Thursday, January 13, 2005
"I don't see how you can be president... without a relationship with the Lord."-- Bush, in an interview with the Washington Times
"The last thing this country needs is two Republican parties." – Teddy K, today. [Good speech]
Seymour Hersh's expose on "preëmptive manhunting" comparing the US Special Forces Task Force 121 to the Vietnam era Phoenix Program, including the training in North Carolina.
One step the Pentagon took was to seek active and secret help in the war against the Iraqi insurgency from Israel, America’s closest ally in the Middle East. According to American and Israeli military and intelligence officials, Israeli commandos and intelligence units have been working closely with their American counterparts at the Special Forces training base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and in Israel to help them prepare for operations in Iraq. http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031215fa_fact
How Far Gone We Are- Ya Can’t Keep Up
With so many transgressions by our ruling clique, most of us retain some level of disbelief. Aside from the dishonesty (Swift Boat Liars), voter suppression (Florida and Ohio), corruption (Tom Delay), and, of course, propaganda (see Meyerson, below) we’ve got the breaking of law.
The Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said on Thursday that the Bush administration violated federal law by producing and distributing television news segments about the effects of drug use among young people.
The accountability office said the videos "constitute covert propaganda" because the government was not identified as the source of the materials, which were distributed by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. They were broadcast by nearly 300 television stations and reached 22 million households, the office said. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/07/national/07drug.html
Nearby in the Times, it was- as always- calming to read letters to the editor that spoke to some of it, this time about the hubbub about CBS’s “scandal”. For example Charley Hoerr of New Paltz, NY asked:
What an interesting contrast of professional values. CBS messes up and heads roll. The Bush administration messes up and medals are awarded.
To me, this suggests that the one organization is serious enough about its mission to self-correct, while the other is so besotted with power that no self-correction is deemed necessary.
Which approach inspires more confidence? Which presents the more viable model of institutional behavior? http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/12/opinion/l12cbs.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fLetters
That Comparison. It’s been ‘politically incorrect’, but terribly tempting. Having long been grabbed by first-hand accounts of 1930’s Germany, I’ll let someone else (Ted Rall) do the comparing.
A new documentary, "Hitler's Hit Parade," runs 76 minutes without narration. Comprised entirely of archival footage, the film prompts its reviewers to remark upon Hannah Arendt's famous observation about the banality of evil. German troops subjugated Europe and shoved millions of people into ovens; German civilians went to the movies, attended concerts, and gossiped about their neighbors. People lived mundane, normal lives while their government carried out unspeakable monstrosities. Sound familiar?
As Congress prepared to rubberstamp the nomination of torture aficionado Alberto Gonzales as the nation's chief prosecutor, the Washington Post broke news that would have torn a saner nation apart. The Bush Administration, the paper reported January 2, is no longer planning to keep hundreds of Muslim prisoners currently rotting away in U.S. concentration camps at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram merely "indefinitely." The Defense Department and CIA are now planning "a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions" for these innocents.
We're locking them up forever. Without due process.
Before gangsters like Alberto Gonzales seduced us into abandoning our values, a person was considered innocent before being proven guilty. Now we're locking people away because "the government does not have enough evidence to charge [them] in courts." And everyone, including Democrats, is OK with this. http://www.independent-media.tv/itemprint.cfm?fmedia_id=10271&fcategory_desc=Under%20Reported
Clarity: U.S. Does Support Torture. Gonzales’ misleading testimony could give one the impression that it’s not officially sanctioned. However…
At the urging of the White House, Congressional leaders scrapped a legislative measure last month that would have imposed new restrictions on the use of extreme interrogation measures by American intelligence officers, Congressional officials say.
The defeat of the proposal affects one of the most obscure arenas of the war on terrorism, involving the Central Intelligence Agency's secret detention and interrogation of top terror leaders like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and about three dozen other senior members of Al Qaeda and its offshoots.
The Senate had approved the new restrictions, by a 96-to-2 vote, as part of the intelligence reform legislation. They would have explicitly extended to intelligence officers a prohibition against torture or inhumane treatment, and would have required the C.I.A. as well as the Pentagon to report to Congress about the methods they were using.
But in intense closed-door negotiations, Congressional officials said, four senior members from the House and Senate deleted the restrictions from the final bill after the White House expressed opposition.
In a letter to members of Congress, sent in October and made available by the White House on Wednesday in response to inquiries, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, expressed opposition to the measure on the grounds that it "provides legal protections to foreign prisoners to which they are not now entitled under applicable law and policy." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/politics/13intel.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
Harold Meyerson: re Administration and phony crises
Some presidents make the history books by managing crises. Lincoln had Fort Sumter, Roosevelt had the Depression and Pearl Harbor, and Kennedy had the missiles in Cuba. George W. Bush, of course, had Sept. 11, and for a while thereafter -- through the overthrow of the Taliban -- he earned his page in history, too.
But when historians look back at the Bush presidency, they're more likely to note that what sets Bush apart is not the crises he managed but the crises he fabricated. The fabricated crisis is the hallmark of the Bush presidency. To attain goals that he had set for himself before he took office -- the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the privatization of Social Security -- he concocted crises where there were none. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2304-2005Jan11.html
Air America in Vermont:
A southern Vermont-based radio station will trade in the rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk show hosts for the liberal commentary of Air America next week.WKVT-AM 1490 in Brattleboro will replace four of its weekday syndicated conservative talk shows on Jan. 17 with programs from the fledgling liberal radio network Air America, which launched in March.The station will be the second in Vermont to broadcast Air America programs, which include shows hosted by comedian Al Franken and actress Jeanne Garofalo.The Brattleboro area is highly liberal in its political beliefs and the Air America shows will be a better fit for the station's listeners than the conservative programs hosted by Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, said WKVT program director Peter Case."We're calling this a right-to-left switch," he said. "For many years, our programming leaned to the right, but Brattleboro is a very liberal area and our lineup had to reflect that."Added to WKVT's lineup Monday will be "Unfiltered," hosted by Rachel Maddow, Lizz Winstead and Chuck D; the "Al Franken Show;" the "Randi Rhodes Show;" and the "Majority Report," hosted by Garofalo and Sam Seider. http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050112/NEWS/501120363/1003
Missionaries out of control:
A Virginia-based missionary group said this week that it has airlifted 300 "tsunami orphans" from the Muslim province of Banda Aceh to Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, where it plans to raise them in a Christian children's home.
The missionary group, WorldHelp, is one of dozens of Christian, Muslim and Jewish charities providing humanitarian relief to victims of the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami that devastated countries around the Indian Ocean, taking more than 150,000 lives.
Most of the religious charities do not attach any conditions to their aid, and many of the larger ones -- such as WorldVision, Catholic Relief Services and Church World Service -- have policies against proselytizing. But a few of the smaller groups have been raising money among evangelical Christians by presenting the tsunami emergency effort as a rare opportunity to make converts in hard-to-reach areas. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5018-2005Jan12.html
Marines in South Asia…happily
A contingent of about 1400 marines along with all their vehicles, equipment and helicopters are now actively employed in the Aceh region of Sumatra.
