Friday, April 01, 2005
Air America Radio: 1 year anniversary, HBO documentary
They’re doing well, have a moving, involving documentary showing 25 times this month on HBO. They are a critical resource, morale-booster and more.
Tom Coburn: For those who funded his opponent, Brad Carson, and/or have followed the new term of the freshman Senator from Oklahoma-- He has apparently been inspired by the ethically-challenged Tom DeLay and has resumed his obstetrics practice. This is a clear violation of Senate ethics that forbid earning outside income once sworn in as Senator. Worse, he’s got a scary reputation as an M.D., having been accused of filing a fraudulent Medicaid claim and sterilizing a woman without her consent. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27269-2004Sep16.html
Dems Solid Vs Bolton? Foreign Relations Committee- only Feingold a possible dissenting vote.
Democrats are likely to vote unanimously against John R. Bolton when his nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations comes before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next week, according to Democratic and Republican lawmakers and aides.
It would be the first time that committee Democrats unanimously opposed a Bush diplomatic selection, and it could put the nomination in peril if any Republicans defected to vote against Bolton.
There are 10 Republicans and eight Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee. If Chafee switched, creating a 9-9 tie, it would probably kill the nomination, two GOP Senate aides said. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-bolton31mar31,1,1642187.story?coll=la-news-politics-national
Flavor of WaPost Editorial on World Bank: A low of sorts. So, why should the Post sound so threatening?
People who care about this institution and its mission -- as many of Mr. Wolfowitz's detractors do -- should think carefully before they damage it by attacking its new boss. Criticism of Mr. Wolfowitz's agenda for the bank may be healthy once that agenda emerges. But preemptive condemnation because of the Iraq war is not. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14382-2005Mar30?language=printer
Intelligence Finding: Blame the CIA… and ignore Cheney, Rumsfeld’s brow-beating / cherry-picking. We knew this long ago; the only ‘disappointment’ is that with the election over, this report could have documented the intimidation. But, they were charged otherwise.
Analysts said today's report implicitly absolved the Bush administration of manipulating the intelligence used to launch the invasion, putting the blame for bad intelligence directly on the intelligence community. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1449363,00.html
Dana Milbank, former crack reporter, now commentator notes in the WaPost "The report is plenty tough, but it directs its fire at the intelligence professionals and gives the political figures a pass." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16916-2005Mar31.html
The WaPost account noted the story of CIA officials warning boss Tenet that the mobile labs nonsense was just that, based on a nutty, single source, with Tenet responding, Yeah, yeah,” and nothing that he was “exhausted.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17211-2005Mar31.html
The NY Times editorial doesn’t mince words:
The president's commission on intelligence gathering could have saved the country a lot of time, and considerable paper, by not publishing its report yesterday and just e-mailing everyone the Web addresses for the searching studies already done by the 9/11 commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee. After more than a year's dithering, the panel produced some 600 pages of conventional wisdom about the intelligence failures before the war with Iraq, along with a big dose of political spin that pleased the White House but provided little enlightenment for the public. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/01/opinion/01fri2.html?
Giving Belated Credit where Credit’s due. Tom Friedman, NY Times op ed’er, did address a bit of our current craziness:
"How will future historians explain it? How will they possibly explain why President George W. Bush decided to ignore the energy crisis staring us in the face and chose instead to spend all his electoral capital on a futile effort to undo the New Deal, by partially privatizing Social Security? We are, quite simply, witnessing one of the greatest examples of misplaced priorities in the history of the U.S. presidency.
"By doing nothing to lower U.S. oil consumption, we are financing both sides in the war on terrorism and strengthening the worst governments in the world.' ...and much more.
Imagine if George Bush declared that he was getting rid of his limousine for an armor-plated Ford Escape hybrid, adopting a geo-green strategy and building an alliance of neocons, evangelicals and greens to sustain it. His popularity at home - and abroad - would soar. The country is dying to be led on this. Instead, he prefers to squander his personal energy trying to take apart the New Deal and throwing red meat to right-to-life fanatics. What a waste of a presidency. How will future historians explain it? http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/opinion/27friedman.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists
Pentagon $
A new report by the Government Accountability Office warned yesterday that the costs of the Pentagon's arsenal could soar by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.
The Pentagon has said it is building more than 70 major weapons systems at a cost of at least $1.3 trillion. But the Pentagon generally understates the time and money spent on weapons programs by 20 to 50 percent, the new report said.
A survey of 26 major weapons systems showed cost overruns of $42.7 billion, or 41.9 percent, in their research and development phase. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/01/business/01military.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Oil Worries They never go away. This worrier is not exactly Left.
Oil importing countries should implement emergency oil saving policies if supplies fall by as little as 1m-2m barrels a day, the International Energy Agency will warn next month.
The figure is much lower than the official trigger of 7 per cent of global oil supply equivalent to 6m b/d agreed in the treaty that founded the energy watchdog for industrialised countries after the oil crisis of the 1970s. A fall in supply of just 1m-2m b/d would be equivalent to the disruptions during the 2003 Iraq war or the 2002 oil industry strike in Venezuela.
A warning to set up “demand restraint policies” in the transport sector, such as driving bans or shorter working weeks, is contained in a study to be published next month during the annual IEA meeting of energy ministers.
It comes as oil is trading at more than $55 a barrel and highlights the agency's concern about the possibility of a supply shock, the economic impact of high oil prices, and the need to focus on conserving energy rather than simply encouraging higher production. http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d5213f46-a21a-11d9-8483-00000e2511c8.html
Hillary Markets Victimization: She’s rallying her troops with the cry, ‘The Right is gonna target me; send money’! Clever strategy: She may not be a liberal, but she is a victim!
With 19 months to go before the elections and no opponent in sight, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign is nonetheless warning her political supporters that she is the prime target of "the right-wing attack machine."
In a fund-raising e-mail message sent out on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton's campaign also said her critics were preparing an advertising campaign against her similar to the one orchestrated by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that attacked Senator John Kerry's Vietnam service during the presidential election. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/01/nyregion/metrocampaigns/01hillary.html?pagewanted=all
-R
They’re doing well, have a moving, involving documentary showing 25 times this month on HBO. They are a critical resource, morale-booster and more.
Tom Coburn: For those who funded his opponent, Brad Carson, and/or have followed the new term of the freshman Senator from Oklahoma-- He has apparently been inspired by the ethically-challenged Tom DeLay and has resumed his obstetrics practice. This is a clear violation of Senate ethics that forbid earning outside income once sworn in as Senator. Worse, he’s got a scary reputation as an M.D., having been accused of filing a fraudulent Medicaid claim and sterilizing a woman without her consent. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27269-2004Sep16.html
Dems Solid Vs Bolton? Foreign Relations Committee- only Feingold a possible dissenting vote.
Democrats are likely to vote unanimously against John R. Bolton when his nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations comes before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next week, according to Democratic and Republican lawmakers and aides.
It would be the first time that committee Democrats unanimously opposed a Bush diplomatic selection, and it could put the nomination in peril if any Republicans defected to vote against Bolton.
There are 10 Republicans and eight Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee. If Chafee switched, creating a 9-9 tie, it would probably kill the nomination, two GOP Senate aides said. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-bolton31mar31,1,1642187.story?coll=la-news-politics-national
Flavor of WaPost Editorial on World Bank: A low of sorts. So, why should the Post sound so threatening?
People who care about this institution and its mission -- as many of Mr. Wolfowitz's detractors do -- should think carefully before they damage it by attacking its new boss. Criticism of Mr. Wolfowitz's agenda for the bank may be healthy once that agenda emerges. But preemptive condemnation because of the Iraq war is not. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14382-2005Mar30?language=printer
Intelligence Finding: Blame the CIA… and ignore Cheney, Rumsfeld’s brow-beating / cherry-picking. We knew this long ago; the only ‘disappointment’ is that with the election over, this report could have documented the intimidation. But, they were charged otherwise.
Analysts said today's report implicitly absolved the Bush administration of manipulating the intelligence used to launch the invasion, putting the blame for bad intelligence directly on the intelligence community. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1449363,00.html
Dana Milbank, former crack reporter, now commentator notes in the WaPost "The report is plenty tough, but it directs its fire at the intelligence professionals and gives the political figures a pass." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16916-2005Mar31.html
The WaPost account noted the story of CIA officials warning boss Tenet that the mobile labs nonsense was just that, based on a nutty, single source, with Tenet responding, Yeah, yeah,” and nothing that he was “exhausted.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17211-2005Mar31.html
The NY Times editorial doesn’t mince words:
The president's commission on intelligence gathering could have saved the country a lot of time, and considerable paper, by not publishing its report yesterday and just e-mailing everyone the Web addresses for the searching studies already done by the 9/11 commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee. After more than a year's dithering, the panel produced some 600 pages of conventional wisdom about the intelligence failures before the war with Iraq, along with a big dose of political spin that pleased the White House but provided little enlightenment for the public. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/01/opinion/01fri2.html?
Giving Belated Credit where Credit’s due. Tom Friedman, NY Times op ed’er, did address a bit of our current craziness:
"How will future historians explain it? How will they possibly explain why President George W. Bush decided to ignore the energy crisis staring us in the face and chose instead to spend all his electoral capital on a futile effort to undo the New Deal, by partially privatizing Social Security? We are, quite simply, witnessing one of the greatest examples of misplaced priorities in the history of the U.S. presidency.
"By doing nothing to lower U.S. oil consumption, we are financing both sides in the war on terrorism and strengthening the worst governments in the world.' ...and much more.
Imagine if George Bush declared that he was getting rid of his limousine for an armor-plated Ford Escape hybrid, adopting a geo-green strategy and building an alliance of neocons, evangelicals and greens to sustain it. His popularity at home - and abroad - would soar. The country is dying to be led on this. Instead, he prefers to squander his personal energy trying to take apart the New Deal and throwing red meat to right-to-life fanatics. What a waste of a presidency. How will future historians explain it? http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/opinion/27friedman.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists
Pentagon $
A new report by the Government Accountability Office warned yesterday that the costs of the Pentagon's arsenal could soar by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade.
The Pentagon has said it is building more than 70 major weapons systems at a cost of at least $1.3 trillion. But the Pentagon generally understates the time and money spent on weapons programs by 20 to 50 percent, the new report said.
A survey of 26 major weapons systems showed cost overruns of $42.7 billion, or 41.9 percent, in their research and development phase. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/01/business/01military.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Oil Worries They never go away. This worrier is not exactly Left.
