Bush Wars
Seven children were killed during an airstrike by the United States-led coalition against a religious compound thought to be a Qaeda sanctuary in remote eastern Afghanistan, the coalition said Monday. The death of the children on Sunday may well add to the crescendoing anger many Afghans feel about civilian casualties from American and NATO military operations. More than 130 civilians have been killed in airstrikes and shootings in the past six months, according to Afghan authorities. That toll may soon inflate dismally. Afghan officials said late Monday that more than 50 civilians may have died during fierce fighting over the past three days between NATO forces and the Taliban in the Chora district of the southern province of Uruzgan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/world/asia/19afghan.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Probing Rove
White House aides made extensive use of political e-mail accounts for official government business, despite rules requiring that they conduct such business through official communications channels, according to new evidence disclosed yesterday by congressional investigators. The Republican National Committee told the investigators that White House senior political adviser Karl Rove alone sent or received more than 140,000 (illegal) e-mails between 2002 and 2007, more than half of which involved individuals using official ".gov" e-mail accounts, a report from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee said. The RNC said it still has copies of those e-mails. (Well, then, fork em' over!)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/18/AR2007061800809.html?referrer=email
Which Brings us to the blog quote of the day, from Marcy Wheeler at "The Next Hurrah", with some more revelations into Roves meanderings back and forth across legal lines (AKA "LAWLESSNESS"!!) "As part of his interim report on RNC emails, Waxman released Susan Ralston's testimony before the committee. Reading the deposition, it becomes pretty clear why Tom Davis was trying to warn Rove of the danger of Ralston's testimony. Because even what she was willing to testify to makes it clear that Rove is in some deep legal trouble. And then when you look at the areas where she carves out immunity for herself, you realize that if she were ever to testify under immunity, Rove would be in deeper trouble."
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/
Under a New Category Label called;
"The Lawlessness Files"
Federal officials have disobeyed at least six new laws that President Bush challenged in his signing statements, a government study disclosed yesterday. The report provides the first evidence that the government may have acted on claims by Bush that he can set aside laws under his executive powers. In a report to Congress, the non partisan Government Accountability Office studied a small sample of the bill provisions that Bush has signed into law but also challenged with signing statements. The GAO found that agencies disobeyed six such laws, while enforcing 10 others as written even though Bush had challenged them. House Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers, Democrat of Michigan, said yesterday that the GAO's findings demonstrated a need for a more "extensive review" of how the government has followed up on hundreds of other laws challenged by Bush. Bush's signing statements have drawn fire because he has used them to challenge more than 1,100 sections of bills -- more than all previous presidents combined. The sample the GAO studied represents a small portion of the laws Bush has targeted, but its report concluded that sometimes the government has gone on to disobey those laws. (and that is the definition of "LAWLESSNESS!!!)
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/06/19/us_agencies_disobey_6_laws_that_president_challenged/
THE ENVIRONMENT
The Birds AND the Bees?
We got trouble, right here in River City!
Last week, the Audubon Society released a new report describing the sharp and startling population decline of some of the most familiar and common birds in America: several kinds of sparrows, the Northern bobwhite, the Eastern meadowlark, the common grackle and the common tern. The average decline of the 20 species in the Audubon Society’s report is 68 percent. Forty years ago, there were an estimated 31 million bobwhites. Now there are 5.5 million. Compared to the hundred-some condors presently in the wild, 5.5 million bobwhites sounds like a lot of birds. But what matters is the 25.5 million missing and the troubles that brought them down — and are all too likely to bring down the rest of them, too. So this is not extinction, but it is how things look before extinction happens. The word “extinct” somehow brings to mind the birds that seem like special cases to us, the dodo or the great auk or the passenger pigeon. Most people would never have had a chance to see dodos and great auks on their remote islands before they were decimated in the 17th and 19th centuries. What is hard to remember about passenger pigeons isn’t merely their once enormous numbers. It’s the enormous numbers of humans to whom their comings and goings were a common sight and who supposed, erroneously, that such unending clouds of birds were indestructible. We recognize the extraordinary distinctness of the passenger pigeon now because we know its fate, killed off largely by humans. But we have moralized it thoroughly without ever really taking it to heart. (So now we have the Birds AND the Bees both suffering tragic, mysterious declines? So what about the proverbial canary in the coal mine? How long has that little bird been DEAD, but no one told us miners about it??? I would wager Chernobyl is at the root os this, but other influences contributed. The evergreens seem to have been similarly decimated, at least here in Kansas, one ot of every ten sthat you see in the wild is turning brown and dying.)http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/opinion/19tue4.html?th&emc=th
Showing posts with label The environment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The environment. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Thursday's Morning News
Red text is the"real" headline buried in the news.
Blue text is my own commentary.
Violet text is the blog quote of the day.
AFRICA
Ethiopian forces backing Somalia's weak transitional government shelled anti-government insurgents in the capital for the fifth straight day on Monday, adding to the death and destruction and sending hundreds more families fleeing from the city. Human rights organizations and health officials said 220 civilians were confirmed dead and 300 have been wounded since Thursday. The shelling has been so intense that families have been unable to bring the wounded to hospitals or to collect those who died. In some parts of the city, decomposing corpses litter the streets. Entire city blocks have been emptied in the fighting, as more than 320,000 people have fled Mogadishu since February.
(WHY ISN'T THIS STORY IN BIG HEADLINES
......IN EVERY NEWSPAPER
................ AND TV NEWS REPORT IN THE WORLD???
"CUI BONO" FROM THESE ENDLESS AFRICAN DISASTERS??
................OIL COMPANIES!!!!)
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/world/17124074.htm
THE MEDIA, THE INTERNET, AND THE BLOGS
Federal regulators have concluded that Hollywood's efforts to shield children from violent TV shows have failed and that Congress should authorize government action. The Federal Communications Commission report, released Wednesday, promises to kick off a fierce fight on Capitol Hill and the presidential campaign trail, one that, like the ongoing battle over indecency, could well end up in the Supreme Court. Citing university and government studies, the FCC concluded that violent programming was harmful to children and said Congress could craft limits that wouldn't violate 1st Amendment rights. Specifically, the report said, lawmakers have the authority to give the FCC the power to restrict when broadcasters can air excessive gore and mayhem. What's more, the FCC determined, Congress can require cable and satellite providers to allow viewers to purchase only the channels they want, (NOW WOULDN'T THAT BE A REFRESHING CHANGE!) giving them the chance to opt out of certain kinds of programming.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/hBNxk0RvPwf0G2B0IXFG0EC
The tempestuous, sometimes bitter seven-year relationship between the Chandlers of Los Angeles and the Tribune Co. of Chicago is coming to an end. Yesterday, Tribune announced a tender offer of $34 per share for 126 million shares -- about half of the company's outstanding stock -- at a total cost of $4.3 billion. The price represents a slight premium on Tribune shares, which closed yesterday at $32.78, up 23 cents. The tender offer would allow the Chandler Trusts -- Tribune's largest shareholders and most publicly contentious -- to cash out their $1.6 billion stake in the media empire. Tribune agreed this month to sell the company to Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell in a $13 billion, debt-laden deal. Zell plans to take the company private via an employee stock-ownership plan (the Unions could really help this good idea along by taking a strong role) that would buy back most of the company's outstanding shares.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042502588.html?referrer=email
BASEBALL DIPLOMACY
Baseball is contemplating a strategy for teams to sign Cuban players in an effort to create an orderly system for acquiring talent from the island, according to three baseball officials and a scholar who was briefed on the plans. “There may not be any significant changes with our relationship with Cuba in the near term, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about these things,” Joe Garagiola Jr., the senior vice president for baseball operations, said in a telephone interview. “We are thinking about them, and that is probably the extent of what we can say at this point.” Garagiola, a former general manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks, is coordinating baseball’s discussions on Cuba. Baseball is also considering moving a minor league team to Cuba and building training academies similar to those that nearly all teams have in the Dominican Republic, according to a report earlier this month by Fortune magazine. (leave it to the boys of summer to do our diplomacy for us, maybe they'll get it right...)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/sports/baseball/26cuba.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
PROBING ROVE
A small federal agency that safeguards government employees from political coercion is investigating the activities of President Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove. The head of the Office of Special Counsel, Scott Bloch, says that his wide-ranging investigation covers allegations of political pressure on federal workers and the reason behind the controversial firing of the U.S. federal prosecutor in New Mexico, David Iglesias. Reports say the investigation began after several employees complained that members of Rove's team were pressuring them to support Republican candidates in key House and Senate races in 2008. The office also will examine alleged use of White House e-mail by the Republican National Party. The probe is meant to determine whether the Bush administration had improper influence over government employees' political decision-making. Bloch, who was appointed by President Bush to the post in 2003, promised his office will do a thorough and impartial job.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-04-25-voa36.cfm
"Lawyers for the Republican National Committee sent a letter tonight to Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) with a list of 37 individuals “who we believe are or were White House employees using RNC accounts for whom we have been able to identify active e-mail data on operational RNC servers.” The list — which includes senior officials like Karl Rove and Dan Bartlett as well as interns for the Office of Political Affairs — can be found at... (ThinkProgress).
