Wednesday, March 02, 2005
The Kindly Media: The lengths they go to avoid saying 'lies' or 'lying'…ABC’s The Note on an Administration spokesperson:
White House communications czarina Nicolle Devenish is very upbeat in this story, but her words aren't necessarily backed up by metrics of which we know. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=156238
Halting Capitol Punishment for Teens Apparently only the U.S. and Somalia were executing juveniles. Good to see we’re joining the rest of the world.
"From a moral standpoint, it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor's character deficiencies will be reformd." -Justice Anthony Kennedy writing the court's majority opinion. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/print/image/
Hope Kennedy is ready for attacks from the Right…
What’s Happening, Lebanon: Juan Cole on what it means in/for Lebanon and Israel:
If Lebanese people power can force a Syrian withdrawal, the public relations implications may be ambiguous for Tel Aviv. After the US withdrawal from Iraq, Israeli dominance of the West Bank and Gaza will be the last military occupation of major territory in the Middle East. People in the region, in Europe, and in the US itself may begin asking why, if Syria had to leave Lebanon, Israel should not have to leave the West Bank and Gaza.
I don't think Bush had anything much to do with the current Lebanese national movement except at the margins. Walid Jumblatt, the embittered son of Kamal whom the Syrians defeated in 1976 at the American behest, said he was inspired by the fall of Saddam. But this sort of statement from a Druze warlord strikes me as just as manipulative as the news conferences of Ahmad Chalabi, who is also inspired by Saddam's fall. Jumblatt has a long history of anti-Israeli and anti-American sentiment that makes his sudden conversion to neoconism likely a mirage. He has wanted the Syrians back out since 1976, so it is not plausible that anything changed for him in 2003.
The Lebanese are still not entirely united on a Syrian military withdrawal. Supporters of outgoing PM Omar Karami rioted in Tripoli on Monday. Hizbullah leader Hasan Nasrallah still supports the Syrians and has expressed anxieties about the Hariri assassination and its aftermath leading to renewed civil war (an argument for continued Syrian military presence). http://www.juancole.com/2005/03/lebanon-realignment-and-syria-it-is.html
Bankruptcy Bill: Another awful corporte bill making its way. E.J. Dionne captures the essence and warns Democrats they had best be united.
You could make a case for this bankruptcy bill if it were narrowly focused on those who truly abuse the system. Instead, the bill sweeps away protections for worthy and unworthy creditors alike. This will make it much tougher for those who fall on hard times to escape burdens they confront through little fault of their own.
Listen to Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor and one of the most learned and powerful critics of the bill. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in early February, Warren argued that the proposal "assumes that everyone is in bankruptcy for the same reason -- too much unnecessary spending."
What does that mean in practice? "A family driven to bankruptcy by the increased costs of caring for an elderly parent with Alzheimer's disease is treated the same as someone who maxed out his credit cards at a casino," Warren said. "A person who had a heart attack is treated the same as someone who had a spending spree at the shopping mall. A mother who works two jobs and who cannot manage the prescription drugs needed for a child with diabetes is treated the same as someone who charged a bunch of credit cards with only a vague intent to repay." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61634-2005Feb28.html
Speaking of economics, the plight of the dollar (continued)
Asian central bank and finance officials met quietly here this week to discuss ways to stabilize foreign exchange markets as currencies around the region surged against the U.S. dollar, some to multi-year highs.
Officials of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as China, Japan and South Korea, agreed at Tuesday's closed-door meeting to set up the "Asian Bellagio Group", which will help coordinate policies and ideas among central banks, finance ministries and academics, a Thai finance ministry official told Dow Jones Newswires.
The group is unlikely to produce concerted monetary action by Asian authorities any time soon - but the decision to establish it does suggest the region's governments are increasingly concerned by global financial imbalances and the shaky U.S. dollar.