Oil importing countries should implement emergency oil saving policies if supplies fall by as little as 1m-2m barrels a day, the International Energy Agency will warn next month.
The figure is much lower than the official trigger of 7 per cent of global oil supply equivalent to 6m b/d agreed in the treaty that founded the energy watchdog for industrialised countries after the oil crisis of the 1970s. A fall in supply of just 1m-2m b/d would be equivalent to the disruptions during the 2003 Iraq war or the 2002 oil industry strike in Venezuela.
A warning to set up “demand restraint policies” in the transport sector, such as driving bans or shorter working weeks, is contained in a study to be published next month during the annual IEA meeting of energy ministers.
It comes as oil is trading at more than $55 a barrel and highlights the agency's concern about the possibility of a supply shock, the economic impact of high oil prices, and the need to focus on conserving energy rather than simply encouraging higher production. http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d5213f46-a21a-11d9-8483-00000e2511c8.html
Hillary Markets Victimization: She’s rallying her troops with the cry, ‘The Right is gonna target me; send money’! Clever strategy: She may not be a liberal, but she is a victim!
With 19 months to go before the elections and no opponent in sight, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign is nonetheless warning her political supporters that she is the prime target of "the right-wing attack machine."
In a fund-raising e-mail message sent out on Thursday, Mrs. Clinton's campaign also said her critics were preparing an advertising campaign against her similar to the one orchestrated by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a group that attacked Senator John Kerry's Vietnam service during the presidential election. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/01/nyregion/metrocampaigns/01hillary.html?pagewanted=all
-R
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Win on Medicare:
A federal district judge on Wednesday blocked a Bush administration rule that would have allowed employers to reduce or eliminate health benefits for retirees when they reach age 65 and become eligible for Medicare.
Ten million retirees could have had benefits cut under the rule, which was adopted last April by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The judge, Anita B. Brody of the Federal District Court in Philadelphia, struck down the rule and issued a permanent injunction that prohibits federal officials from enforcing it.
The rule "is contrary to Congressional intent and the plain language of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act," the 1967 law that bans most forms of age discrimination in the workplace, Judge Brody wrote.
The erosion of retiree health benefits is an explosive political issue. Before issuing the rule, the commission was deluged with letters opposing it.
The rule would have created an explicit exemption to the age discrimination law, allowing employers to reduce health benefits for retirees when they became eligible for Medicare. Under the rule, Judge Brody said, employers could have given older retirees "health benefits that are inferior" to those given retirees younger than 65. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/31/politics/31retire.html?pagewanted=print&position=
What’s Happening, Iraq: Sanchez Knew. Oh, we knew this; it’s just the regular media getting on it.
The highest-ranking US general in Iraq authorised the use of interrogation techniques that included sleep manipulation, stress positions and the use of dogs to "exploit Arab fears" of them, it emerged today.
A memo signed by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez authorised 29 interrogation techniques, including 12 that exceeded limits in the army's own field manual and four that it admitted risked falling foul of international law, the Geneva conventions or accepted standards on the humane treatment of prisoners.
The memo, dated September 14 2003, also stated that the Iraq interrogation policy was modelled on the one used at Guantánamo Bay "but modified for applicability to a theater [sic] of war in which the Geneva conventions apply". http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1448282,00.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: Getting Out? More Washington talk about this eventuality, that the Administration knows an exit is needed. Barbara Boxer keeps up the pressure; few others are.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, back from a visit to Iraq, called on President Bush Tuesday to set a deadline for pulling U.S. troops out of that country and letting the Iraqis handle their own defense.
"If we do not set a date, the signals are very mixed,'' Boxer said in San Francisco. "People will just sit back and let us defend them.''
While U.S. military leaders were both concerned about the growing danger of a lengthy stay in Iraq and confident that the newly trained Iraqi military forces can handle the country's security, Iraqi officials she talked to had their doubts about when their troops would be ready, the California Democrat said. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/30/MNGN6C0J9S1.DTL
What’s Happening, Iraq: Mental Health casualties According to the study, the number of mental disorders is rapidly rising, doubling the rate of a year ago.
As many as one out of four veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq treated at Veterans Affairs hospitals in the past 16 months were diagnosed with mental disorders, a number that has been steadily rising, according to a report in today's New England Journal of Medicine.
So far, VA hospitals can easily meet the challenge of mental health care for Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans, Kang says.
But large funding cuts in VA psychiatry programs over the past several years and the limited number of doctors trained in PTSD could signal big trouble ahead, cautions Bruce Kagan, staff psychiatrist at the West Los Angeles VA Hospital. http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050331/1a_bottomstrip31.art.htm
USA Today has been offering excellent coverage all week, documenting the slow armoring of Humvees on Monday and the continuing vulnerability of our tanks in Iraq on Wednesday. In other words, they’re on the ‘competence’ issue… and yahoo has printed each. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&ncid=676&e=6&u=/usatoday/20050330/ts_usatoday/tankstakeabeatinginiraq http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&ncid=676&e=14&u=/usatoday/20050328/ts_usatoday/armylatewithordersforarmoredhumvees
What’s Happening, India: They’re tired of looking to the U.S. for their weapons purchases. Siddharth Srivastava of Asia Times online
The reaction has been quicker than expected. Peeved at the US decision to supply F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, India has made it more than apparent that it is not at all happy and will play hard to get in all defense negotiations with the US.
Making no bones about New Delhi's annoyance, even as US Ambassador to India David Mulford has tried to placate matters, Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced on Tuesday that the government had cleared the purchase of 12 used Mirage 2000 V fighter aircraft from Qatar and 11 Dornier 228 aircraft from Germany for maritime surveillance, virtually as a gesture set against the US offer to sell PC-3 Orions to India. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC31Df03.html
What’s Happening, Mid-East: Condi Turns ‘em Off. Not the headlines here, as her clippings have eclipsed the days of lies and evasions.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has alarmed many reformist Arabs with comments suggesting a new U.S. approach that promotes rapid political change without regard for internal stability. Rice said in an interview with the Washington Post last week the Middle East status quo was not stable and she doubted it would be stable soon. Washington would speak out for "freedom" without offering a model or knowing what the outcome would be.
"This a very dangerous scheme. Anarchy will be out of control," said Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University and an advocate of gradual change. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=3&u=/nm/mideast_stability_dc
Democrats and the Schiavo “case” Arianna Huffington goes after the spineless Democrats, including Bill Clinton.
While real political leadership is determining the direction the country needs to go and convincing the public to follow you down that road, Democrats keep choosing the path of least resistance. Party leaders have been sticking their fingers in the air, feeling which way the political wind is blowing, and then chasing after these zephyrs of public sentiment. Which is bad enough. But making matters much, much worse, they are consistently misreading the wind -- an affliction that has led to their being blown away in three straight elections.
The Schiavo case is a perfect example. Before the cards had even been dealt, Senate Democrats decided that the Republicans already held all the aces. So instead of calling Dr. Frist's bluff, they folded, sat out the hand, and headed into the kitchen to see what kind of sandwiches Felix was whipping up. Not a single Democratic senator formally objected to the pro forma voice vote that sent the Schiavo bill to the House, where, with a few notable exceptions -- especially Rep. Barney Frank and rising star Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida -- Democrats were nearly as compliant.
In an interesting twist, it turns out that Bill Clinton had a behind-the-scenes role in the party's decision to adopt a hands-off policy on the Schiavo debate. According to CBS News, the former triangulator-in-chief helped sway Schiavo bill backer Tom Harkin, "egging him on" to roll over and play dead -- an odious echo of his efforts to get John Kerry to come out in favor of all 11 state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. This kind of strategic calculation may have been all right in the mid-'90s, but not today, when the party is in desperate need of bold, decisive leadership.
…But the Democrats, having gone MIA, were unable to ride the tidal wave of public sentiment. Yet again. For years now, they have failed to grasp that when it comes to their core issues -- including providing affordable healthcare, protecting the environment, safeguarding Social Security, gun control and basic abortion rights -- they are on the same side of the fence as the majority of Americans.
Instead of allowing themselves to be cowed by the fear of looking like they're coming down on the immoral side of the moral values debate, Democrats should snap out of it and demand that the president interrupt his next vacation and that Bill Frist hold another midnight session of Congress to address the moral disgrace of 45 million people with no health insurance and 36 million people living in poverty -- and, in doing so, reclaim the moral high ground. http://www.salon.com/opinion/huffington/2005/03/29/schiavo/print.html
[Bill] Clinton and the Democratic Party: Bill Bradley
There is no clearly identifiable funding base for Democratic policy organizations, and in the frantic campaign rush there is no time for patient, long-term development of new ideas or of new ways to sell old ideas. Campaigns don't start thinking about a Democratic brand until halfway through the election year, by which time winning the daily news cycle takes precedence over building a consistent message. The closest that Democrats get to a brand is a catchy slogan.
Democrats choose this approach, I believe, because we are still hypnotized by Jack Kennedy, and the promise of a charismatic leader who can change America by the strength and style of his personality. The trouble is that every four years the party splits and rallies around several different individuals at once. Opponents in the primaries then exaggerate their differences and leave the public confused about what Democrats believe.
In such a system tactics trump strategy. Candidates don't risk talking about big ideas because the ideas have never been sufficiently tested. Instead they usually wind up arguing about minor issues and express few deep convictions. In the worst case, they embrace "Republican lite" platforms - never realizing that in doing so they're allowing the Republicans to define the terms of the debate.
A party based on charisma has no long-term impact. Think of our last charismatic leader, Bill Clinton. He was president for eight years. He was the first Democrat to be re-elected since Franklin Roosevelt. He was smart, skilled and possessed great energy. But what happened? At the end of his tenure in the most powerful office in the world, there were fewer Democratic governors, fewer Democratic senators, members of Congress and state legislators and a national party that was deep in debt. The president did well. The party did not. Charisma didn't translate into structure. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/opinion/30bradley.html?ei=5090&en=ca0476c9b26363e7&ex=1269838800&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=print&position=
So, why is Bush’s popularity down? Of course we shouldn’t be so surprised. A significant, telling percentage voted for him as the “wartime president”, needed to stay in charge of the so-called “war on terror.” The Repubs have ceased pushing this line- again, the threat has always been exaggerated- so as our fear abates, we focus on their policy positions and Bush as… I’ll refrain.