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/25/rnc-email-accounts/
White House officials conducted 20 private briefings on Republican electoral prospects in the last midterm election for senior officials in at least 15 government agencies covered by federal restrictions on partisan political activity, a White House spokesman and other administration officials said yesterday. The previously undisclosed briefings were part of what now appears to be a regular effort in which the White House sent senior political officials to brief top appointees in government agencies on which seats Republican candidates might win or lose, and how the election outcomes could affect the success of administration policies, the officials said. The existence of one such briefing, at the headquarters of the General Services Administration in January, came to light last month, and the Office of Special Counsel began an investigation into whether the officials at the briefing felt coerced into steering federal activities to favor those Republican candidates cited as vulnerable. Such coercion is prohibited under a federal law, known as the Hatch Act, meant to insulate virtually all federal workers from partisan politics. In addition to forbidding workplace pressures meant to influence an election outcome, the law bars the use of federal resources -- including office buildings, phones and computers -- for partisan purposes.In the GSA briefing -- conducted like all the others by a deputy to chief White House political adviser Karl Rove -- two slides were presented showing 20 House Democrats targeted for defeat and several dozen vulnerable Republicans. At its completion, GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan asked how GSA projects could be used to help "our candidates," according to half a dozen witnesses. The briefer, J. Scott Jennings, said that topic should be discussed "off-line," the witnesses said. Doan then replied, "Oh, good, at least as long as we are going to follow up," ... (surely there's some "follow-up" testimony we might require from Ms. Doan?)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042503046.html?referrer=email
Which brings us to the Blog Quote of the Day,
from Josh Marshall at TPM
"It's hard to get too surprised about this stuff anymore. But according to the Post, (see article above) Karl Rove deputies gave GOP campaign briefings to top officials in at least 15 government agencies last year. Who's vulnerable, who's not and how you can use your agency's resources for the team effort -- that seems to have been the basic idea. Pretty much every department got a briefing. And oddly enough NASA too. That must have been an interesting one."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/
THE BUSH WARS
Defiant and unified in the face of a promised presidential veto, House Democrats on Wednesday pushed through an emergency war spending bill that orders President Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq no later than this fall.The 218-208 vote, largely along party lines, is expected to be followed today by Senate approval of the same measure. The president has promised to veto the legislation early next week. The $124-billion measure funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of the year, and provides billions for veterans' health care and other nonmilitary programs.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-warvote26apr26,0,5749107.story?track=ntothtml
If President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney believe the belligerently partisan and misleading things they have been saying about Congress’s war spending bill, their grip on the few options left in this disastrous war is even more tenuous than we’d guessed. The sooner Mr. Bush and his allies drop the pretense that military victory is still possible in Iraq and their charges of “defeatism” against those who know better, the closer the nation will be to rescuing what can still be rescued from the debacle. Obviously, the White House and Congress will eventually have to arrive at some kind of compromise. But that compromise cannot be on the “my way or the highway” terms Mr. Bush is demanding. The fact is, Congress has served the country well by finally forcing open debate about how America can best extricate itself from Iraq... (open debate is what we are all about)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/opinion/26thu2.html?th&emc=th
A new human rights report by the United Nations mission in Iraq described high levels of ongoing violence, an unfair and potentially abusive detainee system and a country suffering a "breakdown in law and order." (does that mean "the surge" is working?) The report upset the U.S. Embassy here, which characterized it as inaccurate and not credible. The 30-page report by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, an appraisal of human rights conditions from January through March, said the Iraqi government is up against "immense security challenges in the face of growing violence and armed opposition to its authority and the rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis." For the first time, the United Nations did not include civilian death tolls, statistics that are usually provided to it by the Health Ministry and the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad. The data have become a key gauge of the level of violence in Iraq. In the last report, the United Nations said 34,452 Iraqi civilians had died violently in 2006, a number that the Iraqi government later said was exaggerated. The report said the Iraqi government told the United Nations "that it had decided against providing the data, although no substantive explanation or justification was provided." (how about "the truth hurts")
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042502948.html?referrer=email
DOJ SCANDAL CENTIPEDE DROPS ANOTHER SHOE
Congressman Rick Renzi, an Arizona Republican, was locked in a close re-election battle last fall when the local United States attorney, Paul Charlton, was investigating him for corruption. The investigation appears to have been slowed before Election Day, Mr. Renzi retained his seat, and Mr. Charlton ended up out of a job — one of eight prosecutors purged by the White House and the Justice Department. The Arizona case adds a disturbing new chapter to that scandal. Congress needs to determine whether Mr. Charlton was fired for any reason other than threatening the Republican Party’s hold on a Congressional seat. Mr. Renzi was fighting for his political life when the local press reported that he was facing indictment for a suspect land deal. According to The Wall Street Journal, federal investigators met unexpected resistance from the Justice Department in getting approval to proceed and, perhaps as a result, the investigation was pushed past the election. Mr. Renzi’s top aide, Brian Murray, admitted this week that when reports surfaced that his boss was being investigated, he had called Mr. Charlton’s office asking for information. Mr. Charlton’s office did the right thing, according to Mr. Murray’s account: it refused to comment. Weeks later, Mr. Charlton was fired. (it doesn't take a sleuth to see what happened here, what more proof do they need than history itself?)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/opinion/26thu1.html?th&emc=th
MORE SUBPOENAS FOR OTHER HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS
Lawmakers approved new subpoenas yesterday for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other Bush administration officials, part of an expanding legal battle between the Democratic-controlled Congress and the administration over issues such as the firings of eight U.S. attorneys and flawed justifications for the war in Iraq. The subpoena issued to Rice seeks to force her testimony about the claim that Iraq sought to import uranium from Niger for its nuclear weapons program. President Bush offered that as a key rationale for the war in his 2003 State of the Union address. The subpoena was approved by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee along party lines, 21 to 10. The same panel also issued two subpoenas to the Republican National Committee for testimony and documents related to political presentations at the General Services Administration and the use of RNC e-mail accounts by White House aides, including presidential adviser Karl Rove. The House Judiciary Committee voted 32 to 6 to grant limited immunity from prosecution to Monica M. Goodling, the former senior counselor and White House liaison for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. She has invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in refusing to answer questions about her role in the prosecutor firings. The panel also authorized, but did not issue, a subpoena that would compel her to testify. And finally in the Senate, the Judiciary Committee authorized a subpoena for Rove deputy Sara Taylor, whose name has appeared among thousands of pages of e-mails and other documents released by the Justice Department in the U.S. attorney firings.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042501863.html?referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email
THE ENVIRONMENT
IN 2005, the Environmental Protection Agency took its first important step toward reducing mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants. Its Clear Air Mercury Rule is intended to bring about a 70 percent reduction in mercury emissions over the next 20 years. But the new rule does not require all plants to reduce emissions by the same amount. Some may be allowed to pollute more than others by buying pollution credits from other plants. The E.P.A.’s faith in this “cap and trade” approach is based on the assumption that mercury pollution disperses evenly in the environment. This strategy has worked well in reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide, a component of acid rain. But mercury does not behave in the same way as acid rain. In fact, much of the mercury emitted by coal-fired power plants remains near those plants. In a just completed 10-year study of birds, fish and mammals in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada, we found five places where fish and wildlife have exceptionally high concentrations of mercury in their blood. Under the E.P.A.’s new rule, these biological mercury “hot spots” could persist, with dangerous consequences for the health of people and wildlife. (So, do we trust the scientists or Chenergy's industrial strength book cookers?)http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/opinion/26evers.html?th&emc=th
Blue text is my own commentary.
Violet text is the blog quote of the day.
AFRICA
Ethiopian forces backing Somalia's weak transitional government shelled anti-government insurgents in the capital for the fifth straight day on Monday, adding to the death and destruction and sending hundreds more families fleeing from the city. Human rights organizations and health officials said 220 civilians were confirmed dead and 300 have been wounded since Thursday. The shelling has been so intense that families have been unable to bring the wounded to hospitals or to collect those who died. In some parts of the city, decomposing corpses litter the streets. Entire city blocks have been emptied in the fighting, as more than 320,000 people have fled Mogadishu since February.
