Monday, April 25, 2005
What’s Happening, Iraq: Lack of Armor (continued) Since Kerry and the Democrats were slow and weak in publicizing, the soldiers have taken it on.
In returning home, the leaders and Marine infantrymen have chosen to break an institutional code of silence and tell their story, one they say was punctuated not only by a lack of armor, but also by a shortage of men and planning that further hampered their efforts in battle, destroyed morale and ruined the careers of some of their fiercest warriors. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/25/international/middleeast/25marines.html?hp&ex=1114488000&en=93b6d57bb86038e0&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Contractors Thriving... when surviving. Amidst the chaos, they’re making big bucks, at great risk
Indeed, with an estimated 240 deaths among some 20,000 armed private security contractors in Iraq, Rich's work is as risky or riskier than that of the U.S. military, as firms such as Blackwater take on an unprecedented role in the Iraq war. Blackwater has an average of 1,300 employees on a given day, spread out over seven countries, the firm says. That number includes hundreds in Iraq. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10547-2005Apr22.html
Escalation Worries More acknowledgement that ‘the corner’ hasn’t been turned, with attacks up by as much as 40 percent in some areas since the end of March. The Post reports that "hundreds of Iraqis and foreigners have died in the last week" as "insurgents run relatively free."
Violence is escalating sharply in Iraq after a period of relative calm that followed the January elections. Bombings, ambushes and kidnappings targeting Iraqis and foreigners, both troops and civilians, have surged this month while the new Iraqi government is caught up in power struggles over cabinet positions.
Many attacks have gone unchallenged by Iraqi forces in large areas of the country dominated by insurgents, according to the U.S. military, Iraqi officials and civilians and visits by Washington Post correspondents. Hundreds of Iraqis and foreigners have either been killed or wounded in the last week.
"Definitely, violence is getting worse," said a U.S. official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "My strong sense is that a lot of the political momentum that was generated out of the successful election, which was sort of like a punch in the gut to the insurgents, has worn off." The political stalemate "has given the insurgents new hope," the official added, repeating a message Americans say they are increasingly giving Iraqi leaders. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12417-2005Apr23.html
A largely absent Iraqi security force and a tentative “Government” have been key factors to the insurgency's renewed success.
The protracted delay in forming an Iraqi government is imperiling the appointment of its prime minister, providing a new impetus for the insurgency and fanning renewed suspicion of the U.S. role here, Iraqi and Western observers say.
Doubts are growing that the government, once formed, will have time to complete the constitution-writing process — its principal task — by the mid-August deadline. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-iraq24apr24,0,6987317.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Those Prison Abuses: Limited Accountability. Just the woman commander is targeted
A high-level Army investigation has cleared four of the five top Army officers overseeing prison policies and operations in Iraq of responsibility for the abuse of detainees there, Congressional and administration officials said Friday.
Among the officers was Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who was the top commander in Iraq from June 2003 to July 2004. He was the highest-ranking officer to face allegations of leadership failure in connection with the scandal, but he was not accused of criminal misconduct. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/23/politics/23abuse.html?hp&ex=1114315200&en=4722c2e923dd850a&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Bolton More doubts
The nomination of John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was cast in further doubt on Friday when a fourth Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said more time was needed to review his record.
A spokeswoman for Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said the senator felt the committee "did the right thing delaying the vote on Bolton in light of the recent information presented to the committee."
Asked if Bolton, an outspoken critic of the United Nations, had Murkowski's support, spokeswoman Kristin Pugh said, "I can't speculate on how she would vote." [...] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10449-2005Apr22.html
States and Health Care:
In Tennessee, Gov. Phil Bredesen plans to end coverage for more than 320,000 adults, many of them elderly. In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to shift more Medicaid recipients into managed care and require some to pay monthly premiums.
Minnesota may stop insuring 27,000 college students and adults without children. Washington state may require senior citizens to pay $3 for each prescription that Medicaid used to provide for free.
....In Missouri, where nearly one in five residents is enrolled in Medicaid, Gov. Matt Blunt is poised to sign the most drastic overhaul of all: a bill that would eliminate the program entirely in three years. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-medicaid24apr24,0,3416218.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Taxes: Moving Towards a Flat Tax Christian Science Monitor:
Bigger tax breaks for wealth produces a system in which the middle class pays about the same as the rich.