Despite bearing witness to the wholesale carnage and destruction, it was noted that the morale among the American marines was very high - not because they were able to help out the unfortunate survivors, but because they are no longer en route to Iraq, their original destination.
In fact, it seems somewhat ironic that this particular US taskforce includes the powerful aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. It was aboard this very same warship on 1 May 2003 that US President George Bush triumphantly proclaimed "mission accomplished" and announced an "end to all major combat operations in Iraq".
Unfortunately for the Bush administration the Iraqi resistance did not subscribe to this directive issued by the US commander in chief. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/546F50AD-6FBD-41D3-910B-2530E3F1896F.htm
Trade Deficit: Just numbers…? Or, frightful omen…?
The United States trade deficit soared to a new high of $60.3 billion in November, the Commerce Department reported today. The figure breaks all previous monthly records and confounds predictions that the deficit would diminish now that the dollar has weakened and the price of oil has eased.
Instead the trade gap has now reached the size of the Grand Canyon, in the words of one analyst, and is putting increased pressure on the dollar to drop even further, pressure that could continue unabated. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/12/business/12cnd-trade.html?hp&ex=1105592400&en=b324eb4a4227918c&ei=5094&partner=homepage
-R
"The last thing this country needs is two Republican parties." – Teddy K, today. [Good speech]
Seymour Hersh's expose on "preëmptive manhunting" comparing the US Special Forces Task Force 121 to the Vietnam era Phoenix Program, including the training in North Carolina.
One step the Pentagon took was to seek active and secret help in the war against the Iraqi insurgency from Israel, America’s closest ally in the Middle East. According to American and Israeli military and intelligence officials, Israeli commandos and intelligence units have been working closely with their American counterparts at the Special Forces training base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and in Israel to help them prepare for operations in Iraq. http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031215fa_fact
How Far Gone We Are- Ya Can’t Keep Up
With so many transgressions by our ruling clique, most of us retain some level of disbelief. Aside from the dishonesty (Swift Boat Liars), voter suppression (Florida and Ohio), corruption (Tom Delay), and, of course, propaganda (see Meyerson, below) we’ve got the breaking of law.
The Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said on Thursday that the Bush administration violated federal law by producing and distributing television news segments about the effects of drug use among young people.
The accountability office said the videos "constitute covert propaganda" because the government was not identified as the source of the materials, which were distributed by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. They were broadcast by nearly 300 television stations and reached 22 million households, the office said. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/07/national/07drug.html
Nearby in the Times, it was- as always- calming to read letters to the editor that spoke to some of it, this time about the hubbub about CBS’s “scandal”. For example Charley Hoerr of New Paltz, NY asked:
What an interesting contrast of professional values. CBS messes up and heads roll. The Bush administration messes up and medals are awarded.
To me, this suggests that the one organization is serious enough about its mission to self-correct, while the other is so besotted with power that no self-correction is deemed necessary.
Which approach inspires more confidence? Which presents the more viable model of institutional behavior? http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/12/opinion/l12cbs.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fLetters
That Comparison. It’s been ‘politically incorrect’, but terribly tempting. Having long been grabbed by first-hand accounts of 1930’s Germany, I’ll let someone else (Ted Rall) do the comparing.
A new documentary, "Hitler's Hit Parade," runs 76 minutes without narration. Comprised entirely of archival footage, the film prompts its reviewers to remark upon Hannah Arendt's famous observation about the banality of evil. German troops subjugated Europe and shoved millions of people into ovens; German civilians went to the movies, attended concerts, and gossiped about their neighbors. People lived mundane, normal lives while their government carried out unspeakable monstrosities. Sound familiar?
As Congress prepared to rubberstamp the nomination of torture aficionado Alberto Gonzales as the nation's chief prosecutor, the Washington Post broke news that would have torn a saner nation apart. The Bush Administration, the paper reported January 2, is no longer planning to keep hundreds of Muslim prisoners currently rotting away in U.S. concentration camps at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram merely "indefinitely." The Defense Department and CIA are now planning "a more permanent approach for potentially lifetime detentions" for these innocents.
We're locking them up forever. Without due process.
Before gangsters like Alberto Gonzales seduced us into abandoning our values, a person was considered innocent before being proven guilty. Now we're locking people away because "the government does not have enough evidence to charge [them] in courts." And everyone, including Democrats, is OK with this. http://www.independent-media.tv/itemprint.cfm?fmedia_id=10271&fcategory_desc=Under%20Reported
Clarity: U.S. Does Support Torture. Gonzales’ misleading testimony could give one the impression that it’s not officially sanctioned. However…
At the urging of the White House, Congressional leaders scrapped a legislative measure last month that would have imposed new restrictions on the use of extreme interrogation measures by American intelligence officers, Congressional officials say.
The defeat of the proposal affects one of the most obscure arenas of the war on terrorism, involving the Central Intelligence Agency's secret detention and interrogation of top terror leaders like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and about three dozen other senior members of Al Qaeda and its offshoots.
The Senate had approved the new restrictions, by a 96-to-2 vote, as part of the intelligence reform legislation. They would have explicitly extended to intelligence officers a prohibition against torture or inhumane treatment, and would have required the C.I.A. as well as the Pentagon to report to Congress about the methods they were using.
But in intense closed-door negotiations, Congressional officials said, four senior members from the House and Senate deleted the restrictions from the final bill after the White House expressed opposition.
In a letter to members of Congress, sent in October and made available by the White House on Wednesday in response to inquiries, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, expressed opposition to the measure on the grounds that it "provides legal protections to foreign prisoners to which they are not now entitled under applicable law and policy." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/13/politics/13intel.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
Harold Meyerson: re Administration and phony crises
Some presidents make the history books by managing crises. Lincoln had Fort Sumter, Roosevelt had the Depression and Pearl Harbor, and Kennedy had the missiles in Cuba. George W. Bush, of course, had Sept. 11, and for a while thereafter -- through the overthrow of the Taliban -- he earned his page in history, too.
But when historians look back at the Bush presidency, they're more likely to note that what sets Bush apart is not the crises he managed but the crises he fabricated. The fabricated crisis is the hallmark of the Bush presidency. To attain goals that he had set for himself before he took office -- the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the privatization of Social Security -- he concocted crises where there were none. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2304-2005Jan11.html
Air America in Vermont:
A southern Vermont-based radio station will trade in the rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk show hosts for the liberal commentary of Air America next week.WKVT-AM 1490 in Brattleboro will replace four of its weekday syndicated conservative talk shows on Jan. 17 with programs from the fledgling liberal radio network Air America, which launched in March.The station will be the second in Vermont to broadcast Air America programs, which include shows hosted by comedian Al Franken and actress Jeanne Garofalo.The Brattleboro area is highly liberal in its political beliefs and the Air America shows will be a better fit for the station's listeners than the conservative programs hosted by Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, said WKVT program director Peter Case."We're calling this a right-to-left switch," he said. "For many years, our programming leaned to the right, but Brattleboro is a very liberal area and our lineup had to reflect that."Added to WKVT's lineup Monday will be "Unfiltered," hosted by Rachel Maddow, Lizz Winstead and Chuck D; the "Al Franken Show;" the "Randi Rhodes Show;" and the "Majority Report," hosted by Garofalo and Sam Seider. http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050112/NEWS/501120363/1003
Missionaries out of control:
A Virginia-based missionary group said this week that it has airlifted 300 "tsunami orphans" from the Muslim province of Banda Aceh to Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, where it plans to raise them in a Christian children's home.