(WHY ISN'T THIS STORY IN BIG HEADLINES
......IN EVERY NEWSPAPER
................ AND TV NEWS REPORT IN THE WORLD???
"CUI BONO" FROM THESE ENDLESS AFRICAN DISASTERS??
................OIL COMPANIES!!!!)
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/world/17124074.htm
THE MEDIA, THE INTERNET, AND THE BLOGS
Federal regulators have concluded that Hollywood's efforts to shield children from violent TV shows have failed and that Congress should authorize government action. The Federal Communications Commission report, released Wednesday, promises to kick off a fierce fight on Capitol Hill and the presidential campaign trail, one that, like the ongoing battle over indecency, could well end up in the Supreme Court. Citing university and government studies, the FCC concluded that violent programming was harmful to children and said Congress could craft limits that wouldn't violate 1st Amendment rights. Specifically, the report said, lawmakers have the authority to give the FCC the power to restrict when broadcasters can air excessive gore and mayhem. What's more, the FCC determined, Congress can require cable and satellite providers to allow viewers to purchase only the channels they want, (NOW WOULDN'T THAT BE A REFRESHING CHANGE!) giving them the chance to opt out of certain kinds of programming.
http://email.latimes.com/cgi-bin1/DM/y/hBNxk0RvPwf0G2B0IXFG0EC
The tempestuous, sometimes bitter seven-year relationship between the Chandlers of Los Angeles and the Tribune Co. of Chicago is coming to an end. Yesterday, Tribune announced a tender offer of $34 per share for 126 million shares -- about half of the company's outstanding stock -- at a total cost of $4.3 billion. The price represents a slight premium on Tribune shares, which closed yesterday at $32.78, up 23 cents. The tender offer would allow the Chandler Trusts -- Tribune's largest shareholders and most publicly contentious -- to cash out their $1.6 billion stake in the media empire. Tribune agreed this month to sell the company to Chicago real estate magnate Sam Zell in a $13 billion, debt-laden deal. Zell plans to take the company private via an employee stock-ownership plan (the Unions could really help this good idea along by taking a strong role) that would buy back most of the company's outstanding shares.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042502588.html?referrer=email
BASEBALL DIPLOMACY
Baseball is contemplating a strategy for teams to sign Cuban players in an effort to create an orderly system for acquiring talent from the island, according to three baseball officials and a scholar who was briefed on the plans. “There may not be any significant changes with our relationship with Cuba in the near term, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t think about these things,” Joe Garagiola Jr., the senior vice president for baseball operations, said in a telephone interview. “We are thinking about them, and that is probably the extent of what we can say at this point.” Garagiola, a former general manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks, is coordinating baseball’s discussions on Cuba. Baseball is also considering moving a minor league team to Cuba and building training academies similar to those that nearly all teams have in the Dominican Republic, according to a report earlier this month by Fortune magazine. (leave it to the boys of summer to do our diplomacy for us, maybe they'll get it right...)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/sports/baseball/26cuba.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
PROBING ROVE
A small federal agency that safeguards government employees from political coercion is investigating the activities of President Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove. The head of the Office of Special Counsel, Scott Bloch, says that his wide-ranging investigation covers allegations of political pressure on federal workers and the reason behind the controversial firing of the U.S. federal prosecutor in New Mexico, David Iglesias. Reports say the investigation began after several employees complained that members of Rove's team were pressuring them to support Republican candidates in key House and Senate races in 2008. The office also will examine alleged use of White House e-mail by the Republican National Party. The probe is meant to determine whether the Bush administration had improper influence over government employees' political decision-making. Bloch, who was appointed by President Bush to the post in 2003, promised his office will do a thorough and impartial job.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-04-25-voa36.cfm
"Lawyers for the Republican National Committee sent a letter tonight to Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) with a list of 37 individuals “who we believe are or were White House employees using RNC accounts for whom we have been able to identify active e-mail data on operational RNC servers.” The list — which includes senior officials like Karl Rove and Dan Bartlett as well as interns for the Office of Political Affairs — can be found at... (ThinkProgress).
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/25/rnc-email-accounts/
White House officials conducted 20 private briefings on Republican electoral prospects in the last midterm election for senior officials in at least 15 government agencies covered by federal restrictions on partisan political activity, a White House spokesman and other administration officials said yesterday. The previously undisclosed briefings were part of what now appears to be a regular effort in which the White House sent senior political officials to brief top appointees in government agencies on which seats Republican candidates might win or lose, and how the election outcomes could affect the success of administration policies, the officials said. The existence of one such briefing, at the headquarters of the General Services Administration in January, came to light last month, and the Office of Special Counsel began an investigation into whether the officials at the briefing felt coerced into steering federal activities to favor those Republican candidates cited as vulnerable. Such coercion is prohibited under a federal law, known as the Hatch Act, meant to insulate virtually all federal workers from partisan politics. In addition to forbidding workplace pressures meant to influence an election outcome, the law bars the use of federal resources -- including office buildings, phones and computers -- for partisan purposes.In the GSA briefing -- conducted like all the others by a deputy to chief White House political adviser Karl Rove -- two slides were presented showing 20 House Democrats targeted for defeat and several dozen vulnerable Republicans. At its completion, GSA Administrator Lurita Alexis Doan asked how GSA projects could be used to help "our candidates," according to half a dozen witnesses. The briefer, J. Scott Jennings, said that topic should be discussed "off-line," the witnesses said. Doan then replied, "Oh, good, at least as long as we are going to follow up," ... (surely there's some "follow-up" testimony we might require from Ms. Doan?)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042503046.html?referrer=email
Which brings us to the Blog Quote of the Day,
from Josh Marshall at TPM
"It's hard to get too surprised about this stuff anymore. But according to the Post, (see article above) Karl Rove deputies gave GOP campaign briefings to top officials in at least 15 government agencies last year. Who's vulnerable, who's not and how you can use your agency's resources for the team effort -- that seems to have been the basic idea. Pretty much every department got a briefing. And oddly enough NASA too. That must have been an interesting one."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/
THE BUSH WARS
Defiant and unified in the face of a promised presidential veto, House Democrats on Wednesday pushed through an emergency war spending bill that orders President Bush to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq no later than this fall.The 218-208 vote, largely along party lines, is expected to be followed today by Senate approval of the same measure. The president has promised to veto the legislation early next week. The $124-billion measure funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of the year, and provides billions for veterans' health care and other nonmilitary programs.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-warvote26apr26,0,5749107.story?track=ntothtml
If President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney believe the belligerently partisan and misleading things they have been saying about Congress’s war spending bill, their grip on the few options left in this disastrous war is even more tenuous than we’d guessed. The sooner Mr. Bush and his allies drop the pretense that military victory is still possible in Iraq and their charges of “defeatism” against those who know better, the closer the nation will be to rescuing what can still be rescued from the debacle. Obviously, the White House and Congress will eventually have to arrive at some kind of compromise. But that compromise cannot be on the “my way or the highway” terms Mr. Bush is demanding. The fact is, Congress has served the country well by finally forcing open debate about how America can best extricate itself from Iraq... (open debate is what we are all about)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/opinion/26thu2.html?th&emc=th
A new human rights report by the United Nations mission in Iraq described high levels of ongoing violence, an unfair and potentially abusive detainee system and a country suffering a "breakdown in law and order." (does that mean "the surge" is working?) The report upset the U.S. Embassy here, which characterized it as inaccurate and not credible. The 30-page report by the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, an appraisal of human rights conditions from January through March, said the Iraqi government is up against "immense security challenges in the face of growing violence and armed opposition to its authority and the rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis." For the first time, the United Nations did not include civilian death tolls, statistics that are usually provided to it by the Health Ministry and the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad. The data have become a key gauge of the level of violence in Iraq. In the last report, the United Nations said 34,452 Iraqi civilians had died violently in 2006, a number that the Iraqi government later said was exaggerated. The report said the Iraqi government told the United Nations "that it had decided against providing the data, although no substantive explanation or justification was provided." (how about "the truth hurts")
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042502948.html?referrer=email
DOJ SCANDAL CENTIPEDE DROPS ANOTHER SHOE
Congressman Rick Renzi, an Arizona Republican, was locked in a close re-election battle last fall when the local United States attorney, Paul Charlton, was investigating him for corruption. The investigation appears to have been slowed before Election Day, Mr. Renzi retained his seat, and Mr. Charlton ended up out of a job — one of eight prosecutors purged by the White House and the Justice Department. The Arizona case adds a disturbing new chapter to that scandal. Congress needs to determine whether Mr. Charlton was fired for any reason other than threatening the Republican Party’s hold on a Congressional seat. Mr. Renzi was fighting for his political life when the local press reported that he was facing indictment for a suspect land deal. According to The Wall Street Journal, federal investigators met unexpected resistance from the Justice Department in getting approval to proceed and, perhaps as a result, the investigation was pushed past the election. Mr. Renzi’s top aide, Brian Murray, admitted this week that when reports surfaced that his boss was being investigated, he had called Mr. Charlton’s office asking for information. Mr. Charlton’s office did the right thing, according to Mr. Murray’s account: it refused to comment. Weeks later, Mr. Charlton was fired. (it doesn't take a sleuth to see what happened here, what more proof do they need than history itself?)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/opinion/26thu1.html?th&emc=th