Billionaires are paying not much more taxes, proportionately, than those Americans who are merely prosperous.
It's a sign that, even without the formal adoption of a so-called "flat tax," America's tax system is getting flatter.
Ever since the introduction of the modern income tax in 1913, US policy has been guided by the notion that the rich should pay a larger of their income in federal taxes, since they arguably owe something extra to a government that protects their greater wealth, and to a society that has helped them prosper.
But a debate has long waged over just where to draw the line, with populists pushing to "soak the rich" and conservatives arguing that a too-progressive tax structure creates a disincentive for the creation of jobs and wealth that benefit the whole nation.
Chalk up President Bush as not just a tax cutter but also a tax flattener. Under Mr. Bush and a Republican Congress, big tax cuts since 2001 have given major tax reductions to those wealthy individuals presumed, up to now, to be able to afford paying a bigger chunk of their income in taxes. By one measure of the federal, state, and local tax burden, just 3.4 percentage points separate the effective tax rate paid by the top 1 percent of earners from the other 99 percent of American households.
"That's the goal of the president and Congress - to shift the tax and debt burden to middle-income Americans," charges Bob McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), a liberal Washington think tank that crunched the numbers. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0414/p03s01-usgn.html
Prisons: Full
Adding about 900 inmates per week between mid-2003 and mid-2004, the nation's prisons and jails held 2.1 million people, or one in every 138 U.S. residents, the government reported yesterday.
By last June 30, there were 48,000, or 2.3 percent, more inmates than the year before, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The total inmate population has hovered around 2 million for the past few years, reaching 2.1 million on June 30, 2002, and just below that mark a year later.
Although the crime rate has fallen over the past decade, the number of people in prison and jail is outpacing the number of inmates released, said Paige Harrison, the report's co-author. The number of admissions to federal prisons in 2004 exceeded releases by more than 8,000, the study found. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/24/AR2005042401383.html
Dean: Blunt
Since taking over as chairman of the Democratic National Committee earlier this year, the former presidential candidate has been quoted in newspapers making unusually caustic remarks about Republicans.
Dean has suggested that they are "evil." That they are "corrupt." He called them "brain-dead" during a stop in Toronto -- and while the Terri Schiavo case was still in the news. He has tagged Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) as a "liar." Last week, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that he mimicked a "drug-snorting Rush Limbaugh" at an event there. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/24/AR2005042401160_pf.html
DeLay: More trouble. Some old, some new reports
The airfare to London and Scotland in 2000 for then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was charged to an American Express card issued to Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist at the center of a federal criminal and tax probe, according to two sources who know Abramoff's credit card account number and to a copy of a travel invoice displaying that number.
DeLay's expenses during the same trip for food, phone calls and other items at a golf course hotel in Scotland were billed to a different credit card also used on the trip by a second registered Washington lobbyist, Edwin A. Buckham, according to receipts documenting that portion of the trip. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12416-2005Apr23.html
A series of new allegations surfaced Sunday against John Bolton, adding fuel to the dispute surrounding President Bush's pick for U.N. ambassador and further calling into question whether he will ultimately get the post.
Newsweek reported, in its May 2 edition, that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw complained about Bolton to then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in November 2003. Citing a "former Bush administration official who was there," Newsweek said Straw told Powell that Bolton -- Powell's undersecretary for arms control and international security -- was making it impossible to reach an agreement on Iran's nuclear program.
According to the official, Newsweek reports, Powell then turned to an aide and said, "Get a different view on [the Iranian problem]. Bolton is being too tough." http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/24/bolton.nomination/index.html
Social Security Update: The fainthearted Democrats who still aren’t solid against the privatization scam- Kent Conrad (N. Dakota), Ben Nelson (Nebraska) and Mark Pryor (Arkansas) in the Senate, Allen Boyd (Fla), Robrt Cramer (Alabama),Colin Peterson (Minnesota) note that while there still is no plan to discuss, they haven’t ruled out doing biz with the White House.