The missionary group, WorldHelp, is one of dozens of Christian, Muslim and Jewish charities providing humanitarian relief to victims of the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami that devastated countries around the Indian Ocean, taking more than 150,000 lives.
Most of the religious charities do not attach any conditions to their aid, and many of the larger ones -- such as WorldVision, Catholic Relief Services and Church World Service -- have policies against proselytizing. But a few of the smaller groups have been raising money among evangelical Christians by presenting the tsunami emergency effort as a rare opportunity to make converts in hard-to-reach areas. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5018-2005Jan12.html
Marines in South Asia…happily
A contingent of about 1400 marines along with all their vehicles, equipment and helicopters are now actively employed in the Aceh region of Sumatra.
Despite bearing witness to the wholesale carnage and destruction, it was noted that the morale among the American marines was very high - not because they were able to help out the unfortunate survivors, but because they are no longer en route to Iraq, their original destination.
In fact, it seems somewhat ironic that this particular US taskforce includes the powerful aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. It was aboard this very same warship on 1 May 2003 that US President George Bush triumphantly proclaimed "mission accomplished" and announced an "end to all major combat operations in Iraq".
Unfortunately for the Bush administration the Iraqi resistance did not subscribe to this directive issued by the US commander in chief. http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/546F50AD-6FBD-41D3-910B-2530E3F1896F.htm
Trade Deficit: Just numbers…? Or, frightful omen…?
The United States trade deficit soared to a new high of $60.3 billion in November, the Commerce Department reported today. The figure breaks all previous monthly records and confounds predictions that the deficit would diminish now that the dollar has weakened and the price of oil has eased.
Instead the trade gap has now reached the size of the Grand Canyon, in the words of one analyst, and is putting increased pressure on the dollar to drop even further, pressure that could continue unabated. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/12/business/12cnd-trade.html?hp&ex=1105592400&en=b324eb4a4227918c&ei=5094&partner=homepage
-R
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
"I feel a strange kinship with Michael. They're trying to pit us against each other in the press, but it's a hologram. They really have got nothing to do with one another. It's just some kind of device, some left-right. He makes some salient points. There was some very expert, elliptical editing going on. However, what the hell are we doing in Iraq? No one can explain to me in a reasonable manner that I can accept why we're there, why we went there, and why we're still there." – Mel Gibson, re press talk about he and "antagonist" Michael Moore
Armstrong Williams: Follow-up: David Corn (The Nation) interviewing Williams:
And then Williams violated a PR rule: he got off-point. "This happens all the time," he told me. "There are others." Really? I said. Other conservative commentators accept money from the Bush administration? I asked Williams for names. "I'm not going to defend myself that way," he said. The issue right now, he explained, was his own mistake. Well, I said, what if I call you up in a few weeks, after this blows over, and then ask you? No, he said. Does Williams really know something about other rightwing pundits? Or was he only trying to minimize his own screw-up with a momentary embrace of a trumped-up everybody-does-it defense? I could not tell. But if the IG at the Department of Education or any other official questions Williams, I suggest he or she ask what Williams meant by this comment. http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=2114
Inquiring Minds Want to Know:
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) just filed 23 Freedom of Information Act requests with government agencies in order to determine who else was on their payrolls. Fighting Liberals!From their press release:
CREW has now filed FOIAs with 23 agencies requesting copies of all contracts with public relation firms, including Ketchum and Fleishman-Hillard. Both firms have contracted with the government resulting in similar controversies, and in violation of the Publicity and Propaganda clause."This type of covert propaganda, has no place in a healthy democracy," Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said today. "It is particularly outrageous that the government continues to engage in this sort of illegal activity despite the fact that the GAO has said that it is illegal." http://www.citizensforethics.org/activities/20050111/
Speaking of which: Allawi pays his journalists
The electoral group headed by Iyad Allawi, the interim Iraqi prime minister, on Monday handed out cash to journalists to ensure coverage of its press conferences in a throwback to Ba'athist-era patronage ahead of parliamentary elections on January 30.
After a meeting held by Mr Allawi's campaign alliance in west Baghdad, reporters, most of whom were from the Arabic-language press, were invited upstairs where each was offered a "gift" of a $100 bill contained in an envelope.
Many of the journalists accepted the cash - about equivalent to half the starting monthly salary for a reporter at an Iraqi newspaper - and one jokingly recalled how Saddam Hussein's regime had also lavished perks on favoured reporters. http://financialtimes.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=FT.com+%2F+World+%2F+Middle+East+%26+Africa+-+Allawi+group+slips+cash+to+reporters+&expire=&urlID=12831609&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2Fa3828a0c-6346-11d9-bec2-00000e2511c8%2Cft_acl%3D%2Cs01%3D1.html&partnerID=1704
Chertoff: Kerik without the scandal: New homeland guy. 2 takes:
Chertoff, whose resume includes stints as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey and the Senate Republicans' chief counsel for the Clinton-era Whitewater investigation, was one of the administration's key figures in the war on terror.
He took the lead in 2003 in successfully arguing the government's case in a potentially precedent-setting appeal involving terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, the lone man charged as a conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks and playing a significant role in development of the U.S. Patriot Act to combat terrorist attacks.
As a federal prosecutor in New Jersey from 1990 to 1994, Chertoff oversaw high-profile prosecutions of Jersey City Mayor Gerald McCann, New York chief judge Sol Wachtler and the kidnappers and killers of Exxon executive Sidney Reso. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002147676&zsection_id=2002107549&slug=webhomeland11&date=20050111
In the days after 9/11, Chertoff -- as head of the criminal division under John Ashcroft -- was architect of some of the most regrettable policies of Bush I. It was Chertoff, as assistant atttorney general overseeing the initial 9/11 probe, who OK'ed and then defended the detention of hundreds of "material witnesses" of Arab descent -- even though it would later be determined that none -- that's right, none -- of the detainees had anything to do with the terrorist attacks of 2001.Chartoff's actions during this period would later be roundly criticized in a report from the Justice Department's own Inspector General. It found that immigrants were rounded up in an "indiscriminate and haphazard manner," held for months while denied access to attorneys and sometimes mistreated behind bars. http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/extra/archives/001326.html
Diverting Homeland Security $ to…the Inauguration! Our leader in the “war on terror” states his priorities:
D.C. officials said yesterday that the Bush administration is refusing to reimburse the District for most of the costs associated with next week's inauguration, breaking with precedent and forcing the city to divert $11.9 million from homeland security projects.
Federal officials have told the District that it should cover the expenses by using some of the $240 million in federal homeland security grants it has received in the past three years -- money awarded to the city because it is among the places at highest risk of a terrorist attack. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63896-2005Jan10.html
Useful Facts re Social Security: Facts: Its eventual (2042-52) shortfall is tiny compared to those of the prescription drug program and Bush’s tax cuts.