MORE SUBPOENAS FOR OTHER HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS
Lawmakers approved new subpoenas yesterday for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other Bush administration officials, part of an expanding legal battle between the Democratic-controlled Congress and the administration over issues such as the firings of eight U.S. attorneys and flawed justifications for the war in Iraq. The subpoena issued to Rice seeks to force her testimony about the claim that Iraq sought to import uranium from Niger for its nuclear weapons program. President Bush offered that as a key rationale for the war in his 2003 State of the Union address. The subpoena was approved by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee along party lines, 21 to 10. The same panel also issued two subpoenas to the Republican National Committee for testimony and documents related to political presentations at the General Services Administration and the use of RNC e-mail accounts by White House aides, including presidential adviser Karl Rove. The House Judiciary Committee voted 32 to 6 to grant limited immunity from prosecution to Monica M. Goodling, the former senior counselor and White House liaison for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. She has invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in refusing to answer questions about her role in the prosecutor firings. The panel also authorized, but did not issue, a subpoena that would compel her to testify. And finally in the Senate, the Judiciary Committee authorized a subpoena for Rove deputy Sara Taylor, whose name has appeared among thousands of pages of e-mails and other documents released by the Justice Department in the U.S. attorney firings.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042501863.html?referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email
THE ENVIRONMENT
IN 2005, the Environmental Protection Agency took its first important step toward reducing mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants. Its Clear Air Mercury Rule is intended to bring about a 70 percent reduction in mercury emissions over the next 20 years. But the new rule does not require all plants to reduce emissions by the same amount. Some may be allowed to pollute more than others by buying pollution credits from other plants. The E.P.A.’s faith in this “cap and trade” approach is based on the assumption that mercury pollution disperses evenly in the environment. This strategy has worked well in reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide, a component of acid rain. But mercury does not behave in the same way as acid rain. In fact, much of the mercury emitted by coal-fired power plants remains near those plants. In a just completed 10-year study of birds, fish and mammals in the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada, we found five places where fish and wildlife have exceptionally high concentrations of mercury in their blood. Under the E.P.A.’s new rule, these biological mercury “hot spots” could persist, with dangerous consequences for the health of people and wildlife. (So, do we trust the scientists or Chenergy's industrial strength book cookers?)http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/opinion/26evers.html?th&emc=th
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Wednesday's News
Red text is the "real" headline buried in the article.
Blue text is my own commentary.
Violet text is the blog quote of the day.
VIOLENCE A WAY OF LIFE IN AMERICA?
Officials, newspaper columnists and citizens around the world Tuesday described the Virginia Tech massacre as the tragic reflection of an America that fosters violence at home and abroad, even as it attempts to dictate behavior to the rest of the world. From European countries with strict gun-control laws to war-ravaged Iraq, where dozens of people are killed in shootings and bombings each day, foreigners and their news media used the university attack to condemn what they depicted as U.S. policies to arm friends, attack enemies and rely on violence rather than dialogue to settle disputes
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/17/AR2007041701805.html?referrer=email
AFRICA
Legislation that would require state pension funds to sell holdings based on moral grounds violates the Texas Constitution, (...what does that say about the Texas Constitution?) the office of Attorney General Greg Abbott said Tuesday. Several so-called divestment bills are pending in the Legislature, including ones targeting corporations doing business in Sudan and Iran, and another that would prohibit state investment funds from investing in toll roads.
http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/other/04/18/18divest.html
The administration has for months been debating its response (as people die by the tens of thousands) to the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan, where attacks by government-sponsored militias have left as many as 450,000 people dead, thousands of villages burned and about 2.5 million people living in camps. Although the Bush administration described the situation as "genocide" nearly three years ago, (surely they know there's oil in them thar Afr'cn hills? Doesn't that qualify them for some sort of military intervention, or are the neocons better served by letting the Arabs and their janjaweed henchmen drive the natives from their ancestral ground?) the United States and other world powers have been unable to end either the conflict or the humanitarian crisis. REDEPLOY TO DARFUR!!!!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/17/AR2007041701853.html?referrer=email
A confidential United Nations report says the government of Sudan is flying arms and heavy military equipment into Darfur in violation of Security Council resolutions and painting Sudanese military planes white to disguise them as United Nations or African Union aircraft. The report says that, contrary to the Sudanese government’s earlier denials to United Nations investigators, the freshly painted planes are being operated out of all three of Darfur’s principal airports and used for aerial surveillance and bombardments of villages, in addition to the transportation of cargo.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/world/africa/18sudan.html?th&emc=th
THE BUSH WARS
Bombings in Baghdad kill 127 people, including 82 in an attack at a market, the Iraqi Interior Ministry says.
http://cnn.com/
Critics of the recent U.S. wars of choice have long argued that they are all about oil. "No Blood for Oil" has been a rallying cry for most of the opponents of the war.It can be demonstrated, however, that there is another (less obvious but perhaps more critical) factor behind the recent rise of U.S. military aggressions abroad: war profiteering by the Pentagon contractors. Frequently invoking dubious "threats to our national security and/or interests," these beneficiaries of war dividends, the military-industrial complex and related businesses whose interests are vested in the Pentagon's appropriation of public money, have successfully used war and military spending to justify their lion's share of tax dollars and to disguise their strategy of redistributing national income in their favor.
http://www.counterpunch.org/hossein04162007.html
BLOG QUOTE OF THE DAY, THANX TO SCARECROW AT FDL;
PBS = PERLE BROADCASTING SYSTEM?
How did it happen that the Public Broadcasting System, our national network, allowed itself to be used as a neocon propaganda forum? What journalistic standards were they following by allowing an extreme anti-consitutional partisan with huge credibility problems of his own, have sole control over editorial content, to decide what to show, whom to interview, what topics to cover or avoid? Pathetic. Shame on MacNeil. Shame on PBS. (anyone who believes PBS is "the people's media" should look closely at this blog post... )
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/18/pbs-gives-the-neocons-a-free-propaganda-forum/
It was the first time that a senior American official had asserted that Iranian-made weapons were being supplied to the Taliban. But Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it was not clear if the Iranian government had authorized the shipment. “We have intercepted weapons in Afghanistan headed for the Taliban that were made in Iran,” General Pace told reporters. “It’s not as clear in Afghanistan which Iranian entity is responsible.” (looks like they've got their own version of the 'Carlysle Group") The shipment involved mortars and plastic explosives and was seized within the past month near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. Markings on the plastic explosive material indicated that it was produced in Iran, General Pace said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/world/middleeast/18military.html?th&emc=th
Mr. Sadr, a virulently anti-American cleric with an unquenchable appetite for attention and power, had been Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s strongest political ally. But on Monday, at his direction, his party’s six ministers quit the Maliki cabinet. The government still depends on the parliamentary votes of Mr. Sadr’s party, the largest faction in the ruling Shiite bloc. Mr. Maliki, a colorless and ineffective politician, has been prime minister for the past year. But from the beginning, his authority has depended on the backing of Mr. Sadr, a charismatic demagogue with an intimidating private army, a potent political party and an impressive capacity for sending his followers into the street. Mr. Sadr had his cabinet ministers resign in an attempt to bully the government into setting a timetable for the departure of American troops from Iraq. (Once more, intelligent, "mature" minds want to know, why we are still in Iraq when MOST Americans want us out and MOST Iraqis want us out???) Mr. Maliki cannot just say no, because if Mr. Sadr’s party turns against him, he could lose his parliamentary majority. Nor can he just say yes because the physical survival of his administration probably still depends on those American troops. Meanwhile, Mr. Sadr has aligned himself with a highly popular cause (American troops OUT) that is likely to expand his following even further.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/opinion/18weds1.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=login
Saudi Arabia has agreed to forgive 80 percent of the more than $15 billion that Iraq owes the kingdom, Iraqi and Saudi officials said yesterday, a major step given Saudi reluctance to provide financial assistance to the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad. (Arabs vs. Persians?) But Iraqi Finance Minister Bayan Jabr said in an interview that Russia was holding out on debt forgiveness until talks begin on concessions that Russian oil and gas companies had under Saddam Hussein. Russian Embassy officials in Washington declined to comment late yesterday. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/17/AR2007041701950.html?referrer=email
DOJ SCANDAL
Monica Goodling, once Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's White House liaison, would be granted immunity from prosecution and forced to testify under a plan being considered by a House panel probing the firings of federal prosecutors. Representative John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said yesterday that Goodling, who has refused to testify, has much to contribute to the investigation. (Goodling knows EVERYTHING...) Republicans didn't appear eager yesterday to go along. Committee member Chris Cannon, a Utah Republican , said the immunity offer was "merely meant to fan the flames of speculation and grab headlines." Goodling's attorney, John Dowd, declined to comment on the offer.