Senator Grassley still talks of putting out legislation:
"I'm going to put together a Republican-only bill as a first step to getting bipartisan support because I can't lose time waiting for the Democrats to come to the table." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/22/politics/22bush.html?ex=1271822400&en=e086725aa606644d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
-R
In returning home, the leaders and Marine infantrymen have chosen to break an institutional code of silence and tell their story, one they say was punctuated not only by a lack of armor, but also by a shortage of men and planning that further hampered their efforts in battle, destroyed morale and ruined the careers of some of their fiercest warriors. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/25/international/middleeast/25marines.html?hp&ex=1114488000&en=93b6d57bb86038e0&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Contractors Thriving... when surviving. Amidst the chaos, they’re making big bucks, at great risk
Indeed, with an estimated 240 deaths among some 20,000 armed private security contractors in Iraq, Rich's work is as risky or riskier than that of the U.S. military, as firms such as Blackwater take on an unprecedented role in the Iraq war. Blackwater has an average of 1,300 employees on a given day, spread out over seven countries, the firm says. That number includes hundreds in Iraq. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10547-2005Apr22.html
Escalation Worries More acknowledgement that ‘the corner’ hasn’t been turned, with attacks up by as much as 40 percent in some areas since the end of March. The Post reports that "hundreds of Iraqis and foreigners have died in the last week" as "insurgents run relatively free."
Violence is escalating sharply in Iraq after a period of relative calm that followed the January elections. Bombings, ambushes and kidnappings targeting Iraqis and foreigners, both troops and civilians, have surged this month while the new Iraqi government is caught up in power struggles over cabinet positions.
Many attacks have gone unchallenged by Iraqi forces in large areas of the country dominated by insurgents, according to the U.S. military, Iraqi officials and civilians and visits by Washington Post correspondents. Hundreds of Iraqis and foreigners have either been killed or wounded in the last week.
"Definitely, violence is getting worse," said a U.S. official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "My strong sense is that a lot of the political momentum that was generated out of the successful election, which was sort of like a punch in the gut to the insurgents, has worn off." The political stalemate "has given the insurgents new hope," the official added, repeating a message Americans say they are increasingly giving Iraqi leaders. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12417-2005Apr23.html
A largely absent Iraqi security force and a tentative “Government” have been key factors to the insurgency's renewed success.
The protracted delay in forming an Iraqi government is imperiling the appointment of its prime minister, providing a new impetus for the insurgency and fanning renewed suspicion of the U.S. role here, Iraqi and Western observers say.
Doubts are growing that the government, once formed, will have time to complete the constitution-writing process — its principal task — by the mid-August deadline. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-iraq24apr24,0,6987317.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Those Prison Abuses: Limited Accountability. Just the woman commander is targeted
A high-level Army investigation has cleared four of the five top Army officers overseeing prison policies and operations in Iraq of responsibility for the abuse of detainees there, Congressional and administration officials said Friday.
Among the officers was Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who was the top commander in Iraq from June 2003 to July 2004. He was the highest-ranking officer to face allegations of leadership failure in connection with the scandal, but he was not accused of criminal misconduct. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/23/politics/23abuse.html?hp&ex=1114315200&en=4722c2e923dd850a&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Bolton More doubts
The nomination of John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations was cast in further doubt on Friday when a fourth Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said more time was needed to review his record.
A spokeswoman for Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said the senator felt the committee "did the right thing delaying the vote on Bolton in light of the recent information presented to the committee."
Asked if Bolton, an outspoken critic of the United Nations, had Murkowski's support, spokeswoman Kristin Pugh said, "I can't speculate on how she would vote." [...] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10449-2005Apr22.html
States and Health Care:
In Tennessee, Gov. Phil Bredesen plans to end coverage for more than 320,000 adults, many of them elderly. In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to shift more Medicaid recipients into managed care and require some to pay monthly premiums.
Minnesota may stop insuring 27,000 college students and adults without children. Washington state may require senior citizens to pay $3 for each prescription that Medicaid used to provide for free.
....In Missouri, where nearly one in five residents is enrolled in Medicaid, Gov. Matt Blunt is poised to sign the most drastic overhaul of all: a bill that would eliminate the program entirely in three years. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-medicaid24apr24,0,3416218.story?coll=la-home-headlines
Taxes: Moving Towards a Flat Tax Christian Science Monitor:
Bigger tax breaks for wealth produces a system in which the middle class pays about the same as the rich.