The Social Security and Medicare Trustees, a majority of whom are members of the President’s cabinet, project that the Social Security shortfall will amount to 0.7 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (the basic measure of the size of the U.S. economy) over the next 75 years. In dollar terms, the Trustees project the shortfall over the 75 year period at $3.7 trillion.
The Trustees also project the cost of the Medicare drug benefit at 1.4 percent of GDP — or $8.1 trillion — over the same period. This is at least double the size of the Social Security shortfall.
Furthermore, the cost of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, if made permanent, is 2 percent of GDP — or $11.6 trillion — over the same period, or triple the size of the Social Security shortfall. http://www.cbpp.org/1-4-05socsec.htm
Opposition- even from Republicans. No slam dunk this time.
Many Republicans are expressing reservations about the political wisdom of President Bush's vision for restructuring Social Security, as the White House today intensifies its campaign to restructure the entitlement program for the retired and disabled…
Most alarming to White House officials, some congressional Republicans are panning the president's plan -- even before it is unveiled. "Why stir up a political hornet's nest . . . when there is no urgency?" said Rep. Rob Simmons (Conn.), who represents a competitive district. "When does the program go belly up? 2042. I will be dead by then."
Simmons said there is no way he will support Bush's idea of allowing younger Americans to divert some of their payroll taxes into private accounts, especially when there are more pressing needs, such as shoring up Medicare and providing armor to U.S. troops in Iraq.
Rep. Jack Kingston (Ga.), a member of the GOP leadership, said 15 to 20 House Republicans agree with Simmons, although others say the number is closer to 40. "Just convincing our guys not to be timid is going to be a big struggle," he said. "It's going to take a lot of convincing," which he said can be done. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64196-2005Jan10?language=printer
Krugman on Privatization: He doesn’t break new ground, but he says it well.
The administration expects us not to notice, however, that the supposed solution would do nothing to reduce that cost. Even with the most favorable assumptions, the benefits of privatization wouldn't kick in until most of the baby boomers were long gone. For the next 45 years, privatization would cost much more money than it saved.
Advocates of privatization almost always pretend that all we have to do is borrow a bit of money up front, and then the system will become self-sustaining. The Wehner memo talks of borrowing $1 trillion to $2 trillion "to cover transition costs." Similar numbers have been widely reported in the news media.
But that's just the borrowing over the next decade. Privatization would cost an additional $3 trillion in its second decade, $5 trillion in the decade after that and another $5 trillion in the decade after that. By the time privatization started to save money, if it ever did, the federal government would have run up around $15 trillion in extra debt. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/11/opinion/11krugman.html?oref=login&hp=&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
SS: NY Times Approaches the “Lie” word: “sow ignorance” is it for now
The editorial comment re Social Security: It appears that the president and his aides are trying to sow ignorance to gain support for their flawed privatization agenda. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/opinion/10mon1.html?oref=login
C’mon guys, you can do it!
Gossip: Rummy and McCain Feud. Our culture is irredeemably locked into celebrity gossip, so indulge me…
The strong-willed defense secretary and the equally hard-nosed Republican senator from Arizona, both ex-Navy pilots and hawks on Iraq, were supposed to make peace over two nagging issues. Mr. McCain did not believe Mr. Rumsfeld was adequately paying attention to, or disclosing information about, the Boeing tanker lease scandal; Mr. Rumsfeld wanted Mr. McCain to lift his opposition to several Pentagon nominations bogged down in the Senate.
Rather than serving as a peacemaker, the meeting turned into a frank exchange of views that left both men bitter toward the other, according to two defense sources who were briefed later.
"It went very badly," said one source. "Rumsfeld brought over McCain to schmooze him. It didn't work." The sources differed on the exact wording, but they agreed that when Mr. Rumsfeld was unable to persuade the Arizona Republican to let the nominees go forward, he suggested the senator, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was hurting the war effort.
"This is when McCain just about climbed over the table," one source said. http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050110-122435-5478r
What’s Happening, Iraq: Talk of Pull-Out? Over the last several days this has become commonplace, often referring to Bush as the ‘last optimist’.
Three weeks before the election in Iraq, conversation has started bubbling up in Congress, in the Pentagon and some days even in the White House about when and how American forces might begin to disengage in Iraq.
So far it is mostly talk, not planning. The only thing resembling a formal map to the exit door is a series of Pentagon contingency plans for events after the Jan. 30 elections. But a senior administration official warned over the weekend against reading too much into that, saying "the Pentagon has plans for everything," from the outbreak of war in Korea to relief missions in Africa. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/politics/10policy.html?hp&ex=1105419600&en=e461bbde941d55d3&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Notable Republican calls for withdrawal
U.S. Rep. Howard Coble, dean of the state's congressional delegation and an avowedly strong supporter of President Bush, says it's time for the United States to consider withdrawing from war-ravaged Iraq.
Coble, a Republican from Greensboro, is one of the first members of Congress -- Republican or Democrat -- to say publicly that the United States should consider a pullout. http://www.news-record.com/news/local/cobleiraq_010905.htm
The Shrinking Coalition
President Leonid Kuchma on Monday ordered the foreign and defense ministries to develop a plan for withdrawing Ukraine's troops from Iraq within months, his office said.
Ukraine, whose 1,650 troops are the fourth-largest contingent in the U.S.-led operation in Iraq, previously expressed intentions to withdraw this year, but Kuchma's order speeds up the apparent timetable.
That order came a day after eight Ukrainian soldiers died in an explosion at an ammunition dump in Iraq, which was reported as an accident.
In all, 16 Ukrainian soldiers have died in Iraq.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/01/10/ukraine_orders_troops_removed_from_iraq?mode=PF
Tsunami Follow-up: The Earth is Rumbling
Two weeks on, the earth is still vibrating from the massive undersea earthquake off Indonesia that triggered the tsunami, Australian researchers said on Sunday. The Australian National University (ANU) said the reverberations were similar in form to the ringing of a bell, though without the sound, and were picked up by gravity monitoring instruments. “These are not things that are going to throw you off your chair, but they are things that the kinds of instruments that are in place around the world can now routinely measure,” said ANU Earth Sciences researcher Herb McQueen...
US scientists said just after the quake that it may have permanently accelerated the Earth's rotation — shortening days by a fraction of a second — and caused the planet to wobble on its axis. Richard Gross, a geophysicist with Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, theorised that a shift of mass towards the earth's centre during the quake caused the planet to spin three millionths of a second faster and tilt about 2.5 cm on its axis. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/985440.cms
The Fighting Dems?
As President Bush prepares for his second term, Democrats in Washington and around the country are organizing for a year of confrontation and resistance, saying they are determined to block Bush's major initiatives and thereby deny him the mandate he has claimed from his reelection victory last November.