It also indicates emerging Asian economies are getting serious about pursuing close regional http://sg.biz.yahoo.com/050224/15/3qtq5.html
What’s Happening Iraq: Casualty / secrecy issues
U.S. officials have "declined to provide the exact number" of Iraqi security members killed in the insurgency. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/01/international/middleeast/01iraq.html?hp&ex=1109653200&en=e991b8570d6e1c01&ei=5094&partner=homepage
The WaPost discusses a related piece, that the Iraqi police are forbidding – and beating- journalists who try to enter hospitals to learn about bombing victims. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59240-2005Feb28.html
Agent Orange Been following this with Dutch friends from my visit last year to Vietnam. Steady sources has been Radio Netherlands and Ken Herrmann’s Danang/Quang Nam Fund which aids the poor of Central Vietnam and addresses the disabilities of 2 million Vietnamese who were exposed to Agent Orange. http://www2.rnw.nl/rnw/en/currentaffairs/region/northamerica/usa050301?view=Standard
http://www.danangquangnamfund.org/
Good to see the NY Times cover it this week:
The Justice Department is urging a federal judge in Brooklyn to dismiss a lawsuit aimed at forcing a re-examination of one of the most contentious issues of the Vietnam War, the use of the defoliant Agent Orange.
The civil suit, filed last year on behalf of millions of Vietnamese, claimed that American chemical companies committed war crimes by supplying the military with Agent Orange, which contained dioxin, a highly toxic substance.
The suit seeks what could be billions of dollars of damages from the companies and the environmental cleanup of Vietnam. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/28/nyregion/28orange.html
Attorneys representing major U.S. chemical companies defended them against charges on Monday that the companies committed war crimes by supplying the military with Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
The lawyers asked a U.S. District Court judge in Brooklyn, New York, to dismiss a civil suit that seeks class action status claiming that up to 4 million Vietnamese people suffered from dioxin poisoning due to Agent Orange. http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-crime-agentorange.html
Privatized Prison”Health Care” Criminal
In these two deaths, state investigators concluded, the culprit was a for-profit corporation, Prison Health Services. The company, based outside Nashville, Tenn., no longer works in most of those New York jails, but it hardly is out of work. It has amassed 86 contracts in 28 states -- including Indiana -- and now cares for 237,000 inmates, or about one in every 10 people behind bars.
Nearly 23,000 Indiana inmates are served by Prison Health, one of the top five largest regions served by the company that has sold its promise of lower costs and better care, and become the biggest for-profit company providing medical care in jails and prisons. Its enticing sales pitch: take the messy and expensive job of providing medical care from overmatched government officials, and give it to an experienced nationwide company that could recruit doctors, battle lawsuits and keep costs down.
A yearlong examination of Prison Health by The New York Times reveals repeated instances of flawed medical care that sometimes turns lethal. The company's performance around the nation has provoked criticism from judges and sheriffs, lawsuits from inmates' families and whistle-blowers, and condemnation by federal, state and local authorities. The company has paid millions of dollars in fines and settlements. http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/225857-3856-010.html
Social Security:
USAToday has a poll showing support for Bush on Social Security flagging, indeed falling. Just 35% of respondents support his Social Security "record," down eight points since three weeks ago and 14 points since he first took office. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-02-28-poll_x.htm
The WaPost notes that the White House has set a self-imposed six-week deadline to start turning public opinion on Social Security. As part of the effort, the Treasury Department has opened a "war room"- the “Social Security Information Center”- to "help coordinate and refine the administration's message on the issue." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61437-2005Feb28.html
Frist: Thumbs Down
The Senate's top Republican said yesterday that President Bush's bid to restructure Social Security may have to wait until next year and might not involve the individual accounts the White House has been pushing hard.
The comments of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), made as GOP lawmakers returned from a week of trying to sell the plan to voters, underscored the challenge facing the White House, especially in light of unbroken Democratic opposition. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64253-2005Mar1.html
Today’s NY Times is not quite so pessimistic
President Bush's drive to overhaul Social Security is in trouble, and while it is far too soon to declare it doomed, it faces obstacles on all sides.
After a week at home listening to constituents on the issue, Congressional leaders of Mr. Bush's own party have returned to Washington and immediately begun playing for time, suggesting that they may not meet his goal of passing legislation this year. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/02/politics/02social.html?hp&ex=1109826000&en=7e45d8b533d68616&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Wolfowitz to World Bank? Guardian:
In one of the most intriguing stories of the day, the Financial Times reports that Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy secretary of defence and one of the chief hawks in the Bush administration, is on the short list to succeed James Wolfensohn as president of the World Bank.
The worldbankpresident blog describes the report as a bombshell as it would be a controversial choice. You can stay that again. Of course it would not be the first time that someone from the Pentagon has headed the world's leading development institution. That distinction belongs to Robert McNamara, who came to grief over the Vietnam war. He ran the Bank from 1968 to 1981, in what could be seen as a very public act of contrition for his conduct of the war. http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/world_news/2005/03/01/wolfowitzs_world.html
-R
White House communications czarina Nicolle Devenish is very upbeat in this story, but her words aren't necessarily backed up by metrics of which we know. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/TheNote/story?id=156238
Halting Capitol Punishment for Teens Apparently only the U.S. and Somalia were executing juveniles. Good to see we’re joining the rest of the world.
