations." A majority of respondents also cited interventions by members of Congress and local officeholders. http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/page.cfm?pageID=1601
In other words, Right wing “science”, only.
Wal-Mart:
Can this be? Wal-Mart and the U.S. Department of Labor playing footsie ?
Here's why the deal smells like rotting corporate sludge:
1) The deal to let the Wal-Mart corporate office look at all minimum wage and overtime complaints was kept secret until the New York Times confronted DOL about it. There was no public announcement prior to this date, despite the fact that the DOL usually announces such compliance deals with great fanfare.
2) As far as anyone can tell, no Wal-Mart employees were informed of the compliance agreement, even though it had been implemented as early as January 10 (see the email).
3) While the headlines talk about child labor violations, the email is much broader and says any information on any fair labor standards violation investigation should be turned over to Wal-Mart.
4) Were Wal-Mart employees ever informed that their complaints about their employer to the DOL were just being passed off to Wal-Mart corporate headquarters in Arkansas? Giving Wal-Mart this information secretly is a recipe for employees to face retaliation. Notably, there is no instruction in the email to assure the confidentiality of the employees who might make a complaint. http://www.nathannewman.org/laborblog/archive/002185.shtml
Some Democrats are upset.
After disclosure of a secret agreement between the U.S. Department of Labor and Wal-Mart giving the giant retailer the authority to conduct its own investigations of employee wage and hour complaints, Representative George Miller (D-California) today requested an investigation by the DOL's Inspector General to determine whether the arrangement represents a sweetheart deal between the Bush Administration and one of the nation’s most frequent violators of labor laws...
Miller said that such an arrangement could allow the giant employer to cover up evidence of a violation and would discourage aggrieved employees who might fear retribution from the company. Miller also sent a letter to Labor Secretary Elaine Chao today asking for more information about the arrangement. http://www.nathannewman.org/laborblog/archive/002185.shtml
Jeff Gannon: The Media are rather quiet, doing zip investigative reporting, apparently. As Joe Conason notes, “… our supposedly liberal media becomes quite squeamish when reporting anything that might humiliate the Bush White House and the Republican Party.” http://www.observer.com/pages/conason.asp
For now, here’s the beginning of Tuesday’s letter from Reps. Conyers and Louise Slaughter to Tom Ridge, submitted as a request under the Freedom of Information Act for release of Homeland security records relating to Jeff Gannon /James Guckert and his access to Bush.
Dear Secretary Ridge:
This letter constitutes a request pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. S 552 (FOIA). The request is submitted on behalf of the Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, Ranking Member of the House Rules Committee and Congressman John Conyers, Jr., Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee.
Recent news reports indicate that James D. Guckert, a Republican activist gained access to the White House press briefing room and Presidential press conferences in violation of standard security procedures and was allowed to work under the assumed name, "Jeff Gannon." News reports also indicate that Mr. Guckert would not be considered a bona fide journalist by his peers in the press corps, as most of his claims to legitimacy have already been discredited. Access to the President and his press corps is highly competitive, and many seasoned journalists have not had the honor of attending the events or enjoying the access Mr. Guckert has. http://blog.dccc.org/mt/archives/002170.html
Howard Kurtz writes about Gannon in Wednesday’s WaPost, chasing the gay escort angle, but does allude to the more important matter:
Gannon is also embroiled in the Valerie Plame story. In 2003 he interviewed Plame's husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, after unnamed administration officials leaked her role as a CIA operative to columnist Robert Novak. According to his Talon News story, Gannon asked Wilson about "an internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel [detailing] a meeting in early 2002 where your wife, a member of the agency for clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested that you could be sent to investigate the reports."
House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) this week questioned how Gannon got access to the documents and asked the special prosecutor investigating the Plame leak to include Gannon in his probe. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27730-2005Feb15.html
Right Lies: It’s a 24/7 operation. O’Reilly is numero uno, but he has competition.
On the heels of Brit Hume, the Fox News anchor, claiming that FDR was in favor of transforming Social Security to private accounts- and many Right commentators repeating the lie- Sean Hannity asserts that there is “an absence of evidence” that Kerry saw combat in Vietnam.
What’s Happening, Iraq: The Elections We Didn’t Want. [Robin Wright]
When the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq two years ago, it envisioned a quick handover to handpicked allies in a secular government that would be the antithesis of Iran's theocracy -- potentially even a foil to Tehran's regional ambitions.
But, in one of the greatest ironies of the U.S. intervention, Iraqis instead went to the polls and elected a government with a strong religious base -- and very close ties to the Islamic republic next door. It is the last thing the administration expected from its costly Iraq policy -- $300 billion and counting, U.S. and regional analysts say.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21679-2005Feb13.html
Edward Herman adds his:
So with media assistance the election may have helped enable the Bush administration to fight the insurgency more aggressively for an extended period; and by domination of a technically flawed election built on an unlevel playing field, by taking advantage of the various modes of power available to the occupation (rules, agents within the government, vast sums of money), and by means of deals with Shia influentials, the election may facilitate the establishment of a parent-client relationship that will allow the achievement of major Bush aims. This all requires that the insurgency be brought under control without too great an expenditure of time, money and U.S. casualties, that the election-based deal-making and government are sufficiently accommodating, and that the Iraqi people will accept more pacification and political clienthood without widening and intensifying the resistance.