The Democrats' mood and posture represent a contrast to that of four years ago, after Bush's disputed victory over Al Gore. Then, despite anger and bitterness over how the 2000 election ended, Democrats were tentative and initially open to Bush's calls for bipartisan cooperation. Today, despite Bush's clear win over Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), Democrats across the ideological spectrum say they are united in their desire to fight. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61686-2005Jan9.html
-R
Armstrong Williams: Follow-up: David Corn (The Nation) interviewing Williams:
And then Williams violated a PR rule: he got off-point. "This happens all the time," he told me. "There are others." Really? I said. Other conservative commentators accept money from the Bush administration? I asked Williams for names. "I'm not going to defend myself that way," he said. The issue right now, he explained, was his own mistake. Well, I said, what if I call you up in a few weeks, after this blows over, and then ask you? No, he said. Does Williams really know something about other rightwing pundits? Or was he only trying to minimize his own screw-up with a momentary embrace of a trumped-up everybody-does-it defense? I could not tell. But if the IG at the Department of Education or any other official questions Williams, I suggest he or she ask what Williams meant by this comment. http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=2114
Inquiring Minds Want to Know:
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) just filed 23 Freedom of Information Act requests with government agencies in order to determine who else was on their payrolls. Fighting Liberals!From their press release:
CREW has now filed FOIAs with 23 agencies requesting copies of all contracts with public relation firms, including Ketchum and Fleishman-Hillard. Both firms have contracted with the government resulting in similar controversies, and in violation of the Publicity and Propaganda clause."This type of covert propaganda, has no place in a healthy democracy," Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said today. "It is particularly outrageous that the government continues to engage in this sort of illegal activity despite the fact that the GAO has said that it is illegal." http://www.citizensforethics.org/activities/20050111/
Speaking of which: Allawi pays his journalists
The electoral group headed by Iyad Allawi, the interim Iraqi prime minister, on Monday handed out cash to journalists to ensure coverage of its press conferences in a throwback to Ba'athist-era patronage ahead of parliamentary elections on January 30.
After a meeting held by Mr Allawi's campaign alliance in west Baghdad, reporters, most of whom were from the Arabic-language press, were invited upstairs where each was offered a "gift" of a $100 bill contained in an envelope.
Many of the journalists accepted the cash - about equivalent to half the starting monthly salary for a reporter at an Iraqi newspaper - and one jokingly recalled how Saddam Hussein's regime had also lavished perks on favoured reporters. http://financialtimes.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=FT.com+%2F+World+%2F+Middle+East+%26+Africa+-+Allawi+group+slips+cash+to+reporters+&expire=&urlID=12831609&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2Fa3828a0c-6346-11d9-bec2-00000e2511c8%2Cft_acl%3D%2Cs01%3D1.html&partnerID=1704
Chertoff: Kerik without the scandal: New homeland guy. 2 takes:
Chertoff, whose resume includes stints as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey and the Senate Republicans' chief counsel for the Clinton-era Whitewater investigation, was one of the administration's key figures in the war on terror.
He took the lead in 2003 in successfully arguing the government's case in a potentially precedent-setting appeal involving terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui, the lone man charged as a conspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks and playing a significant role in development of the U.S. Patriot Act to combat terrorist attacks.
As a federal prosecutor in New Jersey from 1990 to 1994, Chertoff oversaw high-profile prosecutions of Jersey City Mayor Gerald McCann, New York chief judge Sol Wachtler and the kidnappers and killers of Exxon executive Sidney Reso. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002147676&zsection_id=2002107549&slug=webhomeland11&date=20050111
In the days after 9/11, Chertoff -- as head of the criminal division under John Ashcroft -- was architect of some of the most regrettable policies of Bush I. It was Chertoff, as assistant atttorney general overseeing the initial 9/11 probe, who OK'ed and then defended the detention of hundreds of "material witnesses" of Arab descent -- even though it would later be determined that none -- that's right, none -- of the detainees had anything to do with the terrorist attacks of 2001.Chartoff's actions during this period would later be roundly criticized in a report from the Justice Department's own Inspector General. It found that immigrants were rounded up in an "indiscriminate and haphazard manner," held for months while denied access to attorneys and sometimes mistreated behind bars. http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/extra/archives/001326.html
Diverting Homeland Security $ to…the Inauguration! Our leader in the “war on terror” states his priorities:
D.C. officials said yesterday that the Bush administration is refusing to reimburse the District for most of the costs associated with next week's inauguration, breaking with precedent and forcing the city to divert $11.9 million from homeland security projects.
Federal officials have told the District that it should cover the expenses by using some of the $240 million in federal homeland security grants it has received in the past three years -- money awarded to the city because it is among the places at highest risk of a terrorist attack. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63896-2005Jan10.html
Useful Facts re Social Security: Facts: Its eventual (2042-52) shortfall is tiny compared to those of the prescription drug program and Bush’s tax cuts.
The Social Security and Medicare Trustees, a majority of whom are members of the President’s cabinet, project that the Social Security shortfall will amount to 0.7 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (the basic measure of the size of the U.S. economy) over the next 75 years. In dollar terms, the Trustees project the shortfall over the 75 year period at $3.7 trillion.
The Trustees also project the cost of the Medicare drug benefit at 1.4 percent of GDP — or $8.1 trillion — over the same period. This is at least double the size of the Social Security shortfall.
Furthermore, the cost of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, if made permanent, is 2 percent of GDP — or $11.6 trillion — over the same period, or triple the size of the Social Security shortfall. http://www.cbpp.org/1-4-05socsec.htm
Opposition- even from Republicans. No slam dunk this time.
Many Republicans are expressing reservations about the political wisdom of President Bush's vision for restructuring Social Security, as the White House today intensifies its campaign to restructure the entitlement program for the retired and disabled…
Most alarming to White House officials, some congressional Republicans are panning the president's plan -- even before it is unveiled. "Why stir up a political hornet's nest . . . when there is no urgency?" said Rep. Rob Simmons (Conn.), who represents a competitive district. "When does the program go belly up? 2042. I will be dead by then."
Simmons said there is no way he will support Bush's idea of allowing younger Americans to divert some of their payroll taxes into private accounts, especially when there are more pressing needs, such as shoring up Medicare and providing armor to U.S. troops in Iraq.
Rep. Jack Kingston (Ga.), a member of the GOP leadership, said 15 to 20 House Republicans agree with Simmons, although others say the number is closer to 40. "Just convincing our guys not to be timid is going to be a big struggle," he said. "It's going to take a lot of convincing," which he said can be done. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64196-2005Jan10?language=printer
Krugman on Privatization: He doesn’t break new ground, but he says it well.
The administration expects us not to notice, however, that the supposed solution would do nothing to reduce that cost. Even with the most favorable assumptions, the benefits of privatization wouldn't kick in until most of the baby boomers were long gone. For the next 45 years, privatization would cost much more money than it saved.
Advocates of privatization almost always pretend that all we have to do is borrow a bit of money up front, and then the system will become self-sustaining. The Wehner memo talks of borrowing $1 trillion to $2 trillion "to cover transition costs." Similar numbers have been widely reported in the news media.
But that's just the borrowing over the next decade. Privatization would cost an additional $3 trillion in its second decade, $5 trillion in the decade after that and another $5 trillion in the decade after that. By the time privatization started to save money, if it ever did, the federal government would have run up around $15 trillion in extra debt. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/11/opinion/11krugman.html?oref=login&hp=&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
SS: NY Times Approaches the “Lie” word: “sow ignorance” is it for now
The editorial comment re Social Security: It appears that the president and his aides are trying to sow ignorance to gain support for their flawed privatization agenda. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/opinion/10mon1.html?oref=login
C’mon guys, you can do it!