http://letters.washingtonpost.com/W3RH02D7B3549E0C6446D3007568F0
DOMENICI'S IGLESIAS CALLS SCRUTINIZED BY SENATE ETHICS COMMITTEE
(thanx to Think Progress and the crew at C.R.E.W.)
When CREW learned about the phone call Senator Domenici made to US Attorney David Iglesias about a pending case, we asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate. Now, based on a Senate procedural vote, it appears that at least a "preliminary inquiry" may be under way. Think Progress had the report last night via The Politico: The Senate just adopted a resolution (S. Res. 153) stating that "for matters before the Select Committee on Ethics involving the preliminary inquiry arising in connection with alleged communications by persons within the committee's jurisdiction with and concerning David C. Iglesias, then United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico... The passage of the resolution confirms that Domenici is being scrutinized by the Ethics Committee over a phone call he made to Iglesias, prior to the November election, inquiring whether Iglesias was going to indict some New Mexico Democrats. Up until this point, the Ethics Committee has refused to state whether it is actually investigating Domenici.
http://www.citizensforethics.org/blog
THE ECONOMY
Chinese producers of everything from socket wrenches to sport utility vehicles say, their fastest growth these days lies in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South America and elsewhere in Asia — in other words, practically anywhere other than the United States. So it is throughout China. With ample support from the Beijing government — including a flurry of trade missions to Africa and assistance with trade fairs in Germany, Australia or someplace in between — Chinese companies are poised to expand into the markets of many of the world’s rapidly growing economies. In some cases, they are running directly into American competitors. (Wal Mart, the gift that keeps on taking...)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/business/worldbusiness/18yuan.html?th&emc=th
MEDIA, THE INTERNET, AND THE BLOGS
a first!!! Two blog quote of the day, both from Fire Dog Lake (smartest bloggers on the planet) this one is Christy Hardin Smith's response to another reporter's sacrificing of the 4th Estate to the Bush Administration's press-corp panzie-ism)
"Because, as your clients, their needs took a backseat to your own personal needs to maintain a happy relationship with your new pals at the Bush White House and in the GOP leadership in Congress. So the tough questions got shoved to the side for far too long and the relationship building became of paramount interest – which served the Bush Administration interests, but left the public out in the cold. It is what the Bushies encouraged because it served their purposes to have a docile media pool who was afraid to ask anything remotely difficult for fear of being shut out of the briefing room. And you fell for it, hook, line and stinker."
(...and the result was the war in Iraq!)
Intel Corp., the world's largest computer chip maker, said Tuesday that first-quarter profit rose 19 percent and revenue fell 1 percent. The revenue drop was an improvement over a 9 percent falloff a year earlier, indicating that Intel is weathering a price war with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Its shares rose 1.4 percent to $20.98 in regular trading and rose another 2 percent in extended trading. Intel's results are viewed as an indicator of demand for computers and related components. Intel introduced new versions of its Xeon server chips Tuesday in Beijing, completing the transition of the company's product line to its new Core 2 Duo design. The company is trying to bring its market share back from an 11-year low after AMD won orders by being the first to come out with new technology.
http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/technology/04/18/18intel.html
personal commentary from the blog host;
The HuffingtonPost is trashing Edwards in a very catty post on their blog today, I was so disappointed that Ms. Huffington is letting her posters take the tabloid tack in the 2008 Presidential campaign. One can only speculate (quite easily) "cui bono" from this trash-talk. Did Hillary hire Rove to manage her campaign? Sure seems like it if this is any indicator. Unfortunatley, when the people who call other people hypocrites become hypocrites, where do we go to find journalists we can trust?
The Huffington Enquirer?
THE ENVIRONMENT
...those who dismiss global warming’s threat have embraced a series of arguments, retreating from one to the next as they’re trumped by reality... These arguments emerge from the standard echo chamber of Hannity, Rush and Fox News. But the spokespeople who articulate them in these venues and others more mainstream have been overwhelmingly sponsored by Exxon. As the Union of concerned Scientists explores in their meticulously detailed report, Smoke, Mirrors and Hot Air, and as George Monbiot examines in his powerful global warming book Heat, Exxon’s strategy of using a handful of industry-funded dissenters to cast doubt on an overwhelming scientific consensus was borrowed from the fight over tobacco regulation. In 1992, a major EPA report warned of the medical harm from second hand smoke. In response, Philip Morris hired the PR firm APCO to create a supposedly independent group, The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), to promote scientists who’d dispute this harm. Enlisting enough other corporate supporters so the effort didn’t seem just a tobacco industry creation, TASSC’s mission echoed the phrase from a memo of fellow tobacco company Brown and Williamson, "Doubt is our product.” As part of creating that doubt, APCO’s Steven Milloy founded JunkScience.com, which would later become a key website for global warming denial. Milloy also became associated with other key climate change denial organizations, like the Competitive Enterprise Institute (which has called the Kyoto accords “a power grab based on deception and fear”), and later become a columnist for Fox. Major climate denial activist Frederick Seitz also had strong tobacco industry ties, drawing $585,000 from RJ Reynolds between 1979 and 1987 before going on to the George Marshall Institute. Exxon jumped in to support these efforts early on, as part of a more general assault on government regulation and action...
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/04/18/get_aggressive_on_global_warming.php
The House unanimously approved the Wild Sky Wilderness Area on Tuesday, moving the popular 106,577- acre project to the brink of reality after five years of frustrating detours. (five years of Bush admin. roadblocks) By clearing the House, the first new wilderness area in Washington state in 23 years is virtually assured of final passage, lawmakers and supporters said. The Senate, which will consider the bill in the coming months, has passed the bill three times, only to see it fail each time in the House.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/pimail.asp?uid=38863&url=local/312053_wildsky18.html
TODAY'S MOST OUTRAGEOUS STORY
Miss Mexico is toning down her Miss Universe pageant dress, not because it's too slinky or low-cut but because its bullet-studded belt and images of hangings from a 1920s uprising have outraged Mexicans. The floor-length dress is accented with crosses, scapulars and a sketch of a man facing a firing squad. Designers who helped select the dress from among 30 entries argued that it represented the nation's culture and history. Mexico City is hosting the pageant in May.
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/world/04/18/18mexicopageant.html
Blue text is my own commentary.
Violet text is the blog quote of the day.
VIOLENCE A WAY OF LIFE IN AMERICA?