Billionaires are paying not much more taxes, proportionately, than those Americans who are merely prosperous.
It's a sign that, even without the formal adoption of a so-called "flat tax," America's tax system is getting flatter.
Ever since the introduction of the modern income tax in 1913, US policy has been guided by the notion that the rich should pay a larger of their income in federal taxes, since they arguably owe something extra to a government that protects their greater wealth, and to a society that has helped them prosper.
But a debate has long waged over just where to draw the line, with populists pushing to "soak the rich" and conservatives arguing that a too-progressive tax structure creates a disincentive for the creation of jobs and wealth that benefit the whole nation.
Chalk up President Bush as not just a tax cutter but also a tax flattener. Under Mr. Bush and a Republican Congress, big tax cuts since 2001 have given major tax reductions to those wealthy individuals presumed, up to now, to be able to afford paying a bigger chunk of their income in taxes. By one measure of the federal, state, and local tax burden, just 3.4 percentage points separate the effective tax rate paid by the top 1 percent of earners from the other 99 percent of American households.
"That's the goal of the president and Congress - to shift the tax and debt burden to middle-income Americans," charges Bob McIntyre, director of Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ), a liberal Washington think tank that crunched the numbers. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0414/p03s01-usgn.html
Prisons: Full
Adding about 900 inmates per week between mid-2003 and mid-2004, the nation's prisons and jails held 2.1 million people, or one in every 138 U.S. residents, the government reported yesterday.
By last June 30, there were 48,000, or 2.3 percent, more inmates than the year before, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The total inmate population has hovered around 2 million for the past few years, reaching 2.1 million on June 30, 2002, and just below that mark a year later.
Although the crime rate has fallen over the past decade, the number of people in prison and jail is outpacing the number of inmates released, said Paige Harrison, the report's co-author. The number of admissions to federal prisons in 2004 exceeded releases by more than 8,000, the study found. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/24/AR2005042401383.html
Dean: Blunt
Since taking over as chairman of the Democratic National Committee earlier this year, the former presidential candidate has been quoted in newspapers making unusually caustic remarks about Republicans.
Dean has suggested that they are "evil." That they are "corrupt." He called them "brain-dead" during a stop in Toronto -- and while the Terri Schiavo case was still in the news. He has tagged Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) as a "liar." Last week, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that he mimicked a "drug-snorting Rush Limbaugh" at an event there. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/24/AR2005042401160_pf.html
DeLay: More trouble. Some old, some new reports
The airfare to London and Scotland in 2000 for then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was charged to an American Express card issued to Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist at the center of a federal criminal and tax probe, according to two sources who know Abramoff's credit card account number and to a copy of a travel invoice displaying that number.
DeLay's expenses during the same trip for food, phone calls and other items at a golf course hotel in Scotland were billed to a different credit card also used on the trip by a second registered Washington lobbyist, Edwin A. Buckham, according to receipts documenting that portion of the trip. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12416-2005Apr23.html
A series of new allegations surfaced Sunday against John Bolton, adding fuel to the dispute surrounding President Bush's pick for U.N. ambassador and further calling into question whether he will ultimately get the post.
Newsweek reported, in its May 2 edition, that British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw complained about Bolton to then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in November 2003. Citing a "former Bush administration official who was there," Newsweek said Straw told Powell that Bolton -- Powell's undersecretary for arms control and international security -- was making it impossible to reach an agreement on Iran's nuclear program.
According to the official, Newsweek reports, Powell then turned to an aide and said, "Get a different view on [the Iranian problem]. Bolton is being too tough." http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/04/24/bolton.nomination/index.html
Social Security Update: The fainthearted Democrats who still aren’t solid against the privatization scam- Kent Conrad (N. Dakota), Ben Nelson (Nebraska) and Mark Pryor (Arkansas) in the Senate, Allen Boyd (Fla), Robrt Cramer (Alabama),Colin Peterson (Minnesota) note that while there still is no plan to discuss, they haven’t ruled out doing biz with the White House.
Senator Grassley still talks of putting out legislation:
"I'm going to put together a Republican-only bill as a first step to getting bipartisan support because I can't lose time waiting for the Democrats to come to the table." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/22/politics/22bush.html?ex=1271822400&en=e086725aa606644d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
-R