Gossip: Rummy and McCain Feud. Our culture is irredeemably locked into celebrity gossip, so indulge me…
The strong-willed defense secretary and the equally hard-nosed Republican senator from Arizona, both ex-Navy pilots and hawks on Iraq, were supposed to make peace over two nagging issues. Mr. McCain did not believe Mr. Rumsfeld was adequately paying attention to, or disclosing information about, the Boeing tanker lease scandal; Mr. Rumsfeld wanted Mr. McCain to lift his opposition to several Pentagon nominations bogged down in the Senate.
Rather than serving as a peacemaker, the meeting turned into a frank exchange of views that left both men bitter toward the other, according to two defense sources who were briefed later.
"It went very badly," said one source. "Rumsfeld brought over McCain to schmooze him. It didn't work." The sources differed on the exact wording, but they agreed that when Mr. Rumsfeld was unable to persuade the Arizona Republican to let the nominees go forward, he suggested the senator, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was hurting the war effort.
"This is when McCain just about climbed over the table," one source said. http://insider.washingtontimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20050110-122435-5478r
What’s Happening, Iraq: Talk of Pull-Out? Over the last several days this has become commonplace, often referring to Bush as the ‘last optimist’.
Three weeks before the election in Iraq, conversation has started bubbling up in Congress, in the Pentagon and some days even in the White House about when and how American forces might begin to disengage in Iraq.
So far it is mostly talk, not planning. The only thing resembling a formal map to the exit door is a series of Pentagon contingency plans for events after the Jan. 30 elections. But a senior administration official warned over the weekend against reading too much into that, saying "the Pentagon has plans for everything," from the outbreak of war in Korea to relief missions in Africa. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/politics/10policy.html?hp&ex=1105419600&en=e461bbde941d55d3&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Notable Republican calls for withdrawal
U.S. Rep. Howard Coble, dean of the state's congressional delegation and an avowedly strong supporter of President Bush, says it's time for the United States to consider withdrawing from war-ravaged Iraq.
Coble, a Republican from Greensboro, is one of the first members of Congress -- Republican or Democrat -- to say publicly that the United States should consider a pullout. http://www.news-record.com/news/local/cobleiraq_010905.htm
The Shrinking Coalition
President Leonid Kuchma on Monday ordered the foreign and defense ministries to develop a plan for withdrawing Ukraine's troops from Iraq within months, his office said.
Ukraine, whose 1,650 troops are the fourth-largest contingent in the U.S.-led operation in Iraq, previously expressed intentions to withdraw this year, but Kuchma's order speeds up the apparent timetable.
That order came a day after eight Ukrainian soldiers died in an explosion at an ammunition dump in Iraq, which was reported as an accident.
In all, 16 Ukrainian soldiers have died in Iraq.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2005/01/10/ukraine_orders_troops_removed_from_iraq?mode=PF
Tsunami Follow-up: The Earth is Rumbling
Two weeks on, the earth is still vibrating from the massive undersea earthquake off Indonesia that triggered the tsunami, Australian researchers said on Sunday. The Australian National University (ANU) said the reverberations were similar in form to the ringing of a bell, though without the sound, and were picked up by gravity monitoring instruments. “These are not things that are going to throw you off your chair, but they are things that the kinds of instruments that are in place around the world can now routinely measure,” said ANU Earth Sciences researcher Herb McQueen...
US scientists said just after the quake that it may have permanently accelerated the Earth's rotation — shortening days by a fraction of a second — and caused the planet to wobble on its axis. Richard Gross, a geophysicist with Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, theorised that a shift of mass towards the earth's centre during the quake caused the planet to spin three millionths of a second faster and tilt about 2.5 cm on its axis. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/985440.cms
The Fighting Dems?
As President Bush prepares for his second term, Democrats in Washington and around the country are organizing for a year of confrontation and resistance, saying they are determined to block Bush's major initiatives and thereby deny him the mandate he has claimed from his reelection victory last November.
The Democrats' mood and posture represent a contrast to that of four years ago, after Bush's disputed victory over Al Gore. Then, despite anger and bitterness over how the 2000 election ended, Democrats were tentative and initially open to Bush's calls for bipartisan cooperation. Today, despite Bush's clear win over Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), Democrats across the ideological spectrum say they are united in their desire to fight. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61686-2005Jan9.html
-R
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Contesting Ohio: Stephanie Tubbs Jones’ and Barbara Boxer’s comments were on target and moving, the arguable highlights of the brief “debate” on Thursday. But hearing a few progressives intone that this was “historic” and then seeing the media’s relegating it to the back pages reminded me of the futility of it all, and so I “forgot” to note it.
And, shame on those senators who made speeches, but didn’t join Boxer in the voting, saying, in effect, ‘the election system is in trouble, but the election system worked’? [It was also again painful to hear their refrain as to “we’re not challenging the election results”, hoping that would enhance credibility. Yet, the Republicans still denounced them and the media pretty much meekly reported the event.]
Armstrong Williams and the Selling of Administration Policies: By now most know of the commentator who was on the take from the Administration. Yet, this is hardly new. We’ve heard repeated phony news stories that sold either the Medicare prescription policy or No Child Left Behind. It’s still another scandal that won’t get its due since the Republicans control all. Yet, even some Republican legislators and commentators are upset.
Armstrong Williams, a prominent conservative commentator who was a protégé of Senator Strom Thurmond and Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court, acknowledged yesterday that he was paid $240,000 by the Department of Education to promote its initiatives on his syndicated television program and to other African-Americans in the news media.
The disclosure of the payment set off a storm of criticism from Democrats over the Bush administration's spending to promote its policies to the public. According to a copy of the contract provided by the department yesterday, Mr. Williams, who also runs a small public relations firm and until yesterday wrote a syndicated newspaper column, was required to broadcast two one-minute advertisements in which Education Secretary Rod Paige extolled the merits of its national standards program, No Child Left Behind.
But the arrangement, which started in late 2003 and was first reported yesterday by USA Today, also stipulated that a public relations firm hired by the department would "arrange for Mr. Williams to regularly comment on N.C.L.B. during the course of his broadcasts," that "Secretary Paige and other department officials shall have the option of appearing from time to time as studio guests," and that "Mr. Williams shall utilize his long-term working relationships with 'America's Black Forum' " - an African-American news program - "to encourage the producers to periodically address the No Child Left Behind Act."
The disclosure about the arrangement coincides with a decision by the Government Accountability Office that the administration had violated a law against unauthorized federal propaganda by distributing television news segments that promoted drug enforcement policies without identifying their origin. More than 300 news programs reaching more than 22 million households broadcast the segments. The accountability office made a similar ruling in May about news segments promoting Medicare policies, and the Drug Enforcement Agency stopped distributing the segments then.
In a statement, the Department of Education said yesterday that the deal was an appropriate part of its efforts to explain its policy to "minority parents." The statement said: "The contract paid to provide the straightforward distribution of information about the department's mission and N.C.L.B. - a permissible use of taxpayer funds."