Officials, newspaper columnists and citizens around the world Tuesday described the Virginia Tech massacre as the tragic reflection of an America that fosters violence at home and abroad, even as it attempts to dictate behavior to the rest of the world. From European countries with strict gun-control laws to war-ravaged Iraq, where dozens of people are killed in shootings and bombings each day, foreigners and their news media used the university attack to condemn what they depicted as U.S. policies to arm friends, attack enemies and rely on violence rather than dialogue to settle disputes
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/17/AR2007041701805.html?referrer=email
AFRICA
Legislation that would require state pension funds to sell holdings based on moral grounds violates the Texas Constitution, (...what does that say about the Texas Constitution?) the office of Attorney General Greg Abbott said Tuesday. Several so-called divestment bills are pending in the Legislature, including ones targeting corporations doing business in Sudan and Iran, and another that would prohibit state investment funds from investing in toll roads.
http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/other/04/18/18divest.html
The administration has for months been debating its response (as people die by the tens of thousands) to the crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan, where attacks by government-sponsored militias have left as many as 450,000 people dead, thousands of villages burned and about 2.5 million people living in camps. Although the Bush administration described the situation as "genocide" nearly three years ago, (surely they know there's oil in them thar Afr'cn hills? Doesn't that qualify them for some sort of military intervention, or are the neocons better served by letting the Arabs and their janjaweed henchmen drive the natives from their ancestral ground?) the United States and other world powers have been unable to end either the conflict or the humanitarian crisis. REDEPLOY TO DARFUR!!!!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/17/AR2007041701853.html?referrer=email
A confidential United Nations report says the government of Sudan is flying arms and heavy military equipment into Darfur in violation of Security Council resolutions and painting Sudanese military planes white to disguise them as United Nations or African Union aircraft. The report says that, contrary to the Sudanese government’s earlier denials to United Nations investigators, the freshly painted planes are being operated out of all three of Darfur’s principal airports and used for aerial surveillance and bombardments of villages, in addition to the transportation of cargo.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/world/africa/18sudan.html?th&emc=th
THE BUSH WARS
Bombings in Baghdad kill 127 people, including 82 in an attack at a market, the Iraqi Interior Ministry says.
http://cnn.com/
Critics of the recent U.S. wars of choice have long argued that they are all about oil. "No Blood for Oil" has been a rallying cry for most of the opponents of the war.It can be demonstrated, however, that there is another (less obvious but perhaps more critical) factor behind the recent rise of U.S. military aggressions abroad: war profiteering by the Pentagon contractors. Frequently invoking dubious "threats to our national security and/or interests," these beneficiaries of war dividends, the military-industrial complex and related businesses whose interests are vested in the Pentagon's appropriation of public money, have successfully used war and military spending to justify their lion's share of tax dollars and to disguise their strategy of redistributing national income in their favor.
http://www.counterpunch.org/hossein04162007.html
BLOG QUOTE OF THE DAY, THANX TO SCARECROW AT FDL;
PBS = PERLE BROADCASTING SYSTEM?
How did it happen that the Public Broadcasting System, our national network, allowed itself to be used as a neocon propaganda forum? What journalistic standards were they following by allowing an extreme anti-consitutional partisan with huge credibility problems of his own, have sole control over editorial content, to decide what to show, whom to interview, what topics to cover or avoid? Pathetic. Shame on MacNeil. Shame on PBS. (anyone who believes PBS is "the people's media" should look closely at this blog post... )
http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/04/18/pbs-gives-the-neocons-a-free-propaganda-forum/
It was the first time that a senior American official had asserted that Iranian-made weapons were being supplied to the Taliban. But Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it was not clear if the Iranian government had authorized the shipment. “We have intercepted weapons in Afghanistan headed for the Taliban that were made in Iran,” General Pace told reporters. “It’s not as clear in Afghanistan which Iranian entity is responsible.” (looks like they've got their own version of the 'Carlysle Group") The shipment involved mortars and plastic explosives and was seized within the past month near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. Markings on the plastic explosive material indicated that it was produced in Iran, General Pace said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/world/middleeast/18military.html?th&emc=th
Mr. Sadr, a virulently anti-American cleric with an unquenchable appetite for attention and power, had been Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s strongest political ally. But on Monday, at his direction, his party’s six ministers quit the Maliki cabinet. The government still depends on the parliamentary votes of Mr. Sadr’s party, the largest faction in the ruling Shiite bloc. Mr. Maliki, a colorless and ineffective politician, has been prime minister for the past year. But from the beginning, his authority has depended on the backing of Mr. Sadr, a charismatic demagogue with an intimidating private army, a potent political party and an impressive capacity for sending his followers into the street. Mr. Sadr had his cabinet ministers resign in an attempt to bully the government into setting a timetable for the departure of American troops from Iraq. (Once more, intelligent, "mature" minds want to know, why we are still in Iraq when MOST Americans want us out and MOST Iraqis want us out???) Mr. Maliki cannot just say no, because if Mr. Sadr’s party turns against him, he could lose his parliamentary majority. Nor can he just say yes because the physical survival of his administration probably still depends on those American troops. Meanwhile, Mr. Sadr has aligned himself with a highly popular cause (American troops OUT) that is likely to expand his following even further.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/opinion/18weds1.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=login
Saudi Arabia has agreed to forgive 80 percent of the more than $15 billion that Iraq owes the kingdom, Iraqi and Saudi officials said yesterday, a major step given Saudi reluctance to provide financial assistance to the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad. (Arabs vs. Persians?) But Iraqi Finance Minister Bayan Jabr said in an interview that Russia was holding out on debt forgiveness until talks begin on concessions that Russian oil and gas companies had under Saddam Hussein. Russian Embassy officials in Washington declined to comment late yesterday. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/17/AR2007041701950.html?referrer=email
DOJ SCANDAL
Monica Goodling, once Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's White House liaison, would be granted immunity from prosecution and forced to testify under a plan being considered by a House panel probing the firings of federal prosecutors. Representative John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said yesterday that Goodling, who has refused to testify, has much to contribute to the investigation. (Goodling knows EVERYTHING...) Republicans didn't appear eager yesterday to go along. Committee member Chris Cannon, a Utah Republican , said the immunity offer was "merely meant to fan the flames of speculation and grab headlines." Goodling's attorney, John Dowd, declined to comment on the offer.
http://letters.washingtonpost.com/W3RH02D7B3549E0C6446D3007568F0
DOMENICI'S IGLESIAS CALLS SCRUTINIZED BY SENATE ETHICS COMMITTEE
(thanx to Think Progress and the crew at C.R.E.W.)
When CREW learned about the phone call Senator Domenici made to US Attorney David Iglesias about a pending case, we asked the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate. Now, based on a Senate procedural vote, it appears that at least a "preliminary inquiry" may be under way. Think Progress had the report last night via The Politico: The Senate just adopted a resolution (S. Res. 153) stating that "for matters before the Select Committee on Ethics involving the preliminary inquiry arising in connection with alleged communications by persons within the committee's jurisdiction with and concerning David C. Iglesias, then United States Attorney for the District of New Mexico... The passage of the resolution confirms that Domenici is being scrutinized by the Ethics Committee over a phone call he made to Iglesias, prior to the November election, inquiring whether Iglesias was going to indict some New Mexico Democrats. Up until this point, the Ethics Committee has refused to state whether it is actually investigating Domenici.
http://www.citizensforethics.org/blog
THE ECONOMY
Chinese producers of everything from socket wrenches to sport utility vehicles say, their fastest growth these days lies in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South America and elsewhere in Asia — in other words, practically anywhere other than the United States. So it is throughout China. With ample support from the Beijing government — including a flurry of trade missions to Africa and assistance with trade fairs in Germany, Australia or someplace in between — Chinese companies are poised to expand into the markets of many of the world’s rapidly growing economies. In some cases, they are running directly into American competitors. (Wal Mart, the gift that keeps on taking...)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/business/worldbusiness/18yuan.html?th&emc=th
MEDIA, THE INTERNET, AND THE BLOGS
a first!!! Two blog quote of the day, both from Fire Dog Lake (smartest bloggers on the planet) this one is Christy Hardin Smith's response to another reporter's sacrificing of the 4th Estate to the Bush Administration's press-corp panzie-ism)
"Because, as your clients, their needs took a backseat to your own personal needs to maintain a happy relationship with your new pals at the Bush White House and in the GOP leadership in Congress. So the tough questions got shoved to the side for far too long and the relationship building became of paramount interest – which served the Bush Administration interests, but left the public out in the cold. It is what the Bushies encouraged because it served their purposes to have a docile media pool who was afraid to ask anything remotely difficult for fear of being shut out of the briefing room. And you fell for it, hook, line and stinker."
(...and the result was the war in Iraq!)
Intel Corp., the world's largest computer chip maker, said Tuesday that first-quarter profit rose 19 percent and revenue fell 1 percent. The revenue drop was an improvement over a 9 percent falloff a year earlier, indicating that Intel is weathering a price war with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Its shares rose 1.4 percent to $20.98 in regular trading and rose another 2 percent in extended trading. Intel's results are viewed as an indicator of demand for computers and related components. Intel introduced new versions of its Xeon server chips Tuesday in Beijing, completing the transition of the company's product line to its new Core 2 Duo design. The company is trying to bring its market share back from an 11-year low after AMD won orders by being the first to come out with new technology.
http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/technology/04/18/18intel.html
personal commentary from the blog host;
The HuffingtonPost is trashing Edwards in a very catty post on their blog today, I was so disappointed that Ms. Huffington is letting her posters take the tabloid tack in the 2008 Presidential campaign. One can only speculate (quite easily) "cui bono" from this trash-talk. Did Hillary hire Rove to manage her campaign? Sure seems like it if this is any indicator. Unfortunatley, when the people who call other people hypocrites become hypocrites, where do we go to find journalists we can trust?