In fact, it's possible that the perception of success and the spread of democracy in Iraq works against Bush in the way his father, the first President Bush, failed to turn his own success in the first Gulf War into victory come reelection time.
"Once he's no longer seen as a struggling wartime commander, the public focuses on more perhaps mundane matters, such as the price of gas," says Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council.
Bush also doesn't seem to be getting much of a bump from the successes of his new secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, whose latest Gallup Poll numbers (taken March 18-20) show a 61 percent approval rating. It is also questionable whether the most popular person connected to the administration - first lady Laura Bush - could offer any reverse coattails for her husband. On Tuesday, Mrs. Bush left on a surprise visit to Afghanistan to focus on educational initiatives for Afghan women and also meet with President Hamid Karzai and have dinner with US forces at Bagram Air Base. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0330/p01s03-uspo.html?s=itm
Social Security: Bush Fiat? A test via Executive Order? Undoubtedly a trial balloon; let’s watch, if not contribute to the response
This past weekend, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the influential chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, seemed to throw cold water on President Bush's hopes for major Social Security change. And recent polls have shown that the public is also cool to the idea of private accounts, arguably the central element of President Bush's Social Security plan.
But as the Social Security debate continues to unfold, do not underestimate President Bush's ability to still get his ideas enacted. Indeed, even without broad Congressional or public support, President Bush just may have an ace up his sleeve. How might he enact his private accounts idea without such support, you may ask? By executive order.
Indeed, the Constitution has long provided the president with a certain amount of unilateral power to make policy. And from George Washington to George W. Bush, that power has frequently been used when presidents have felt stymied by Congress or the courts. Among some of the notable presidential directives (a broader category of unilateral presidential power that includes executive orders, proclamations, pardons, national security directives and more) are: the Louisiana Purchase, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Japanese Internment Camps. http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/29/ace.up.sleeve/index.html
-R
A federal district judge on Wednesday blocked a Bush administration rule that would have allowed employers to reduce or eliminate health benefits for retirees when they reach age 65 and become eligible for Medicare.
Ten million retirees could have had benefits cut under the rule, which was adopted last April by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The judge, Anita B. Brody of the Federal District Court in Philadelphia, struck down the rule and issued a permanent injunction that prohibits federal officials from enforcing it.
The rule "is contrary to Congressional intent and the plain language of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act," the 1967 law that bans most forms of age discrimination in the workplace, Judge Brody wrote.
The erosion of retiree health benefits is an explosive political issue. Before issuing the rule, the commission was deluged with letters opposing it.
The rule would have created an explicit exemption to the age discrimination law, allowing employers to reduce health benefits for retirees when they became eligible for Medicare. Under the rule, Judge Brody said, employers could have given older retirees "health benefits that are inferior" to those given retirees younger than 65. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/31/politics/31retire.html?pagewanted=print&position=
What’s Happening, Iraq: Sanchez Knew. Oh, we knew this; it’s just the regular media getting on it.
The highest-ranking US general in Iraq authorised the use of interrogation techniques that included sleep manipulation, stress positions and the use of dogs to "exploit Arab fears" of them, it emerged today.
A memo signed by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez authorised 29 interrogation techniques, including 12 that exceeded limits in the army's own field manual and four that it admitted risked falling foul of international law, the Geneva conventions or accepted standards on the humane treatment of prisoners.
The memo, dated September 14 2003, also stated that the Iraq interrogation policy was modelled on the one used at Guantánamo Bay "but modified for applicability to a theater [sic] of war in which the Geneva conventions apply". http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1448282,00.html
What’s Happening, Iraq: Getting Out? More Washington talk about this eventuality, that the Administration knows an exit is needed. Barbara Boxer keeps up the pressure; few others are.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, back from a visit to Iraq, called on President Bush Tuesday to set a deadline for pulling U.S. troops out of that country and letting the Iraqis handle their own defense.
"If we do not set a date, the signals are very mixed,'' Boxer said in San Francisco. "People will just sit back and let us defend them.''
While U.S. military leaders were both concerned about the growing danger of a lengthy stay in Iraq and confident that the newly trained Iraqi military forces can handle the country's security, Iraqi officials she talked to had their doubts about when their troops would be ready, the California Democrat said. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/03/30/MNGN6C0J9S1.DTL
What’s Happening, Iraq: Mental Health casualties According to the study, the number of mental disorders is rapidly rising, doubling the rate of a year ago.
As many as one out of four veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq treated at Veterans Affairs hospitals in the past 16 months were diagnosed with mental disorders, a number that has been steadily rising, according to a report in today's New England Journal of Medicine.
So far, VA hospitals can easily meet the challenge of mental health care for Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans, Kang says.
But large funding cuts in VA psychiatry programs over the past several years and the limited number of doctors trained in PTSD could signal big trouble ahead, cautions Bruce Kagan, staff psychiatrist at the West Los Angeles VA Hospital. http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050331/1a_bottomstrip31.art.htm
USA Today has been offering excellent coverage all week, documenting the slow armoring of Humvees on Monday and the continuing vulnerability of our tanks in Iraq on Wednesday. In other words, they’re on the ‘competence’ issue… and yahoo has printed each. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&ncid=676&e=6&u=/usatoday/20050330/ts_usatoday/tankstakeabeatinginiraq http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&ncid=676&e=14&u=/usatoday/20050328/ts_usatoday/armylatewithordersforarmoredhumvees
What’s Happening, India: They’re tired of looking to the U.S. for their weapons purchases. Siddharth Srivastava of Asia Times online
The reaction has been quicker than expected. Peeved at the US decision to supply F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, India has made it more than apparent that it is not at all happy and will play hard to get in all defense negotiations with the US.
Making no bones about New Delhi's annoyance, even as US Ambassador to India David Mulford has tried to placate matters, Indian Defense Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced on Tuesday that the government had cleared the purchase of 12 used Mirage 2000 V fighter aircraft from Qatar and 11 Dornier 228 aircraft from Germany for maritime surveillance, virtually as a gesture set against the US offer to sell PC-3 Orions to India. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GC31Df03.html
What’s Happening, Mid-East: Condi Turns ‘em Off. Not the headlines here, as her clippings have eclipsed the days of lies and evasions.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has alarmed many reformist Arabs with comments suggesting a new U.S. approach that promotes rapid political change without regard for internal stability. Rice said in an interview with the Washington Post last week the Middle East status quo was not stable and she doubted it would be stable soon. Washington would speak out for "freedom" without offering a model or knowing what the outcome would be.
"This a very dangerous scheme. Anarchy will be out of control," said Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University and an advocate of gradual change. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&e=3&u=/nm/mideast_stability_dc
Democrats and the Schiavo “case” Arianna Huffington goes after the spineless Democrats, including Bill Clinton.
While real political leadership is determining the direction the country needs to go and convincing the public to follow you down that road, Democrats keep choosing the path of least resistance. Party leaders have been sticking their fingers in the air, feeling which way the political wind is blowing, and then chasing after these zephyrs of public sentiment. Which is bad enough. But making matters much, much worse, they are consistently misreading the wind -- an affliction that has led to their being blown away in three straight elections.
The Schiavo case is a perfect example. Before the cards had even been dealt, Senate Democrats decided that the Republicans already held all the aces. So instead of calling Dr. Frist's bluff, they folded, sat out the hand, and headed into the kitchen to see what kind of sandwiches Felix was whipping up. Not a single Democratic senator formally objected to the pro forma voice vote that sent the Schiavo bill to the House, where, with a few notable exceptions -- especially Rep. Barney Frank and rising star Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida -- Democrats were nearly as compliant.
In an interesting twist, it turns out that Bill Clinton had a behind-the-scenes role in the party's decision to adopt a hands-off policy on the Schiavo debate. According to CBS News, the former triangulator-in-chief helped sway Schiavo bill backer Tom Harkin, "egging him on" to roll over and play dead -- an odious echo of his efforts to get John Kerry to come out in favor of all 11 state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage. This kind of strategic calculation may have been all right in the mid-'90s, but not today, when the party is in desperate need of bold, decisive leadership.
…But the Democrats, having gone MIA, were unable to ride the tidal wave of public sentiment. Yet again. For years now, they have failed to grasp that when it comes to their core issues -- including providing affordable healthcare, protecting the environment, safeguarding Social Security, gun control and basic abortion rights -- they are on the same side of the fence as the majority of Americans.
Instead of allowing themselves to be cowed by the fear of looking like they're coming down on the immoral side of the moral values debate, Democrats should snap out of it and demand that the president interrupt his next vacation and that Bill Frist hold another midnight session of Congress to address the moral disgrace of 45 million people with no health insurance and 36 million people living in poverty -- and, in doing so, reclaim the moral high ground. http://www.salon.com/opinion/huffington/2005/03/29/schiavo/print.html
[Bill] Clinton and the Democratic Party: Bill Bradley
There is no clearly identifiable funding base for Democratic policy organizations, and in the frantic campaign rush there is no time for patient, long-term development of new ideas or of new ways to sell old ideas. Campaigns don't start thinking about a Democratic brand until halfway through the election year, by which time winning the daily news cycle takes precedence over building a consistent message. The closest that Democrats get to a brand is a catchy slogan.
Democrats choose this approach, I believe, because we are still hypnotized by Jack Kennedy, and the promise of a charismatic leader who can change America by the strength and style of his personality. The trouble is that every four years the party splits and rallies around several different individuals at once. Opponents in the primaries then exaggerate their differences and leave the public confused about what Democrats believe.
In such a system tactics trump strategy. Candidates don't risk talking about big ideas because the ideas have never been sufficiently tested. Instead they usually wind up arguing about minor issues and express few deep convictions. In the worst case, they embrace "Republican lite" platforms - never realizing that in doing so they're allowing the Republicans to define the terms of the debate.
A party based on charisma has no long-term impact. Think of our last charismatic leader, Bill Clinton. He was president for eight years. He was the first Democrat to be re-elected since Franklin Roosevelt. He was smart, skilled and possessed great energy. But what happened? At the end of his tenure in the most powerful office in the world, there were fewer Democratic governors, fewer Democratic senators, members of Congress and state legislators and a national party that was deep in debt. The president did well. The party did not. Charisma didn't translate into structure. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/opinion/30bradley.html?ei=5090&en=ca0476c9b26363e7&ex=1269838800&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=print&position=
So, why is Bush’s popularity down? Of course we shouldn’t be so surprised. A significant, telling percentage voted for him as the “wartime president”, needed to stay in charge of the so-called “war on terror.” The Repubs have ceased pushing this line- again, the threat has always been exaggerated- so as our fear abates, we focus on their policy positions and Bush as… I’ll refrain.