Some might argue that as the United States committed aggression in Iraq, built on a system of lies, and then proceeded to perform so poorly that a major insurgency ensued, that it ought to get out or be thrown out quickly, just as Saddam was thrown out of Kuwait in 1991. But we are dealing here with a superpower, whose aggression and occupation rights are even given sanction by the UN, IMF, and “international community.” As the officials of these governments and institutions, and others, applaud the election and ignore the occupation’s influence on its results we can hardly expect the media to do otherwise. Here, as in the past, the media provide what is now standard demonstration election apologetics: the media leopard never changes its spots. http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=7240
$:Another $82 billion. Kudos to the WaPost for noting that this sum is “nearly five times the savings Bush is seeking next year in cuts to discretionary spending”.
Waste/Fraud: A few Democrats are on it, but it’s ignored by the Repubs and saved for the last 2 paragraphs in a NY Times article:
As the Bush administration sought more spending for military operations in Iraq, Congressional Democrats held a session on Monday aimed at exposing what they characterized as widespread waste and fraud in the handling of contracts for the reconstruction there.
One former official of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, Frank Willis, described a "wild West" atmosphere with lax accounting over billions of American dollars, often packaged in crisp new $100 bills. "There was leakage, no doubt," said Mr. Willis. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/15/politics/15spend.html
What’s Happening, Syria: You just know that the neocons are gleeful that they have a fresh club to use on Syria, the “low-hanging fruit compared to Iran”, as one analyst put it. One state Department official noted that “We’re going to turn up the heat on Syria, that’s for sure… even though there’s no evidence” that currently links Syria to the assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/15/international/middleeast/15syria.html?
Krugman on Dean: Paul gets it exactly right. Dean is perpetually portrayed by the Right Media as an aggressive Leftie, something he’s never been. But the Republicans do fear his backbone… what the Democrats have sorely lacked.
The Republicans know the America they want, and they are not afraid to use any means to get there," Howard Dean said in accepting the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee. "But there is something that this administration and the Republican Party are very afraid of. It is that we may actually begin fighting for what we believe." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/15/opinion/15krugman.html?hp
Budget Reminder, i.e. that there’s plenty to Speak out on: for example, the Budget problem, a developing crisis for all except very wealthy Republicans.
For President Bush, the budget sent to Congress last week outlines a painful path to meeting his promise to bring down the federal budget deficit by the time he leaves office in 2009. But for the senators and governors already jockeying to succeed him, the numbers released in recent days add up to a budgetary landmine that could blow up just as the next president moves into the Oval Office.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21721-2005Feb13.html
Follow-up: Venezuela: U.S. officials express grave concern; Chavez reacts:
Mr. Chávez has reacted angrily to the criticism, saying that Venezuela has the right to purchase arms from any suitable seller and that the United States lacks the moral heft to question the arms sales.
"They sold weapons to Saddam Hussein, and they armed Al Qaeda, but the serpent turned against them," Mr. Chávez said http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/15/international/americas/15venezuela.html
Doesn’t he know Latin America is ours? Doesn’t he understand the Monroe Doctrine?
Kyoto Takes Effect:
As the agreement takes effect on Feb. 16, worries about its fairness are mixed with mild resentment. Europeans have set some of the most stringent targets for reducing greenhouse gases, which trap heat in the earth's atmosphere and have been linked by climate experts to global warming.
It is bad enough, in their view, that American and Chinese companies will not bear these extra costs. But worse, the ultimate goal of curbing greenhouse gases will not be realized because carbon dioxide emissions, unlike polluted rivers, are a global rather than a local problem.
"We have already done so much in the past that we feel others should not get a free ride," Mr. Strube said. "We could reach a situation where the leader is a lonely rider going into the sunset, and everyone else sits back and says, O.K., let's wait and see when he will return."
The pressure, he says, should be on the United States, which generates a fifth of the world's greenhouse gases but is staying out of the Kyoto system, or on nations with rapidly growing economies like China and India, which approved the agreement but are not required to reduce emissions - even though together, they already account for 14 percent of the world's total. .http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/16/business/worldbusiness/16kyoto.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Breaking Ranks: 'We Don’t Really Care About Faith-Based…’
It’s rare to see even a former Administration official to come clean. David Kuo, former deputy director of the faith-based office makes clear that the interest in such doesn’t survive the campaign, i.e. the Religious Right was used by those who only care about political power and $ being funneled to themselves and their wealthy supporters. So, they scream and get a brief nod of ‘I support a protect marriage amendment’ in the State of the Union speech, and now will do zip until the 2006 campaign is well underway..
Can’t forget that Kuo’s resignation was preceded by John DiIulio’s (from the same position), so there’s plenty of 'smoke' here.
A former White House official said yesterday that President Bush has failed to deliver on his promise to help religious groups serve the poor, the homeless and drug addicts because the administration lacks a genuine commitment to its "compassionate conservative" agenda.
David Kuo, who was deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for much of Bush's first term, said in published remarks that the White House reaped political benefits from the president's promise to help religious organizations win taxpayer funding to care for "the least, the last and the lost" in the United States. But he wrote: "There was minimal senior White House commitment to the faith-based agenda." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24561-2005Feb14.html
-R