The Huffington Enquirer?
THE ENVIRONMENT
...those who dismiss global warming’s threat have embraced a series of arguments, retreating from one to the next as they’re trumped by reality... These arguments emerge from the standard echo chamber of Hannity, Rush and Fox News. But the spokespeople who articulate them in these venues and others more mainstream have been overwhelmingly sponsored by Exxon. As the Union of concerned Scientists explores in their meticulously detailed report, Smoke, Mirrors and Hot Air, and as George Monbiot examines in his powerful global warming book Heat, Exxon’s strategy of using a handful of industry-funded dissenters to cast doubt on an overwhelming scientific consensus was borrowed from the fight over tobacco regulation. In 1992, a major EPA report warned of the medical harm from second hand smoke. In response, Philip Morris hired the PR firm APCO to create a supposedly independent group, The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), to promote scientists who’d dispute this harm. Enlisting enough other corporate supporters so the effort didn’t seem just a tobacco industry creation, TASSC’s mission echoed the phrase from a memo of fellow tobacco company Brown and Williamson, "Doubt is our product.” As part of creating that doubt, APCO’s Steven Milloy founded JunkScience.com, which would later become a key website for global warming denial. Milloy also became associated with other key climate change denial organizations, like the Competitive Enterprise Institute (which has called the Kyoto accords “a power grab based on deception and fear”), and later become a columnist for Fox. Major climate denial activist Frederick Seitz also had strong tobacco industry ties, drawing $585,000 from RJ Reynolds between 1979 and 1987 before going on to the George Marshall Institute. Exxon jumped in to support these efforts early on, as part of a more general assault on government regulation and action...
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/04/18/get_aggressive_on_global_warming.php
The House unanimously approved the Wild Sky Wilderness Area on Tuesday, moving the popular 106,577- acre project to the brink of reality after five years of frustrating detours. (five years of Bush admin. roadblocks) By clearing the House, the first new wilderness area in Washington state in 23 years is virtually assured of final passage, lawmakers and supporters said. The Senate, which will consider the bill in the coming months, has passed the bill three times, only to see it fail each time in the House.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/pimail.asp?uid=38863&url=local/312053_wildsky18.html
TODAY'S MOST OUTRAGEOUS STORY
Miss Mexico is toning down her Miss Universe pageant dress, not because it's too slinky or low-cut but because its bullet-studded belt and images of hangings from a 1920s uprising have outraged Mexicans. The floor-length dress is accented with crosses, scapulars and a sketch of a man facing a firing squad. Designers who helped select the dress from among 30 entries argued that it represented the nation's culture and history. Mexico City is hosting the pageant in May.
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/world/04/18/18mexicopageant.html
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Tuesday's News
Can't quite get a handle on the tragic events at Virginia Tech yesterday morning. It makes all the other news seem dulled, as our nation mourns this loss. I can not imagine what the parents and families and friends of these young people must be feeling, their grief is beyond words. I know they must be devastated. It is even harder to imagine what the Iraqis must be feeling, after experiencing this every day, day in and day out, getting progressively worse since "Mission Accomplished." Well, I suppose if our mission was to bring this endless cycle of destruction and devastation to the Iraqi people on a daily basis, then we have surely accomplished that.
Now to the other news of the day.
Red text is the "real" headline buried in the article.
Blue text is my own commentary.
Violet text is the blog quote of the day.
AFRICA
Once again, the biggest story of the decade doesn't show up until Tuesday... like I posted yesterday, there is something of a pattern here.
Sudan said Monday that it had dropped its objections to large-scale United Nations assistance to the overwhelmed African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur, setting the stage for the possible assignment there of United Nations peacekeepers. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan has repeatedly defied United Nations requests and pressure from governments elsewhere in Africa and around the world to permit international intervention in Darfur, saying such action would violate his country’s sovereignty. But on Monday, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, Sudan’s ambassador to the United Nations, sent a letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the 15 member states of the Security Council saying that Sudan would accept what is known as the “heavy support package” and that it hoped that it would “proceed expeditiously.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/world/africa/17nations.html?th&emc=th
Nigeria’s highest court ruled Monday that electoral officials had illegally excluded a top opposition candidate for president, Atiku Abubakar, from the ballot for the presidential election on Saturday. The ruling, a firm rebuke of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s efforts to prevent politicians he says are corrupt from running for office, throws the already chaotic election season in Africa’s most populous nation and largest oil producer into deeper turmoil. The unanimous decision also applies to candidates for governor who were barred from races for suspected corruption in half a dozen states. Those state elections took place last Saturday, amid widespread allegations of fraud and intimidation. The ruling raised fresh doubts about whether the results would stand.
ELECTION REFORM
(I'VE BEEN SAYING FOR OVER A DECADE THAT WE NEED A YEARLY PUBLIC REFERENDUM THAT WE FILL OUT ALONG WITH OUR TAX FORM TO CREATE A CAUSE AND EFFECT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TAXES AND VOTING, LOOK FOR A FULL-FLEDGED EDITORIAL ABOUT THIS IDEA SOMETIME SOON!)
"Tax reformers who want to highlight the relationship between what Americans pay to the federal government and what they receive in return should advocate moving tax filing day closer to Election Day," writes Kristina Rasmussen, senior government affairs manager for the NTU in Washington, in a new policy brief, "Tax Time Should be Election Time: Moving Tax Filing Day Closer to Election Day." Rasmussen says the current income tax system, with its withholding and refunds, is structured to "to lull taxpayers into complacency."
"There's a disconnect between what we pay for government services and what we get when we pick (our candidates) in November," she says in a phone interview. "We pay for them in April."
By moving tax-filing day from April 15 to the first Monday in November, voters will be forced to link what they pay for government services with what they get in return.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/311833_taxday17.html
THE BUSH WARS
Democrats appear to be standing on firm political ground, as they work toward a final bill. A Washington Post-ABC News poll of 1,141 adults, conducted April 12-15, found that 58 percent trusted the Democrats in Congress to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq, compared with 33 percent who trusted Bush. The president has taken advantage of Congress's spring recess to pound Democrats over their legislation, which would impose benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet; create strict rules for resting, equipping and training combat troops; and set a 2008 date for the final withdrawal of U.S. troops. Despite those efforts, Bush has lost a little ground to Democrats, who in February were trusted by 54 percent to set Iraq policy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601099.html?referrer=email
Over the past six months, American troops have died in Iraq at the highest rate since the war began, an indication that the conflict is becoming increasingly dangerous for U.S. forces even after more than four years of fighting. From October 2006 through last month, 532 American soldiers were killed, the most during any six-month period of the war. March also marked the first time that the U.S. military suffered four straight months of 80 or more fatalities. April, with at least 58 service members killed through Monday, is on pace to be one of the deadliest months of the conflict for American forces. Senior American military officials attribute much of the increase to the Baghdad security crackdown, now in its third month. But the rate of fatalities was increasing even before a more aggressive strategy began moving U.S. troops from heavily fortified bases into smaller neighborhood outposts throughout the capital, placing them at greater risk of roadside bombings and small-arms attacks.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17087215.htm
Insurgents in Afghanistan killed nearly 700 civilians last year, the largest annual number in more than five years of fighting since the toppling of the Taliban regime, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report issued Monday. The group blamed NATO-led coalition forces for an additional 230 civilian deaths in 2006, though estimates by some Afghan officials and human rights groups put the number much higher. Human Rights Watch said the attacks on civilians by Taliban militants and other insurgents should be considered war crimes because they "intentionally targeted civilian objects that served no military purpose, including schools, buses or bazaars."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan17apr17,0,5911220.story?track=ntothtml
A suicide bomber struck a group of police officers in the normally peaceful north of Afghanistan on Monday, killing nine policemen and wounding 25, officials said. "According to eyewitnesses, the suicide bomber was wearing a black turban and ran toward our policemen, who were exercising on the main road outside their base, and blew himself up,” said Muhammad Omar, the governor of Kunduz Province. No civilians were harmed, he said.