In fact, it's possible that the perception of success and the spread of democracy in Iraq works against Bush in the way his father, the first President Bush, failed to turn his own success in the first Gulf War into victory come reelection time.
"Once he's no longer seen as a struggling wartime commander, the public focuses on more perhaps mundane matters, such as the price of gas," says Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow at the Democratic Leadership Council.
Bush also doesn't seem to be getting much of a bump from the successes of his new secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, whose latest Gallup Poll numbers (taken March 18-20) show a 61 percent approval rating. It is also questionable whether the most popular person connected to the administration - first lady Laura Bush - could offer any reverse coattails for her husband. On Tuesday, Mrs. Bush left on a surprise visit to Afghanistan to focus on educational initiatives for Afghan women and also meet with President Hamid Karzai and have dinner with US forces at Bagram Air Base. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0330/p01s03-uspo.html?s=itm
Social Security: Bush Fiat? A test via Executive Order? Undoubtedly a trial balloon; let’s watch, if not contribute to the response
This past weekend, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the influential chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, seemed to throw cold water on President Bush's hopes for major Social Security change. And recent polls have shown that the public is also cool to the idea of private accounts, arguably the central element of President Bush's Social Security plan.
But as the Social Security debate continues to unfold, do not underestimate President Bush's ability to still get his ideas enacted. Indeed, even without broad Congressional or public support, President Bush just may have an ace up his sleeve. How might he enact his private accounts idea without such support, you may ask? By executive order.
Indeed, the Constitution has long provided the president with a certain amount of unilateral power to make policy. And from George Washington to George W. Bush, that power has frequently been used when presidents have felt stymied by Congress or the courts. Among some of the notable presidential directives (a broader category of unilateral presidential power that includes executive orders, proclamations, pardons, national security directives and more) are: the Louisiana Purchase, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Japanese Internment Camps. http://www.cnn.com/2005/ALLPOLITICS/03/29/ace.up.sleeve/index.html
-R
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Border Trouble The Moonie-owned Washington Times has a report on Central American gangs attacking American volunteers. [Note: typos are theirs]
Members of a violent Central America-based gang have been sent to Arizona to target Minuteman Project volunteers, who will begin a monthlong border vigil this weekend to find and report foreigner sneaking into the United States, project officials say.
James Gilchrist, a Vietnam veteran who helped organize the vigil to protest the federal government's failure to control illegal immigration, said he has been told that California and Texas leaders of Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, have issued orders to teach "a lesson" to the Minuteman volunteers. http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050328-125306-7868r.htm
Where our Quiet / passivity takes us: Paul Krugman warns:
What we need - and we aren't seeing - is a firm stand by moderates against religious extremism. Some people ask, with justification, Where are the Democrats? But an even better question is, Where are the doctors fiercely defending their professional integrity? I think the American Medical Association disapproves of politicians who second-guess medical diagnoses based on video images - but the association's statement on the Schiavo case is so timid that it's hard to be sure.
The closest parallel I can think of to current American politics is Israel. There was a time, not that long ago, when moderate Israelis downplayed the rise of religious extremists. But no more: extremists have already killed one prime minister, and everyone realizes that Ariel Sharon is at risk.
America isn't yet a place where liberal politicians, and even conservatives who aren't sufficiently hard-line, fear assassination. But unless moderates take a stand against the growing power of domestic extremists, it can happen here. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/opinion/29krugman.html?hp
Gannon Follow-Up:
Jeff Gannon is back -- at the National Press Club? Frank Rich is still only on Sundays, so I need to fill the gap. Our conservative, celebrity culture’s National Press Club invites Gannon to discuss journalism and blogging. He’s “blogged” for 3 weeks, and he’s no journalist.
Yes, the same day that the prestigious Washington, D.C., journalism organization plans to present a lunch talk by former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, it will also allow the former White House reporter/sex site operator to be on a panel discussing bloggers and online journalism.
Gannon, whose real name is James Guckert, resigned his job with the conservative Talon News last month after it was revealed he had used a pseudonym, had little journalism background, and had ties to male escort Web sites.
Still, Press Club leaders will include Gannon on the panel April 8 that includes Wonkette.com editor Ana Marie Cox, National Journal's John Stanton, and others. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000856306
Florida, 2006 / 2008. “In play” LA Times piece on the blow back for the Repubs after the Shiavo and Social Security missteps.
President Bush's decisive victory in Florida last year seemed to cement Republican dominance in an important battleground state that once symbolized an evenly divided nation.
But with the GOP base polarized over the Terri Schiavo case and the public skeptical of Bush's plan to overhaul Social Security, two issues with explosive relevance in Florida are stirring up confusing political crosscurrents for Republicans preparing to face the voters there next year.
On both fronts, President Bush and his brother Gov. Jeb Bush are promoting positions that put fellow Republicans on the spot, just before important campaigns that will determine the governor's successor and the fate of Florida's lone Democrat holding statewide office, Sen. Bill Nelson.
Polls show the public overwhelmingly opposed to intervention by Congress and President Bush in the case of Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman whose family has been bitterly split over the decision to remove her feeding tube. But the religious conservatives who pressed hard for politicians in Tallahassee and Washington to act to have the the tube reinserted could play a pivotal role in the races for governor and Senate.
At the same time, public opposition has been mounting against the president's plan to let younger workers divert a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into private investment accounts. The president's proposal is particularly unpopular among seniors, and so candidates in the senior-rich state are especially vulnerable to the charge that such a change could endanger benefits. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-politics29mar29,0,6473467.story?coll=la-home-headlines
The Culture of Life: Tales from the Life of one Bill Tierney
1) Life as a contractor in Iraq: February 12
The greatest frustration was evident in rank and file intelligence and law enforcement officers. After explaining his various psychological tactics to the audience, interrogator Bill Tierney (a private contractor working with the Army) said, ''I tried to be nuanced and culturally aware. But the suspects didn't break.''
Suddenly Tierney's temper rose. ''They did not break!'' he shouted. ''I'm here to win. I'm here so our civilization beats theirs! Now what are you willing to do to win?'' he asked, pointing to a woman in the front row. ''You are the interrogators, you are the ones who have to get the information from the Iraqis. What do you do? That word 'torture'. You immediately think, 'That's not me.' But are we litigating this war or fighting it?''
Some listeners murmured in assent; others sat in rapt attention. In all the recent debates about the Bush administration's stance on torture, this voice, the voice of the interrogators themselves, has been almost entirely absent.
Asked about Abu Ghraib, Tierney said that for an interrogator, ''sadism is always right over the hill. You have to admit it. Don't fool yourself - there is a part of you that will say, 'This is fun.''' http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/02/13/spy_world?mode=PF
2) For Terri: (3/28)
The legal battle over the life of Terri Schiavo may have ended, but a thick, fervent crowd remains in the makeshift encampment outside the Woodside Hospice House here.
In numbers, they were not as great on Easter as they were on the previous three days, when the legal and public relations battle came to its bitter climax. But like soup simmered for hours, what remains is a concentrated stock of the angriest and most devoted, the prayerful and the publicity hungry.
"No, we're not going to go home," said Bill Tierney, a young daughter at his side. "Terri is not dead until she's dead."
Mr. Tierney, a former military intelligence officer in Iraq who works as a translator and investigator for private companies, cried as he talked about watching the Schiavo spectacle on television and feeling the utter need to be at the hospice. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/national/28cnd-schiavo.html?pagewanted=print&position=
http://billmon.org/archives/001784.html
Organizing / Profiting from Terri Predictable, if ghoulish
The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/politics/29donate.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Otherwise, the “case” is closed: Keith Olbermann, media good guy:
This case should now be considered closed. Obviously it will not be. It will be perpetuated by a few good, sad people who do not want the woman they know as daughter, sister, or friend, to die. It will be perpetuated by others who cannot come to grips with the incongruity of part of her brain still acting automatically, like a stoplight in the middle of a desert. But mostly it will be perpetuated by people who do not and have not given a damn about Terri Schiavo, or her parents, or anyone but themselves and the opportunities to exploit this situation for their own personal or political beliefs. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/
…yet,
In a new legal twist in a case already marked by back-and-forth maneuverings, a federal appeals court agreed late Tuesday to consider a request for a new hearing on whether a feeding tube should be reconnected to the severely brain-damaged Terri Schiavo, The Associated Press reported. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/national/30cnd-schiavo.html?hp&ex=1112245200&en=11ce78a97d52569b&ei=5094&partner=homepage
9/11 and Saudis: Michael Moore et al were right. Letter to the editor (NY Times) by author Craig Unger
As the author of "House of Bush, House of Saud" and the Vanity Fair article about the Saudi flights that triggered the F.B.I. investigation, I was told by the F.B.I. spokesman, John Iannarelli, "I can say unequivocally that the F.B.I. had no role in facilitating these flights one way or another."
White House officials declined to comment on the record, but privately one told me that he had made repeated inquiries and was "confident" that no such flights had taken place.
However, these new documents show conclusively that the flights not only took place, but also, in the F.B.I.'s own words, that people on them may have been "involved in or had knowledge of the 9/11/2001 attacks." In that context, it is especially disturbing to know that the White House had access to all this information and chose to conceal it. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/opinion/l30saudis.html?
What’s Happening, Iraq: Messy “democracy” The Times headlines “adjourns…amid bickering” while the Guardian notes the “descent into chaos.”
The meeting of Iraq's national assembly descended into chaos today as politicians failed to agree on a candidate for speaker.
Amid acrimonious scenes, the new governing body convened briefly, for only the second time since national elections in January, and admitted defeat in its efforts to nominate a Sunni candidate for the role.
The bickering exposed tensions in the newly formed parliament, with the outgoing interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, storming out of the session, followed by the interim president, Gazi al-Yawar
"What are we going to tell the citizens who sacrificed their lives and cast ballots on January 30?" asked Hussein al-Sadr, a Shia cleric and member Mr Allawi's coalition. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1447551,00.html
What’s Happening, China Expanding its influence…in Africa
Today, China's influence in Ethiopia is overwhelming. Its embassy is among the largest in the country and hosts more high-level visits than any Western mission. Chinese companies have become a dominant force, building highways and bridges, power stations, mobile-phone networks, schools and pharmaceutical plants. More recently, they have begun exploring for oil and building at least one Ethiopian military installation.