"From a moral standpoint, it would be misguided to equate the failings of a minor with those of an adult, for a greater possibility exists that a minor's character deficiencies will be reformd." -Justice Anthony Kennedy writing the court's majority opinion. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/print/image/
Hope Kennedy is ready for attacks from the Right…
What’s Happening, Lebanon: Juan Cole on what it means in/for Lebanon and Israel:
If Lebanese people power can force a Syrian withdrawal, the public relations implications may be ambiguous for Tel Aviv. After the US withdrawal from Iraq, Israeli dominance of the West Bank and Gaza will be the last military occupation of major territory in the Middle East. People in the region, in Europe, and in the US itself may begin asking why, if Syria had to leave Lebanon, Israel should not have to leave the West Bank and Gaza.
I don't think Bush had anything much to do with the current Lebanese national movement except at the margins. Walid Jumblatt, the embittered son of Kamal whom the Syrians defeated in 1976 at the American behest, said he was inspired by the fall of Saddam. But this sort of statement from a Druze warlord strikes me as just as manipulative as the news conferences of Ahmad Chalabi, who is also inspired by Saddam's fall. Jumblatt has a long history of anti-Israeli and anti-American sentiment that makes his sudden conversion to neoconism likely a mirage. He has wanted the Syrians back out since 1976, so it is not plausible that anything changed for him in 2003.
The Lebanese are still not entirely united on a Syrian military withdrawal. Supporters of outgoing PM Omar Karami rioted in Tripoli on Monday. Hizbullah leader Hasan Nasrallah still supports the Syrians and has expressed anxieties about the Hariri assassination and its aftermath leading to renewed civil war (an argument for continued Syrian military presence). http://www.juancole.com/2005/03/lebanon-realignment-and-syria-it-is.html
Bankruptcy Bill: Another awful corporte bill making its way. E.J. Dionne captures the essence and warns Democrats they had best be united.
You could make a case for this bankruptcy bill if it were narrowly focused on those who truly abuse the system. Instead, the bill sweeps away protections for worthy and unworthy creditors alike. This will make it much tougher for those who fall on hard times to escape burdens they confront through little fault of their own.
Listen to Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor and one of the most learned and powerful critics of the bill. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in early February, Warren argued that the proposal "assumes that everyone is in bankruptcy for the same reason -- too much unnecessary spending."
What does that mean in practice? "A family driven to bankruptcy by the increased costs of caring for an elderly parent with Alzheimer's disease is treated the same as someone who maxed out his credit cards at a casino," Warren said. "A person who had a heart attack is treated the same as someone who had a spending spree at the shopping mall. A mother who works two jobs and who cannot manage the prescription drugs needed for a child with diabetes is treated the same as someone who charged a bunch of credit cards with only a vague intent to repay." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61634-2005Feb28.html
Speaking of economics, the plight of the dollar (continued)
Asian central bank and finance officials met quietly here this week to discuss ways to stabilize foreign exchange markets as currencies around the region surged against the U.S. dollar, some to multi-year highs.
Officials of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as well as China, Japan and South Korea, agreed at Tuesday's closed-door meeting to set up the "Asian Bellagio Group", which will help coordinate policies and ideas among central banks, finance ministries and academics, a Thai finance ministry official told Dow Jones Newswires.
The group is unlikely to produce concerted monetary action by Asian authorities any time soon - but the decision to establish it does suggest the region's governments are increasingly concerned by global financial imbalances and the shaky U.S. dollar.
It also indicates emerging Asian economies are getting serious about pursuing close regional http://sg.biz.yahoo.com/050224/15/3qtq5.html
What’s Happening Iraq: Casualty / secrecy issues
U.S. officials have "declined to provide the exact number" of Iraqi security members killed in the insurgency. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/01/international/middleeast/01iraq.html?hp&ex=1109653200&en=e991b8570d6e1c01&ei=5094&partner=homepage
The WaPost discusses a related piece, that the Iraqi police are forbidding – and beating- journalists who try to enter hospitals to learn about bombing victims. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59240-2005Feb28.html
Agent Orange Been following this with Dutch friends from my visit last year to Vietnam. Steady sources has been Radio Netherlands and Ken Herrmann’s Danang/Quang Nam Fund which aids the poor of Central Vietnam and addresses the disabilities of 2 million Vietnamese who were exposed to Agent Orange. http://www2.rnw.nl/rnw/en/currentaffairs/region/northamerica/usa050301?view=Standard
http://www.danangquangnamfund.org/
Good to see the NY Times cover it this week:
The Justice Department is urging a federal judge in Brooklyn to dismiss a lawsuit aimed at forcing a re-examination of one of the most contentious issues of the Vietnam War, the use of the defoliant Agent Orange.