John Gibbons, a spokesman for the department, said Mr. Williams was the only broadcaster or journalist paid to promote the policy. Mr. Williams and department officials said the department's payments to its public relations contractor, Ketchum, ran to $1 million.
House Democrats including the minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, and Representative George Miller, senior minority member of the Education and Workforce Committee, both of California, released a letter to the president suggesting "a deliberate pattern of behavior by your administration to deceive the public and the media in an effort to further your policy objectives" and urging disclosure of "all past and ongoing efforts to engage in covert propaganda."
Note the following in the Times article, yet no examples are provided
But public relations executives said that the government distribution of prepared news segments without on-air disclosures of their origin was a bipartisan practice that predated the Bush administration.
"The Clinton administration was probably even more active than the Bush administration" in distributing news segments promoting its policies, said Laurence Moskowitz, chairman and chief executive of Medialink, a major producer of promotional news segments. After the Government Accountability Office decision last spring, he said, his firm began advising government clients to disclose each tape's nature in its script. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/08/national/08education.html?position=&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
Ketchum is the company that was on the receiving end of the Bush administration’s largesse. http://www.ketchum.com/DisplayWebPage/0,1003,28,00.html
You can find references to them in previous articles, such as this past Fall in the Globe
The video and ratings documents emerged through a Freedom of Information Act request by People for the American Way, a liberal group that contends the department is spending public money on a political agenda. The group sought details on a $700,000 contract Ketchum received in 2003 from the Education Department.
One service the company provided was a video news release geared for television stations. The video includes a news story that features Education Secretary Rod Paige and promotes tutoring now offered under law.
The story ends with the voice of a woman saying, ''In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."
It does not identify the government as the source of the report. It also fails to make clear the person purporting to be a reporter was someone hired for the promotional video.
Those are the same features -- including the voice of Karen Ryan -- that were prominent in videos the Health and Human Services Department used to promote the Medicare law and were judged covert propaganda by the Government Accountability Office in May.
The Education Department's video uses ''the same exact mode of operation," said Nancy Keenan, education policy director at People for the American Way. The video encourages students to take advantage of tutoring and says that families give the idea an ''A-plus." http://www.boston.com/news/politics/advertising/articles/2004/10/11/bush_education_ads_eyed/
There was also the Medicare selling, noted above: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/20/politics/20medicare.html?ex=1105246800&en=1c4cc7e0718ea1f2&ei=5070
So, the media should ask who else the Administration has paid illegally. Helpfully, the prez of the People for the American Way called on the White House to disclose any public relations contracts that federal agencies have with news commentators. But, as always, there need to be more expressions of outrage.
Remember that “War on Terror”? Ah, the fear, the alerts. Since election day, all is quiet- no nervousness, no mushroom clouds, even bin Laden’s voice raised no ruckus. Frank Rich notes that the “war” is doing well on t.v. (“24”) and underscores how unserious the Administration is about this idée fixe.
In retrospect, Bernie Kerik's short-lived nomination as the new homeland security czar - "mind-blowing," as Mr. Clarke puts it - shows just how little concern there is. If homeland security were a top priority for the White House, someone would have discovered that the man selected to run the most sprawling new federal bureaucracy since the Defense Department in 1947 could not even manage his own personal finances, let alone his sex life. Were homeland security still a top priority for the country, the Kerik implosion might have whipped up some of the public outcry once sparked by the whistle-blowing F.B.I. agent Coleen Rowley (who quietly retired last month). But like duct tape and color-coded terror alerts before it, the Kerik nomination instead turned instantly into a Leno-Letterman gag that allowed us to dispel any lingering 9/11 fears with laughter. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/09/arts/09rich.html?pagewanted=2&oref=login
Upcoming Budget Cuts: The expectable, set up by creating the deficits in the first term. Gonna have to contest changes to Medicaid, not just Social Security.
In his budget request to Congress, President Bush will try to impose firm, enforceable limits on the growth of federal benefit programs, and the chairmen of the Senate and House Budget Committees say they strongly supported that effort.
Administration officials and Congressional aides said Mr. Bush would also seek cuts in housing assistance for low-income families, freezes or slight increases in most domestic programs, and larger increases for domestic security. The spending plan for 2006, like the appropriations enacted for this year, would give priority to military operations and domestic security over social welfare programs.
The new chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, said he and other fiscal conservatives wanted to establish "enforcement mechanisms" to "put the brakes on the growth of entitlements," which pay benefits to millions of Americans according to formulas set by law.
"The White House also wants to address entitlement spending," Mr. Gregg said in an interview. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/09/politics/09budget1.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Iraq: Remember the Death Squads in Central America? I can be nostalgic, but this isn’t what I’d have in mind…
What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon’s latest approach is being called "the Salvador option"—and the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is. "What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are," one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. "We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing." Last November’s operation in Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking "the back" of the insurgency—as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time—than in spreading it out. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek/
Ongoing Accidents / Casualties: Bombs and bullets killing civilians. So much for precision bombs, winning the hearts and minds. I only print this to not join the ‘crowd’ that is increasingly relegating the daily slaughter to the rear pages.
U.S. troops opened fire near a checkpoint after their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb, and a hospital official said Sunday at least eight people were killed in the second mistaken American attack in two days to have deadly results.
Desertions: via the British press
American Army soldiers are deserting and fleeing to Canada rather than fight in Iraq, rekindling memories of the thousands of draft-dodgers who flooded north to avoid service in Vietnam.
An estimated 5,500 men and women have deserted since the invasion of Iraq, reflecting Washington's growing problems with troop morale. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/09/wus09.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/01/09/ixportal.html
Re-elected Bush at 49% approval. And 49% disapproval. Another reminder how beatable he was… http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm
-R
And, shame on those senators who made speeches, but didn’t join Boxer in the voting, saying, in effect, ‘the election system is in trouble, but the election system worked’? [It was also again painful to hear their refrain as to “we’re not challenging the election results”, hoping that would enhance credibility. Yet, the Republicans still denounced them and the media pretty much meekly reported the event.]
Armstrong Williams and the Selling of Administration Policies: By now most know of the commentator who was on the take from the Administration. Yet, this is hardly new. We’ve heard repeated phony news stories that sold either the Medicare prescription policy or No Child Left Behind. It’s still another scandal that won’t get its due since the Republicans control all. Yet, even some Republican legislators and commentators are upset.
Armstrong Williams, a prominent conservative commentator who was a protégé of Senator Strom Thurmond and Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court, acknowledged yesterday that he was paid $240,000 by the Department of Education to promote its initiatives on his syndicated television program and to other African-Americans in the news media.
The disclosure of the payment set off a storm of criticism from Democrats over the Bush administration's spending to promote its policies to the public. According to a copy of the contract provided by the department yesterday, Mr. Williams, who also runs a small public relations firm and until yesterday wrote a syndicated newspaper column, was required to broadcast two one-minute advertisements in which Education Secretary Rod Paige extolled the merits of its national standards program, No Child Left Behind.