It's all part of Beijing's broad push into Africa. Aiming to secure access to the continent's vast natural resources, China is forging deep economic, political and military ties with most of Africa's 54 countries. There's more at stake than just fuel for an economic juggernaut, however, say senior Chinese officials, executives and Western diplomats. In Africa, as in many other parts of the developing world, China is redrawing geopolitical alliances in ways that help propel China's rise as a global superpower. http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB111205419351091336,00.html
Kofi Annan: He’s been cleared, his son criticized, but that doesn’t stop hack Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn) from repeatedly calling for Annan’s resignation. Annan’s response: “Hell, no.”
The commission investigating the oil-for-food program in Iraq reported Tuesday that Secretary General Kofi Annan had not influenced the awarding of a contract to the company that employed his son. But it faulted him for not looking more aggressively into the company's relationship with the United Nations once questions were raised. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/international/middleeast/30oil.html
Australia Speaks What one of our friends believes:
Most Australians consider U.S. foreign policy to be as threatening as Islamic fundamentalism, according to a survey released Monday.
More than two-thirds of respondents, 68%, said Australia takes "too much notice" of the United States when setting its foreign policy agenda, and 57% judged U.S. foreign policy to be as much of a threat as Islamic fundamentalism.
The Lowy Institute for International Policy surveyed 1,000 randomly selected Australians on their foreign policy views. The survey's margin of error was 3.1 percentage points.
The Sydney-based think-tank also found a majority of Australians ranked the United States near the bottom of their list of favored allies. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-03-28-australia-us_x.htm
Big Bird Goes Commercial:
Has Big Bird sold out?
On Monday Comcast is to announce the details of its new 24-hour digital cable channel for preschoolers, which will feature Elmo, Big Bird, Barney - and commercials. PBS not only approves, but is a partner: the channel's co-owners are PBS, Sesame Workshop and HIT Entertainment, producer of "Barney and Friends" and "Bob the Builder."
"I don't like pitching products to young children and I never have," said Joan Ganz Cooney, a co-founder of Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) and the chairwoman of the executive committee of its board. "But to some degree that is nostalgia for a time that is past. The whole society, the whole business is so commercialized, even public television. This is another way of getting PBS's excellent programming to children." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/arts/television/30pbs.html?pagewanted=print&position=
-R
Members of a violent Central America-based gang have been sent to Arizona to target Minuteman Project volunteers, who will begin a monthlong border vigil this weekend to find and report foreigner sneaking into the United States, project officials say.
James Gilchrist, a Vietnam veteran who helped organize the vigil to protest the federal government's failure to control illegal immigration, said he has been told that California and Texas leaders of Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, have issued orders to teach "a lesson" to the Minuteman volunteers. http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050328-125306-7868r.htm
Where our Quiet / passivity takes us: Paul Krugman warns:
What we need - and we aren't seeing - is a firm stand by moderates against religious extremism. Some people ask, with justification, Where are the Democrats? But an even better question is, Where are the doctors fiercely defending their professional integrity? I think the American Medical Association disapproves of politicians who second-guess medical diagnoses based on video images - but the association's statement on the Schiavo case is so timid that it's hard to be sure.
The closest parallel I can think of to current American politics is Israel. There was a time, not that long ago, when moderate Israelis downplayed the rise of religious extremists. But no more: extremists have already killed one prime minister, and everyone realizes that Ariel Sharon is at risk.
America isn't yet a place where liberal politicians, and even conservatives who aren't sufficiently hard-line, fear assassination. But unless moderates take a stand against the growing power of domestic extremists, it can happen here. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/opinion/29krugman.html?hp
Gannon Follow-Up:
Jeff Gannon is back -- at the National Press Club? Frank Rich is still only on Sundays, so I need to fill the gap. Our conservative, celebrity culture’s National Press Club invites Gannon to discuss journalism and blogging. He’s “blogged” for 3 weeks, and he’s no journalist.
Yes, the same day that the prestigious Washington, D.C., journalism organization plans to present a lunch talk by former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, it will also allow the former White House reporter/sex site operator to be on a panel discussing bloggers and online journalism.
Gannon, whose real name is James Guckert, resigned his job with the conservative Talon News last month after it was revealed he had used a pseudonym, had little journalism background, and had ties to male escort Web sites.
Still, Press Club leaders will include Gannon on the panel April 8 that includes Wonkette.com editor Ana Marie Cox, National Journal's John Stanton, and others. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000856306
Florida, 2006 / 2008. “In play” LA Times piece on the blow back for the Repubs after the Shiavo and Social Security missteps.
President Bush's decisive victory in Florida last year seemed to cement Republican dominance in an important battleground state that once symbolized an evenly divided nation.
But with the GOP base polarized over the Terri Schiavo case and the public skeptical of Bush's plan to overhaul Social Security, two issues with explosive relevance in Florida are stirring up confusing political crosscurrents for Republicans preparing to face the voters there next year.
On both fronts, President Bush and his brother Gov. Jeb Bush are promoting positions that put fellow Republicans on the spot, just before important campaigns that will determine the governor's successor and the fate of Florida's lone Democrat holding statewide office, Sen. Bill Nelson.
Polls show the public overwhelmingly opposed to intervention by Congress and President Bush in the case of Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman whose family has been bitterly split over the decision to remove her feeding tube. But the religious conservatives who pressed hard for politicians in Tallahassee and Washington to act to have the the tube reinserted could play a pivotal role in the races for governor and Senate.
At the same time, public opposition has been mounting against the president's plan to let younger workers divert a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into private investment accounts. The president's proposal is particularly unpopular among seniors, and so candidates in the senior-rich state are especially vulnerable to the charge that such a change could endanger benefits. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-politics29mar29,0,6473467.story?coll=la-home-headlines
The Culture of Life: Tales from the Life of one Bill Tierney
1) Life as a contractor in Iraq: February 12
The greatest frustration was evident in rank and file intelligence and law enforcement officers. After explaining his various psychological tactics to the audience, interrogator Bill Tierney (a private contractor working with the Army) said, ''I tried to be nuanced and culturally aware. But the suspects didn't break.''
Suddenly Tierney's temper rose. ''They did not break!'' he shouted. ''I'm here to win. I'm here so our civilization beats theirs! Now what are you willing to do to win?'' he asked, pointing to a woman in the front row. ''You are the interrogators, you are the ones who have to get the information from the Iraqis. What do you do? That word 'torture'. You immediately think, 'That's not me.' But are we litigating this war or fighting it?''
Some listeners murmured in assent; others sat in rapt attention. In all the recent debates about the Bush administration's stance on torture, this voice, the voice of the interrogators themselves, has been almost entirely absent.
Asked about Abu Ghraib, Tierney said that for an interrogator, ''sadism is always right over the hill. You have to admit it. Don't fool yourself - there is a part of you that will say, 'This is fun.''' http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/02/13/spy_world?mode=PF
2) For Terri: (3/28)
The legal battle over the life of Terri Schiavo may have ended, but a thick, fervent crowd remains in the makeshift encampment outside the Woodside Hospice House here.
In numbers, they were not as great on Easter as they were on the previous three days, when the legal and public relations battle came to its bitter climax. But like soup simmered for hours, what remains is a concentrated stock of the angriest and most devoted, the prayerful and the publicity hungry.
"No, we're not going to go home," said Bill Tierney, a young daughter at his side. "Terri is not dead until she's dead."
Mr. Tierney, a former military intelligence officer in Iraq who works as a translator and investigator for private companies, cried as he talked about watching the Schiavo spectacle on television and feeling the utter need to be at the hospice. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/28/national/28cnd-schiavo.html?pagewanted=print&position=
http://billmon.org/archives/001784.html
Organizing / Profiting from Terri Predictable, if ghoulish
The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/politics/29donate.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Otherwise, the “case” is closed: Keith Olbermann, media good guy:
This case should now be considered closed. Obviously it will not be. It will be perpetuated by a few good, sad people who do not want the woman they know as daughter, sister, or friend, to die. It will be perpetuated by others who cannot come to grips with the incongruity of part of her brain still acting automatically, like a stoplight in the middle of a desert. But mostly it will be perpetuated by people who do not and have not given a damn about Terri Schiavo, or her parents, or anyone but themselves and the opportunities to exploit this situation for their own personal or political beliefs. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/
…yet,
In a new legal twist in a case already marked by back-and-forth maneuverings, a federal appeals court agreed late Tuesday to consider a request for a new hearing on whether a feeding tube should be reconnected to the severely brain-damaged Terri Schiavo, The Associated Press reported. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/national/30cnd-schiavo.html?hp&ex=1112245200&en=11ce78a97d52569b&ei=5094&partner=homepage
9/11 and Saudis: Michael Moore et al were right. Letter to the editor (NY Times) by author Craig Unger
As the author of "House of Bush, House of Saud" and the Vanity Fair article about the Saudi flights that triggered the F.B.I. investigation, I was told by the F.B.I. spokesman, John Iannarelli, "I can say unequivocally that the F.B.I. had no role in facilitating these flights one way or another."
White House officials declined to comment on the record, but privately one told me that he had made repeated inquiries and was "confident" that no such flights had taken place.
However, these new documents show conclusively that the flights not only took place, but also, in the F.B.I.'s own words, that people on them may have been "involved in or had knowledge of the 9/11/2001 attacks." In that context, it is especially disturbing to know that the White House had access to all this information and chose to conceal it. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/opinion/l30saudis.html?
What’s Happening, Iraq: Messy “democracy” The Times headlines “adjourns…amid bickering” while the Guardian notes the “descent into chaos.”
The meeting of Iraq's national assembly descended into chaos today as politicians failed to agree on a candidate for speaker.
Amid acrimonious scenes, the new governing body convened briefly, for only the second time since national elections in January, and admitted defeat in its efforts to nominate a Sunni candidate for the role.
The bickering exposed tensions in the newly formed parliament, with the outgoing interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, storming out of the session, followed by the interim president, Gazi al-Yawar
"What are we going to tell the citizens who sacrificed their lives and cast ballots on January 30?" asked Hussein al-Sadr, a Shia cleric and member Mr Allawi's coalition. http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1447551,00.html
What’s Happening, China Expanding its influence…in Africa
Today, China's influence in Ethiopia is overwhelming. Its embassy is among the largest in the country and hosts more high-level visits than any Western mission. Chinese companies have become a dominant force, building highways and bridges, power stations, mobile-phone networks, schools and pharmaceutical plants. More recently, they have begun exploring for oil and building at least one Ethiopian military installation.