The civil suit, filed last year on behalf of millions of Vietnamese, claimed that American chemical companies committed war crimes by supplying the military with Agent Orange, which contained dioxin, a highly toxic substance.
The suit seeks what could be billions of dollars of damages from the companies and the environmental cleanup of Vietnam. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/28/nyregion/28orange.html
Attorneys representing major U.S. chemical companies defended them against charges on Monday that the companies committed war crimes by supplying the military with Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
The lawyers asked a U.S. District Court judge in Brooklyn, New York, to dismiss a civil suit that seeks class action status claiming that up to 4 million Vietnamese people suffered from dioxin poisoning due to Agent Orange. http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-crime-agentorange.html
Privatized Prison”Health Care” Criminal
In these two deaths, state investigators concluded, the culprit was a for-profit corporation, Prison Health Services. The company, based outside Nashville, Tenn., no longer works in most of those New York jails, but it hardly is out of work. It has amassed 86 contracts in 28 states -- including Indiana -- and now cares for 237,000 inmates, or about one in every 10 people behind bars.
Nearly 23,000 Indiana inmates are served by Prison Health, one of the top five largest regions served by the company that has sold its promise of lower costs and better care, and become the biggest for-profit company providing medical care in jails and prisons. Its enticing sales pitch: take the messy and expensive job of providing medical care from overmatched government officials, and give it to an experienced nationwide company that could recruit doctors, battle lawsuits and keep costs down.
A yearlong examination of Prison Health by The New York Times reveals repeated instances of flawed medical care that sometimes turns lethal. The company's performance around the nation has provoked criticism from judges and sheriffs, lawsuits from inmates' families and whistle-blowers, and condemnation by federal, state and local authorities. The company has paid millions of dollars in fines and settlements. http://www.indystar.com/articles/6/225857-3856-010.html
Social Security:
USAToday has a poll showing support for Bush on Social Security flagging, indeed falling. Just 35% of respondents support his Social Security "record," down eight points since three weeks ago and 14 points since he first took office. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-02-28-poll_x.htm
The WaPost notes that the White House has set a self-imposed six-week deadline to start turning public opinion on Social Security. As part of the effort, the Treasury Department has opened a "war room"- the “Social Security Information Center”- to "help coordinate and refine the administration's message on the issue." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61437-2005Feb28.html
Frist: Thumbs Down
The Senate's top Republican said yesterday that President Bush's bid to restructure Social Security may have to wait until next year and might not involve the individual accounts the White House has been pushing hard.
The comments of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), made as GOP lawmakers returned from a week of trying to sell the plan to voters, underscored the challenge facing the White House, especially in light of unbroken Democratic opposition. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64253-2005Mar1.html
Today’s NY Times is not quite so pessimistic
President Bush's drive to overhaul Social Security is in trouble, and while it is far too soon to declare it doomed, it faces obstacles on all sides.
After a week at home listening to constituents on the issue, Congressional leaders of Mr. Bush's own party have returned to Washington and immediately begun playing for time, suggesting that they may not meet his goal of passing legislation this year. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/02/politics/02social.html?hp&ex=1109826000&en=7e45d8b533d68616&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Wolfowitz to World Bank? Guardian:
In one of the most intriguing stories of the day, the Financial Times reports that Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy secretary of defence and one of the chief hawks in the Bush administration, is on the short list to succeed James Wolfensohn as president of the World Bank.
The worldbankpresident blog describes the report as a bombshell as it would be a controversial choice. You can stay that again. Of course it would not be the first time that someone from the Pentagon has headed the world's leading development institution. That distinction belongs to Robert McNamara, who came to grief over the Vietnam war. He ran the Bank from 1968 to 1981, in what could be seen as a very public act of contrition for his conduct of the war. http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/world_news/2005/03/01/wolfowitzs_world.html
-R