But the arrangement, which started in late 2003 and was first reported yesterday by USA Today, also stipulated that a public relations firm hired by the department would "arrange for Mr. Williams to regularly comment on N.C.L.B. during the course of his broadcasts," that "Secretary Paige and other department officials shall have the option of appearing from time to time as studio guests," and that "Mr. Williams shall utilize his long-term working relationships with 'America's Black Forum' " - an African-American news program - "to encourage the producers to periodically address the No Child Left Behind Act."
The disclosure about the arrangement coincides with a decision by the Government Accountability Office that the administration had violated a law against unauthorized federal propaganda by distributing television news segments that promoted drug enforcement policies without identifying their origin. More than 300 news programs reaching more than 22 million households broadcast the segments. The accountability office made a similar ruling in May about news segments promoting Medicare policies, and the Drug Enforcement Agency stopped distributing the segments then.
In a statement, the Department of Education said yesterday that the deal was an appropriate part of its efforts to explain its policy to "minority parents." The statement said: "The contract paid to provide the straightforward distribution of information about the department's mission and N.C.L.B. - a permissible use of taxpayer funds."
John Gibbons, a spokesman for the department, said Mr. Williams was the only broadcaster or journalist paid to promote the policy. Mr. Williams and department officials said the department's payments to its public relations contractor, Ketchum, ran to $1 million.
House Democrats including the minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, and Representative George Miller, senior minority member of the Education and Workforce Committee, both of California, released a letter to the president suggesting "a deliberate pattern of behavior by your administration to deceive the public and the media in an effort to further your policy objectives" and urging disclosure of "all past and ongoing efforts to engage in covert propaganda."
Note the following in the Times article, yet no examples are provided
But public relations executives said that the government distribution of prepared news segments without on-air disclosures of their origin was a bipartisan practice that predated the Bush administration.
"The Clinton administration was probably even more active than the Bush administration" in distributing news segments promoting its policies, said Laurence Moskowitz, chairman and chief executive of Medialink, a major producer of promotional news segments. After the Government Accountability Office decision last spring, he said, his firm began advising government clients to disclose each tape's nature in its script. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/08/national/08education.html?position=&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
Ketchum is the company that was on the receiving end of the Bush administration’s largesse. http://www.ketchum.com/DisplayWebPage/0,1003,28,00.html
You can find references to them in previous articles, such as this past Fall in the Globe
The video and ratings documents emerged through a Freedom of Information Act request by People for the American Way, a liberal group that contends the department is spending public money on a political agenda. The group sought details on a $700,000 contract Ketchum received in 2003 from the Education Department.
One service the company provided was a video news release geared for television stations. The video includes a news story that features Education Secretary Rod Paige and promotes tutoring now offered under law.
The story ends with the voice of a woman saying, ''In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting."
It does not identify the government as the source of the report. It also fails to make clear the person purporting to be a reporter was someone hired for the promotional video.
Those are the same features -- including the voice of Karen Ryan -- that were prominent in videos the Health and Human Services Department used to promote the Medicare law and were judged covert propaganda by the Government Accountability Office in May.
The Education Department's video uses ''the same exact mode of operation," said Nancy Keenan, education policy director at People for the American Way. The video encourages students to take advantage of tutoring and says that families give the idea an ''A-plus." http://www.boston.com/news/politics/advertising/articles/2004/10/11/bush_education_ads_eyed/
There was also the Medicare selling, noted above: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/20/politics/20medicare.html?ex=1105246800&en=1c4cc7e0718ea1f2&ei=5070
So, the media should ask who else the Administration has paid illegally. Helpfully, the prez of the People for the American Way called on the White House to disclose any public relations contracts that federal agencies have with news commentators. But, as always, there need to be more expressions of outrage.
Remember that “War on Terror”? Ah, the fear, the alerts. Since election day, all is quiet- no nervousness, no mushroom clouds, even bin Laden’s voice raised no ruckus. Frank Rich notes that the “war” is doing well on t.v. (“24”) and underscores how unserious the Administration is about this idée fixe.
In retrospect, Bernie Kerik's short-lived nomination as the new homeland security czar - "mind-blowing," as Mr. Clarke puts it - shows just how little concern there is. If homeland security were a top priority for the White House, someone would have discovered that the man selected to run the most sprawling new federal bureaucracy since the Defense Department in 1947 could not even manage his own personal finances, let alone his sex life. Were homeland security still a top priority for the country, the Kerik implosion might have whipped up some of the public outcry once sparked by the whistle-blowing F.B.I. agent Coleen Rowley (who quietly retired last month). But like duct tape and color-coded terror alerts before it, the Kerik nomination instead turned instantly into a Leno-Letterman gag that allowed us to dispel any lingering 9/11 fears with laughter. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/09/arts/09rich.html?pagewanted=2&oref=login
Upcoming Budget Cuts: The expectable, set up by creating the deficits in the first term. Gonna have to contest changes to Medicaid, not just Social Security.
In his budget request to Congress, President Bush will try to impose firm, enforceable limits on the growth of federal benefit programs, and the chairmen of the Senate and House Budget Committees say they strongly supported that effort.
Administration officials and Congressional aides said Mr. Bush would also seek cuts in housing assistance for low-income families, freezes or slight increases in most domestic programs, and larger increases for domestic security. The spending plan for 2006, like the appropriations enacted for this year, would give priority to military operations and domestic security over social welfare programs.
The new chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, said he and other fiscal conservatives wanted to establish "enforcement mechanisms" to "put the brakes on the growth of entitlements," which pay benefits to millions of Americans according to formulas set by law.
"The White House also wants to address entitlement spending," Mr. Gregg said in an interview. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/09/politics/09budget1.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Iraq: Remember the Death Squads in Central America? I can be nostalgic, but this isn’t what I’d have in mind…
What to do about the deepening quagmire of Iraq? The Pentagon’s latest approach is being called "the Salvador option"—and the fact that it is being discussed at all is a measure of just how worried Donald Rumsfeld really is. "What everyone agrees is that we can’t just go on as we are," one senior military officer told NEWSWEEK. "We have to find a way to take the offensive against the insurgents. Right now, we are playing defense. And we are losing." Last November’s operation in Fallujah, most analysts agree, succeeded less in breaking "the back" of the insurgency—as Marine Gen. John Sattler optimistically declared at the time—than in spreading it out. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek/
Ongoing Accidents / Casualties: Bombs and bullets killing civilians. So much for precision bombs, winning the hearts and minds. I only print this to not join the ‘crowd’ that is increasingly relegating the daily slaughter to the rear pages.
U.S. troops opened fire near a checkpoint after their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb, and a hospital official said Sunday at least eight people were killed in the second mistaken American attack in two days to have deadly results.
Desertions: via the British press
American Army soldiers are deserting and fleeing to Canada rather than fight in Iraq, rekindling memories of the thousands of draft-dodgers who flooded north to avoid service in Vietnam.
An estimated 5,500 men and women have deserted since the invasion of Iraq, reflecting Washington's growing problems with troop morale. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/09/wus09.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/01/09/ixportal.html
Re-elected Bush at 49% approval. And 49% disapproval. Another reminder how beatable he was… http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm
-R