It's all part of Beijing's broad push into Africa. Aiming to secure access to the continent's vast natural resources, China is forging deep economic, political and military ties with most of Africa's 54 countries. There's more at stake than just fuel for an economic juggernaut, however, say senior Chinese officials, executives and Western diplomats. In Africa, as in many other parts of the developing world, China is redrawing geopolitical alliances in ways that help propel China's rise as a global superpower. http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,,SB111205419351091336,00.html
Kofi Annan: He’s been cleared, his son criticized, but that doesn’t stop hack Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn) from repeatedly calling for Annan’s resignation. Annan’s response: “Hell, no.”
The commission investigating the oil-for-food program in Iraq reported Tuesday that Secretary General Kofi Annan had not influenced the awarding of a contract to the company that employed his son. But it faulted him for not looking more aggressively into the company's relationship with the United Nations once questions were raised. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/international/middleeast/30oil.html
Australia Speaks What one of our friends believes:
Most Australians consider U.S. foreign policy to be as threatening as Islamic fundamentalism, according to a survey released Monday.
More than two-thirds of respondents, 68%, said Australia takes "too much notice" of the United States when setting its foreign policy agenda, and 57% judged U.S. foreign policy to be as much of a threat as Islamic fundamentalism.
The Lowy Institute for International Policy surveyed 1,000 randomly selected Australians on their foreign policy views. The survey's margin of error was 3.1 percentage points.
The Sydney-based think-tank also found a majority of Australians ranked the United States near the bottom of their list of favored allies. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-03-28-australia-us_x.htm
Big Bird Goes Commercial:
Has Big Bird sold out?
On Monday Comcast is to announce the details of its new 24-hour digital cable channel for preschoolers, which will feature Elmo, Big Bird, Barney - and commercials. PBS not only approves, but is a partner: the channel's co-owners are PBS, Sesame Workshop and HIT Entertainment, producer of "Barney and Friends" and "Bob the Builder."
"I don't like pitching products to young children and I never have," said Joan Ganz Cooney, a co-founder of Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) and the chairwoman of the executive committee of its board. "But to some degree that is nostalgia for a time that is past. The whole society, the whole business is so commercialized, even public television. This is another way of getting PBS's excellent programming to children." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/arts/television/30pbs.html?pagewanted=print&position=
-R
Monday, March 28, 2005
Religion: Two goodies from the Sunday NY Times:
(1) Organizing in Ohio: Christian conservative leaders from scores of Ohio's fastest growing churches are mounting a campaign to win control of local government posts and Republican organizations, starting with the 2006 governor's race.
In a manifesto that is being circulated among church leaders and on the Internet, the group, which is called the Ohio Restoration Project, is planning to mobilize 2,000 evangelical, Baptist, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic leaders in a network of so-called Patriot Pastors to register half a million new voters, enlist activists, train candidates and endorse conservative causes in the next year. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/politics/27OHIO.html?
(2) Wal-Martization of Churches: Mega Churches- Case example: Radiant Church, Surprise, Arizona: Krispy Kremes, game boys, Community, less Jesus. Full account in the NY Times Sunday magazine
…Radiant's many Christ-based programs, from financial planning to parenthood and education, until they have eventually incorporated Christian values into every aspect of their lives.
This is the vision of the new megachurch, and it's far more expansive than those of yesterday's megachurches and today's smaller churches. ''The larger church expects a much higher level of commitment,'' says Dave Travis, who runs Leadership Network, a strategic consulting firm for megachurches. ''The larger church expects you to be a more passionate follower of Christ, not just in the church, but in your community, your workplace and your home.''
As an evangelical strategy, it seems to be working. Weekly attendance at most American churches has either plateaued or is declining. But megachurches continue to expand -- and multiply. (According to John Vaughan, who runs the Megachurch Research Center in Bolivar, Mo., there were 10 non-Catholic megachurches in America in 1970. Today there are 282.) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/magazine/327MEGACHURCH.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Believer Pharmacists: Monday’s WaPost tracks the pharmacists who are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control, saying it conflicts with their moral / religious beliefs. Some do, some don’t facilitate transfer to another pharmacy.
Some pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and morning-after pills, saying that dispensing the medications violates their personal moral or religious beliefs.
The trend has opened a new front in the nation's battle over reproductive rights, sparking an intense debate over the competing rights of pharmacists to refuse to participate in something they consider repugnant and a woman's right to get medications her doctor has prescribed. It has also triggered pitched political battles in statehouses across the nation as politicians seek to pass laws either to protect pharmacists from being penalized -- or force them to carry out their duties. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5490-2005Mar27.html
T.V. Finds Religion. “…television industry’s answer to the cash-generating power of biblical stories put through a pop-culture spin cycle.”
Now is the time in Hollywood when broadcast networks decide what shows TV audiences will want to watch in the season starting in September. Judging from several comedy and drama pilots now in progress that are already getting close consideration, America's couches will be turning into pews.
A splashy drama called "Book of Daniel" is in development at NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., while Viacom Inc.'s CBS is building a supernatural thriller around a character described as "a brilliant physicist with strong religious beliefs." News Corp.'s Fox, meanwhile, has "Briar + Graves," which the producers describe as "The X-Files" goes to church. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111197285208490584,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Schiavo: End Game. I promise fewer posts from hereon.
Jeb no longer the hero; (AP)
Bob Schindler also pleaded with Gov. Jeb Bush to intervene by taking temporary custody of their daughter while court challenges are argued.
``With the stroke of his pen, he could stop this,'' Bob Schindler said. ``He's put Terri through a week of hell and my family though a week of hell. I implore him to put a stop to this. He has to stop it. This is judicial homicide.''
Right Divides / Implodes from Schiavo Intervention?
Even Utah papers condemn DeLay:
Tom DeLay says he wants Terri Schiavo to live. And there is no reason to doubt that.
But it is clear that the House majority leader is not above using the suffering of a woman he has never met to promote his own, increasingly shaky, political career. http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_2621401
HOW THE OTHER “HALF“ THINKS:
(1) 'The bizarre passion of the pull-the-tube people'
Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s chief speechwriter wrote some very effective speeches. I think she peaked in the 80’s. Witness:
"Those who are half in love with death [A majority of the American people who believe the federal government should not be interfering here!] will only become more red-fanged and ravenous.
More:
I do not understand the emotionalism of the pull-the-tube people. What is driving their engagement? Is it because they are compassionate, and their hearts bleed at the thought that Mrs. Schiavo suffers? But throughout this case no one has testified that she is in persistent pain, as those with terminal cancer are.
If they care so much about her pain, why are they unconcerned at the suffering caused her by the denial of food and water? And why do those who argue for Mrs. Schiavo's death employ language and imagery that is so violent and aggressive? The chairman of the Democratic National Committee calls Republicans "brain dead." Michael Schiavo, the husband, calls House Majority Leader Tom DeLay "a slithering snake."
Everyone who has written in defense of Mrs. Schiavo's right to live has received e-mail blasts full of attacks that appear to have been dictated by the unstable and typed by the unhinged. On Democratic Underground they crowed about having "kicked the sh-- out of the fascists." On Tuesday James Carville's face was swept with a sneer so convulsive you could see his gums as he damned the Republicans trying to help Mrs. Schiavo. It would have seemed demonic if he weren't a buffoon.
Why are they so committed to this woman's death?
They seem to have fallen half in love with death.
What does Terri Schiavo's life symbolize to them? What does the idea that she might continue to live suggest to them?
Why does this prospect so unnerve them? Again, if you think Terri Schiavo is a precious human gift of God, your passion is explicable. The passion of the pull-the-tube people is not. http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006460
(2) If you went to www.helpterri.com, you got the following:
They're about to starve a disabled woman to death in Florida. Out-of-control judges and greedy lawyers are set to remove the feeding tube from Terri Schindler-Schiavo this week. She's not brain dead, nor in a coma, nor on any life support system; she is simply severely handicapped. She laughs and cries and tries to talk with her parents. And the judges and lawyers want to kill her. WE MUST STOP THEM NOW
And:
It is unthinkable... like some dark scenario in a horror movie... but true. An innocent, disabled woman is now being starved to death. Her food and water were suspended on Friday afternoon.
But we still have time to save Terri, if we work together, and work quickly.
Read this closely, and do whatever is in your power to do. We will leave the outcome in the hands of Almighty God.
Time is running out for Terri Schiavo. She's been starving to death for seven days now. An expert neurologist from the Mayo Clinic has testified that she is NOT in a "persistent vegetative state," but is very aware of what is going on around her. That means that in her present state, she is in a great deal of pain and suffering from starving to death -- she just can't communicate that fact to those around her. Contrary to those that try to paint a picture of a "gentle process," death by dehydration is a cruel, inhumane and often agonizing death. http://www.conservativealerts.com/terri-tj.htm
(3) Brown Shirts: I’m not quick to make the Nazi analogies, but…
I advocate the use of force to rescue Terri Schiavo from being starved to death.
I further advocate the killing of anyone who interferes with such rescue." -- Hal Turner, .
arch Rightie and anti-Semite. http://www.halturnershow.com/
(4) Grover Norquist: leading Right theoretician/activist:
"Advocates of using federal power to keep this woman alive need to seriously study the polling data that's come out on this," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who has been talking to both social and economic conservatives about the fallout. "I think that a lot of conservative leaders assumed there was broader support for saying that they wanted to have the federal government save this woman's life." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1944-2005Mar25.html
Oh, thought this was about “saving a woman’s life”, not polling data.
Frank Rich on the “religio-hucksterism surrounding the Schiavo case.”
That bullying, stoked by politicians in power, has become omnipresent, leading television stations to practice self-censorship and high school teachers to avoid mentioning "the E word," evolution, in their classrooms, lest they arouse fundamentalist rancor. The president is on record as saying that the jury is still out on evolution, so perhaps it's no surprise that The Los Angeles Times has uncovered a three-year-old "religious rights" unit in the Justice Department that investigated a biology professor at Texas Tech because he refused to write letters of recommendation for students who do not accept evolution as "the central, unifying principle of biology."
And:
But faced with McCarthyism in God's name, most Democratic leaders went into hiding and stayed silent. Prayers are no more likely to revive their spines than poor Terri Schiavo's brain. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/arts/27Rich.html?pagewanted=print&position=
P.R. Corruption: Jeb does it as well
At the same time one of Florida's most visible television reporters brought the news to viewers around the state, he earned hundreds of thousands of dollars on the side from the government agencies he covered.
Mike Vasilinda, a 30-year veteran of the Tallahassee press corps, does public relations work and provides film editing services to more than a dozen state agencies.
His Tallahassee company, Mike Vasilinda Productions Inc., has earned more than $100,000 over the past four years through contracts with Gov. Jeb Bush's office, the Secretary of State, the Department of Education and other government entities that are routinely part of Vasilinda's stories. http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050326/NEWS/503260408/1060
Bush Term II: It’s Been a Very Good Year (for Corporations) MBNA, Wal-Mart, Exxon-Mobil et al have had victories with bankruptcy, class-action lawsuits, oil drilling. Well known; good to see it highlighted
Fortune 500 companies that invested millions of dollars in electing Republicans are emerging as the earliest beneficiaries of a government controlled by President Bush and the largest GOP House and Senate majority in a half century. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3796-2005Mar26.html
Janeane Garofalo of Air America Radio: profile in the NY Times: The fiery actress-activist has made a commitment.
For now, having roused herself from postelectoral trauma - she still interrupts guests to say that although the president was inaugurated, she doubts he actually won - she's signed on for another year at Air America.
"My alternative is what?" she said. "To scream at my TV? Or to come in and discuss all this with other people who are just as shocked, just as disgusted as me?" http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/arts/27span.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Progressive Democrats?
Six weeks of e-mail debate and balloting ended earlier this month with ''A Declaration of Progressive Principles." It is posted at www.principlesproject.com.
The manifesto is more than 500 words long. The online symposium aimed for broad statements of core beliefs that could unite people among the diverse factions of the Democratic Party.
The section on strengthening democracy, for example, declares: ''It is the shared responsibility of a nation to ensure each citizen's freedom, security, and equality. Through government, we honor our responsibility to promote the common good."
However spacious the language, the Principles Project's declarations represent a partial answer to two questions that have percolated in Washington since the November election. One is whether the grass-roots activity and political energy that was mobilized on the Democratic side against President Bush would continue after his reelection victory. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/03/27/progressives_seek_common?mode=PF
Native Americans and Bush Budget: He finally paid his condolences to the Minnesota tribe. Meanwhile…
American Indian housing aid from the federal government has been targeted for a deep cut in the Bush administration's 2006 budget request. Unless Congress acts to restore funding, more than $100 million in assistance, or 15 percent of the total, will be taken away from Americans most in need of housing help.
The major funding cuts - $107 million - come in the housing block grants administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development under NAHASDA (Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act), and the Indian set-aside in the Community Development Block Grant program (the I-CDBG).
Other Native-friendly programs, such as HUD's Rural Housing and Economic Development (RHED) program which generally targets at least a quarter of its $25 million annually for Indian projects, have been zeroed out.
However, in a telling indication of the way budget politics is played in Washington, this is the fourth straight year in which RHED has been zeroed out by the Administration. Congress has restored it three times. http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410518
For those who still speak highly of John McCain:
Bush and McCain suggested that older Americans are standing in the way of change to protect their own retirement incomes - an insulting tactic that could backfire.
Those who have already reached retirement age understand better than anyone that a guaranteed safety net could be as necessary for coming generations as it is now, when nearly two out of three retirees rely largely or solely on Social Security. So they are looking out for their children and grandchildren, an act of responsibility not self-interest.
Shame on McCain for being a part of this effort to divide the generations. Usually noted for candid speech, he even resorted to misinformation when he said in 2042 "we stop paying people Social Security." McCain knows that isn't true.
That is the date (actually it was changed to 2041 the other day) when Social Security reserves are expected to be used up. Even then, with no change in the program, recipients would continue to get about 75 percent of what was promised them. http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/25/news_pf/Opinion/Shame_on_John_McCain.shtml
Global Arms Trafficking: Pakistan: I think I’ve been writing about this for several years, yet it still makes front page headlines…and nothing changes. Pakistan illegally purchases nuclear weapons components from American companies, while the Administration ends a 15 year ban on selling fighter planes to Pakistan. When asked why, they say, ‘oh, we’ll sell even better weapons to India’. Helpful! Condi elaborates that it’s all for the good, as we have to “break out of the notion that … anything that happens that is good for Pakistan is bad for India, and vice versa."
A federal criminal investigation has uncovered evidence that the government of Pakistan made clandestine purchases of U.S. high-technology components for use in its nuclear weapons program in defiance of American law.
Federal authorities also say the highly specialized equipment at one point passed through the hands of Humayun Khan, an Islamabad businessman who they say has ties to Islamic militants.http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-paknuke26mar26,1,5616985,print.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage
What’s Happening, Iraq: Sunni vs Shiite. From The Globe!
For the first time, Sunni Muslim sheiks are publicly exhorting followers to strike with force against ethnic Kurds and Shi'ites, an escalation in rhetoric that could exacerbate the communal violence that already is shaking Iraq's ethnic communities.
''The Americans aren't the problem; we're living under an occupation of Kurds and Shi'ites," Sattar Abdulhalik Adburahman, a Sunni leader from the northern city of Kirkuk, told a gathering of tribal leaders last week, to deafening applause. ''It's time to fight back."
Such calls for violence are being voiced against the backdrop of an alarming rise in tit-for-tat ethnic and sectarian killings.
According to several Iraqi leaders, Shi'ite death squads routinely kill Sunnis suspected of ties to the Ba'ath Party or insurgency. Bands of Sunnis target Shi'ites in retaliation, Sunni political leaders like Adnan Pachachi said, suggesting that significant organizations, rather than small splintered cells of vigilantes, are driving the killing.
Increasingly, terms like ''insurgency" and ''anti-Iraqi forces" favored by American officials here fail to fully describe much of the violence. Iraqi politicians say the worst violence is being carried out by Sunni fighters against Shi'ites and Kurds -- both civilians and those who work for security forces backed by the Iraqi government. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/03/27/fractured_iraq_sees_a_sunni_call_to_arms/
Bush Numbers: CNN/USA Today/Gallup note that he “has dropped sharply, and is now at 45%.” The Pew poll had similar numbers.
"The poll also shows an increasingly negative public mood about the country's direction and more specifically about the economy. Rising oil and gas prices appear to be a major factor in the lower economic ratings." http://gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=15373
-R
(1) Organizing in Ohio: Christian conservative leaders from scores of Ohio's fastest growing churches are mounting a campaign to win control of local government posts and Republican organizations, starting with the 2006 governor's race.
In a manifesto that is being circulated among church leaders and on the Internet, the group, which is called the Ohio Restoration Project, is planning to mobilize 2,000 evangelical, Baptist, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic leaders in a network of so-called Patriot Pastors to register half a million new voters, enlist activists, train candidates and endorse conservative causes in the next year. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/politics/27OHIO.html?
(2) Wal-Martization of Churches: Mega Churches- Case example: Radiant Church, Surprise, Arizona: Krispy Kremes, game boys, Community, less Jesus. Full account in the NY Times Sunday magazine
…Radiant's many Christ-based programs, from financial planning to parenthood and education, until they have eventually incorporated Christian values into every aspect of their lives.
This is the vision of the new megachurch, and it's far more expansive than those of yesterday's megachurches and today's smaller churches. ''The larger church expects a much higher level of commitment,'' says Dave Travis, who runs Leadership Network, a strategic consulting firm for megachurches. ''The larger church expects you to be a more passionate follower of Christ, not just in the church, but in your community, your workplace and your home.''
As an evangelical strategy, it seems to be working. Weekly attendance at most American churches has either plateaued or is declining. But megachurches continue to expand -- and multiply. (According to John Vaughan, who runs the Megachurch Research Center in Bolivar, Mo., there were 10 non-Catholic megachurches in America in 1970. Today there are 282.) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/magazine/327MEGACHURCH.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Believer Pharmacists: Monday’s WaPost tracks the pharmacists who are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control, saying it conflicts with their moral / religious beliefs. Some do, some don’t facilitate transfer to another pharmacy.
Some pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and morning-after pills, saying that dispensing the medications violates their personal moral or religious beliefs.
The trend has opened a new front in the nation's battle over reproductive rights, sparking an intense debate over the competing rights of pharmacists to refuse to participate in something they consider repugnant and a woman's right to get medications her doctor has prescribed. It has also triggered pitched political battles in statehouses across the nation as politicians seek to pass laws either to protect pharmacists from being penalized -- or force them to carry out their duties. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5490-2005Mar27.html
T.V. Finds Religion. “…television industry’s answer to the cash-generating power of biblical stories put through a pop-culture spin cycle.”
Now is the time in Hollywood when broadcast networks decide what shows TV audiences will want to watch in the season starting in September. Judging from several comedy and drama pilots now in progress that are already getting close consideration, America's couches will be turning into pews.
A splashy drama called "Book of Daniel" is in development at NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., while Viacom Inc.'s CBS is building a supernatural thriller around a character described as "a brilliant physicist with strong religious beliefs." News Corp.'s Fox, meanwhile, has "Briar + Graves," which the producers describe as "The X-Files" goes to church. http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB111197285208490584,00.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace
Schiavo: End Game. I promise fewer posts from hereon.
Jeb no longer the hero; (AP)
Bob Schindler also pleaded with Gov. Jeb Bush to intervene by taking temporary custody of their daughter while court challenges are argued.
``With the stroke of his pen, he could stop this,'' Bob Schindler said. ``He's put Terri through a week of hell and my family though a week of hell. I implore him to put a stop to this. He has to stop it. This is judicial homicide.''
Right Divides / Implodes from Schiavo Intervention?
Even Utah papers condemn DeLay:
Tom DeLay says he wants Terri Schiavo to live. And there is no reason to doubt that.
But it is clear that the House majority leader is not above using the suffering of a woman he has never met to promote his own, increasingly shaky, political career. http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_2621401
HOW THE OTHER “HALF“ THINKS:
(1) 'The bizarre passion of the pull-the-tube people'
Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s chief speechwriter wrote some very effective speeches. I think she peaked in the 80’s. Witness:
"Those who are half in love with death [A majority of the American people who believe the federal government should not be interfering here!] will only become more red-fanged and ravenous.
More:
I do not understand the emotionalism of the pull-the-tube people. What is driving their engagement? Is it because they are compassionate, and their hearts bleed at the thought that Mrs. Schiavo suffers? But throughout this case no one has testified that she is in persistent pain, as those with terminal cancer are.
If they care so much about her pain, why are they unconcerned at the suffering caused her by the denial of food and water? And why do those who argue for Mrs. Schiavo's death employ language and imagery that is so violent and aggressive? The chairman of the Democratic National Committee calls Republicans "brain dead." Michael Schiavo, the husband, calls House Majority Leader Tom DeLay "a slithering snake."
Everyone who has written in defense of Mrs. Schiavo's right to live has received e-mail blasts full of attacks that appear to have been dictated by the unstable and typed by the unhinged. On Democratic Underground they crowed about having "kicked the sh-- out of the fascists." On Tuesday James Carville's face was swept with a sneer so convulsive you could see his gums as he damned the Republicans trying to help Mrs. Schiavo. It would have seemed demonic if he weren't a buffoon.
Why are they so committed to this woman's death?
They seem to have fallen half in love with death.
What does Terri Schiavo's life symbolize to them? What does the idea that she might continue to live suggest to them?
Why does this prospect so unnerve them? Again, if you think Terri Schiavo is a precious human gift of God, your passion is explicable. The passion of the pull-the-tube people is not. http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006460
(2) If you went to www.helpterri.com, you got the following:
They're about to starve a disabled woman to death in Florida. Out-of-control judges and greedy lawyers are set to remove the feeding tube from Terri Schindler-Schiavo this week. She's not brain dead, nor in a coma, nor on any life support system; she is simply severely handicapped. She laughs and cries and tries to talk with her parents. And the judges and lawyers want to kill her. WE MUST STOP THEM NOW
And:
It is unthinkable... like some dark scenario in a horror movie... but true. An innocent, disabled woman is now being starved to death. Her food and water were suspended on Friday afternoon.
But we still have time to save Terri, if we work together, and work quickly.
Read this closely, and do whatever is in your power to do. We will leave the outcome in the hands of Almighty God.
Time is running out for Terri Schiavo. She's been starving to death for seven days now. An expert neurologist from the Mayo Clinic has testified that she is NOT in a "persistent vegetative state," but is very aware of what is going on around her. That means that in her present state, she is in a great deal of pain and suffering from starving to death -- she just can't communicate that fact to those around her. Contrary to those that try to paint a picture of a "gentle process," death by dehydration is a cruel, inhumane and often agonizing death. http://www.conservativealerts.com/terri-tj.htm
(3) Brown Shirts: I’m not quick to make the Nazi analogies, but…
I advocate the use of force to rescue Terri Schiavo from being starved to death.
I further advocate the killing of anyone who interferes with such rescue." -- Hal Turner, .
arch Rightie and anti-Semite. http://www.halturnershow.com/
(4) Grover Norquist: leading Right theoretician/activist:
"Advocates of using federal power to keep this woman alive need to seriously study the polling data that's come out on this," said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, who has been talking to both social and economic conservatives about the fallout. "I think that a lot of conservative leaders assumed there was broader support for saying that they wanted to have the federal government save this woman's life." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1944-2005Mar25.html
Oh, thought this was about “saving a woman’s life”, not polling data.
Frank Rich on the “religio-hucksterism surrounding the Schiavo case.”
That bullying, stoked by politicians in power, has become omnipresent, leading television stations to practice self-censorship and high school teachers to avoid mentioning "the E word," evolution, in their classrooms, lest they arouse fundamentalist rancor. The president is on record as saying that the jury is still out on evolution, so perhaps it's no surprise that The Los Angeles Times has uncovered a three-year-old "religious rights" unit in the Justice Department that investigated a biology professor at Texas Tech because he refused to write letters of recommendation for students who do not accept evolution as "the central, unifying principle of biology."
And:
But faced with McCarthyism in God's name, most Democratic leaders went into hiding and stayed silent. Prayers are no more likely to revive their spines than poor Terri Schiavo's brain. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/arts/27Rich.html?pagewanted=print&position=
P.R. Corruption: Jeb does it as well
At the same time one of Florida's most visible television reporters brought the news to viewers around the state, he earned hundreds of thousands of dollars on the side from the government agencies he covered.
Mike Vasilinda, a 30-year veteran of the Tallahassee press corps, does public relations work and provides film editing services to more than a dozen state agencies.
His Tallahassee company, Mike Vasilinda Productions Inc., has earned more than $100,000 over the past four years through contracts with Gov. Jeb Bush's office, the Secretary of State, the Department of Education and other government entities that are routinely part of Vasilinda's stories. http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050326/NEWS/503260408/1060
Bush Term II: It’s Been a Very Good Year (for Corporations) MBNA, Wal-Mart, Exxon-Mobil et al have had victories with bankruptcy, class-action lawsuits, oil drilling. Well known; good to see it highlighted
Fortune 500 companies that invested millions of dollars in electing Republicans are emerging as the earliest beneficiaries of a government controlled by President Bush and the largest GOP House and Senate majority in a half century. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3796-2005Mar26.html
Janeane Garofalo of Air America Radio: profile in the NY Times: The fiery actress-activist has made a commitment.
For now, having roused herself from postelectoral trauma - she still interrupts guests to say that although the president was inaugurated, she doubts he actually won - she's signed on for another year at Air America.
"My alternative is what?" she said. "To scream at my TV? Or to come in and discuss all this with other people who are just as shocked, just as disgusted as me?" http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/arts/27span.html?pagewanted=print&position=
Progressive Democrats?
Six weeks of e-mail debate and balloting ended earlier this month with ''A Declaration of Progressive Principles." It is posted at www.principlesproject.com.
The manifesto is more than 500 words long. The online symposium aimed for broad statements of core beliefs that could unite people among the diverse factions of the Democratic Party.
The section on strengthening democracy, for example, declares: ''It is the shared responsibility of a nation to ensure each citizen's freedom, security, and equality. Through government, we honor our responsibility to promote the common good."
However spacious the language, the Principles Project's declarations represent a partial answer to two questions that have percolated in Washington since the November election. One is whether the grass-roots activity and political energy that was mobilized on the Democratic side against President Bush would continue after his reelection victory. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/03/27/progressives_seek_common?mode=PF
Native Americans and Bush Budget: He finally paid his condolences to the Minnesota tribe. Meanwhile…
American Indian housing aid from the federal government has been targeted for a deep cut in the Bush administration's 2006 budget request. Unless Congress acts to restore funding, more than $100 million in assistance, or 15 percent of the total, will be taken away from Americans most in need of housing help.
The major funding cuts - $107 million - come in the housing block grants administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development under NAHASDA (Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act), and the Indian set-aside in the Community Development Block Grant program (the I-CDBG).
Other Native-friendly programs, such as HUD's Rural Housing and Economic Development (RHED) program which generally targets at least a quarter of its $25 million annually for Indian projects, have been zeroed out.
However, in a telling indication of the way budget politics is played in Washington, this is the fourth straight year in which RHED has been zeroed out by the Administration. Congress has restored it three times. http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410518
For those who still speak highly of John McCain:
Bush and McCain suggested that older Americans are standing in the way of change to protect their own retirement incomes - an insulting tactic that could backfire.
Those who have already reached retirement age understand better than anyone that a guaranteed safety net could be as necessary for coming generations as it is now, when nearly two out of three retirees rely largely or solely on Social Security. So they are looking out for their children and grandchildren, an act of responsibility not self-interest.
Shame on McCain for being a part of this effort to divide the generations. Usually noted for candid speech, he even resorted to misinformation when he said in 2042 "we stop paying people Social Security." McCain knows that isn't true.
That is the date (actually it was changed to 2041 the other day) when Social Security reserves are expected to be used up. Even then, with no change in the program, recipients would continue to get about 75 percent of what was promised them. http://www.sptimes.com/2005/03/25/news_pf/Opinion/Shame_on_John_McCain.shtml
Global Arms Trafficking: Pakistan: I think I’ve been writing about this for several years, yet it still makes front page headlines…and nothing changes. Pakistan illegally purchases nuclear weapons components from American companies, while the Administration ends a 15 year ban on selling fighter planes to Pakistan. When asked why, they say, ‘oh, we’ll sell even better weapons to India’. Helpful! Condi elaborates that it’s all for the good, as we have to “break out of the notion that … anything that happens that is good for Pakistan is bad for India, and vice versa."
A federal criminal investigation has uncovered evidence that the government of Pakistan made clandestine purchases of U.S. high-technology components for use in its nuclear weapons program in defiance of American law.
Federal authorities also say the highly specialized equipment at one point passed through the hands of Humayun Khan, an Islamabad businessman who they say has ties to Islamic militants.http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-paknuke26mar26,1,5616985,print.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage
What’s Happening, Iraq: Sunni vs Shiite. From The Globe!
For the first time, Sunni Muslim sheiks are publicly exhorting followers to strike with force against ethnic Kurds and Shi'ites, an escalation in rhetoric that could exacerbate the communal violence that already is shaking Iraq's ethnic communities.
''The Americans aren't the problem; we're living under an occupation of Kurds and Shi'ites," Sattar Abdulhalik Adburahman, a Sunni leader from the northern city of Kirkuk, told a gathering of tribal leaders last week, to deafening applause. ''It's time to fight back."
Such calls for violence are being voiced against the backdrop of an alarming rise in tit-for-tat ethnic and sectarian killings.
According to several Iraqi leaders, Shi'ite death squads routinely kill Sunnis suspected of ties to the Ba'ath Party or insurgency. Bands of Sunnis target Shi'ites in retaliation, Sunni political leaders like Adnan Pachachi said, suggesting that significant organizations, rather than small splintered cells of vigilantes, are driving the killing.
Increasingly, terms like ''insurgency" and ''anti-Iraqi forces" favored by American officials here fail to fully describe much of the violence. Iraqi politicians say the worst violence is being carried out by Sunni fighters against Shi'ites and Kurds -- both civilians and those who work for security forces backed by the Iraqi government. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/03/27/fractured_iraq_sees_a_sunni_call_to_arms/
Bush Numbers: CNN/USA Today/Gallup note that he “has dropped sharply, and is now at 45%.” The Pew poll had similar numbers.
"The poll also shows an increasingly negative public mood about the country's direction and more specifically about the economy. Rising oil and gas prices appear to be a major factor in the lower economic ratings." http://gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=15373
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