http://www.nytimes.com:80/2007/04/17/world/asia/17afghan.html?th&emc=th
Can a soldier get used to death? That's what the soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, out of Fort Hood, Tex., are finding out here in an area of eastern Baghdad teeming with snipers and roadside bombs. They are also learning hard lessons about the consequences of President Bush's troop escalation that other battalions have so far been spared. Since U.S. and Iraqi forces began implementing their new Baghdad security plan Feb. 14, nine soldiers from the battalion have been killed. No battalion has had more. Even harder, after a relatively uneventful deployment that began last November, those nine deaths have occurred in the past 32 days.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601510.html?referrer=email
GONZO-GATE CONTINUES SWINGING OPEN
A leading congressional critic accused Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales on Monday of making misleading statements about a conversation with President Bush regarding a U.S. attorney who has said he was fired for political reasons. D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' former chief of staff, told Senate investigators over the weekend that the attorney general told him in early March that he and Bush had discussed U.S. Atty. David C. Iglesias' performance before the November election, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a briefing with reporters. Gonzales said in a March 26 interview with NBC News that he had no recollection of a meeting with Bush about Iglesias. (and another soldier falls on his sword for the Bush gang) Schumer said Sampson's statement "appeared to contradict" the statement by Gonzales in his television interview.A Justice Department spokesman said Monday that Gonzales continued to have no recollection of the October meeting with Bush. Iglesias was fired about two months later. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usattys17apr17,0,1873302.story?track=ntothtml
Today's blog quote of the day, from Joan Walsh at Salon.com
"... nothing -- no written statement, and no delay of testimony -- can help Gonzales. ABC News reported a few hours ago that his statement is contradicted by e-mail released by the Justice Department, which showed the attorney general himself was gunning for California's Carol Lam months before she was fired. I used to think Gonzales was just an incompetent fall guy for a plot that emanated from Karl Rove's political operation, but it's starting to seem that he's part incompetent fall guy (because he clearly wasn't the mastermind of the whole operation) and part co-conspirator. I'm looking forward to his testimony Thursday bringing out both roles."
http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/misc/2007/04/16/va_tech_gonzales/index.html
IN THE UPROAR over the firing of U.S. attorneys, most of the attention has been focused on Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, and it will be again later this week when he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee. But it's increasingly clear that important questions about the firings must be directed to the White House, which inspired the plan, prodded it along and may well have selected at least one target more because of partisan politics than performance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601442.html?referrer=email
Leading conservatives called for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign Monday, saying he has "brought the rule of law into disrepute" by firing eight U.S. attorneys for questionable reasons. In a letter to Gonzales and President Bush, the American Freedom Agenda, a conservative constitutional rights group, said the attorney general is an "unsuitable steward of the law." Gonzales "has presided over an unprecedented crippling of the Constitution's time-honored checks and balances," wrote five of the group's members, including former Republican Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Fein and Richard Viguerie, a conservative activist and author.
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/04/17/17gonzales.html
'...Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has made trying times at the Justice Department measurably worse with his failed leadership and intellectual rigor and fairness. You now can also believe Daniel Metcalfe, a former Justice Department official who began his career there during the Nixon Administration. Metcalfe this week tells the Legal Times' Tony Mauro that Team Gonzales "shattered" the independence of the Justice Department with short-sighted political policies. "It became quite clear that under Gonzales, the department placed no more than secondary value on the standards that I and my office had valued so heavily for the preceding 25 years -- accuracy, integrity, responsibility and quality of decision-making being chief among them," Metcalfe told Mauro. Do yourself a favor and read the entire interview. It is a fascinating indictment of the Gonzales tenure and ought to put to rest the straw man argument that the Attorney General's critics are only weak-kneed Democrats out for political blood.'
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/benchconference/?referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email
WOLFOWITZ SCANDAL CONTINUES TO TAKE TOLL
"As I write these words, Wolfowitz is still head of the World Bank, the job President Bush chose for him in 2005 as a reward for failure at the Pentagon. But the time for him to be fired has again arrived. Instead of the grand corruption of cooking the Iraq intelligence books, Wolfowitz has been caught in the squalid little impropriety of using his influence to get his World Bank girlfriend a job at the State Department, at a salary that exceeds that of the secretary of state herself. It is all the more ironic in that Wolfowitz made stamping out corruption a World Bank crusade. The real problem with Wolfowitz, however, is that he is a compulsive idealist who cannot see that the price of his ideals may be too high to pay, or that they may do more harm than good."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/04/17/the_problem_that_is_paul_wolfowitz/
MEDIA, THE BLOGS AND THE INTERNET
Yahoo has expanded its alliance with newspaper publishers, adding the McClatchy chain and four other companies to its recently formed online ad-sharing network, executives involved in the initiative said yesterday. The effort now includes 12 publishing companies, representing 264 U.S. newspapers, that have agreed to collaborate with Yahoo in selling advertisements and will feature Yahoo's search engine on their online editions, locking out Internet rival Google. The newspapers will offer their advertisers a chance to buy space on Yahoo's Web site and will accept online display ads sold by Yahoo. (the lines between internet and mainstream journalism continue to blur)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041600540.html?referrer=email
THE ENVIRONMENT
Global warming poses a "serious threat to America's national security" and the military should act now to minimize the destabilizing consequences of rising temperatures, a panel of retired generals and admirals warned Monday. Shortages of food and water could cause weak governments to collapse, increasingly severe natural disasters could draw U.S. forces into humanitarian missions (sure beats going there for wars!) in volatile areas, and melting Arctic ice could spark territorial disputes over shipping routes and natural resources.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-defense17apr17,0,7402227.story?track=ntothtml
The next big thing in hybrid vehicles could be a garbage truck. A combination of fuel cost pressure, pollution problems and promising technology is drawing virtually all the U.S. trucking industry's leading makers and fleet owners to hybrid trucks. The trucks, which convert braking energy into supplementary power, aren't in mass production yet, but that's almost entirely a pricing issue.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/good_news/16664603.htm
...67-page report, which examines everything from freshwater ecosystems to tourism, said North America has suffered severe environmental and economic damage because of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, heat waves and forest fires. Without "increased investments in countermeasures," the authors wrote that they are at least 90 percent sure that "hot temperatures and extreme weather are likely to cause increased adverse health impacts from heat-related mortality, pollution, storm-related fatalities and injuries, and infectious diseases." (How inconvenient...)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601546.html?referrer=email
Authorities are searching for poachers who have killed six rare one-horned rhinoceros in the past four months in a protected game reserve in India's northeastern Assam state, the state's chief warden said Tuesday. Two of the animals were killed in the past week inside the famed Kaziranga National Park, a 166-square mile habitat, said M.C. Malakar, Assam state's chief wildlife warden. An increase in poaching has surprised authorities because only five rhinos were killed in 2006 and seven in 2005. "It is clear funds are flowing to attract shooters to kill rhinos for their horns and we can't rule out poaching syndicates within India and from abroad backing this fresh campaign at targeting rhinos in Kaziranga," Malakar told The Associated Press. Rhino horns are in great demand globally, particularly in Southeast Asia, for their alleged efficacy in producing aphrodisiacs and traditional medicines. Some people (Arab princes have a lot of easy oil-cash to trade for the lives of these rare creatures, just to make another knife) also use them to make decorative dagger handles.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1104AP_India_Rhino_Poaching.html
LABOR AND ECONOMIC NEWS
The California Supreme Court handed workers a major victory Monday, in effect tripling the back pay they can seek if they are forced to work through meal and rest breaks required by state law. The long-awaited decision affects hundreds of thousands of white-collar workers in industries such as retail, food service, insurance and banking who are called managers or assistant managers but who spend much of their day ringing up sales, stocking shelves or sweeping the floor alongside the workers they oversee.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-overtime17apr17,0,3338908.story?track=ntothtml
It’s not official, but it’s virtually indisputable. Poverty in America is much more widespread than has been previously acknowledged. According to the Census Bureau, nearly 37 million Americans — 12.6 percent of the population — were living in poverty in 2005. That means that four years into an economic expansion, the percentage of Americans defined as poor was higher than at the bottom of the last recession in late 2001, when it was 11.7 percent. But that’s not the worst of it. Recently, the bureau released 12 alternative measures of poverty, and all but one are higher than the official rate.
http://www.nytimes.com:80/2007/04/17/opinion/17tue4.html?th&emc=th
Sallie Mae, the nation's largest student loan company, announced yesterday that it would be bought by a group of private investors in a $25 billion deal that could reduce public scrutiny of the lender at a time when the student loan industry is under siege. The enormous deal underscores the potential for profit that Wall Street sees in the $85 billion-a-year student loan industry, even as Congress considers slashing billions of dollars in federal loan subsidies and an expanding nationwide probe reveals fresh conflicts of interest in the student lending world.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041600160.html?referrer=email
Fannie Mae, one of the nation's biggest investors in home mortgages, plans to unveil a campaign today that would allow lenders to refinance certain borrowers' homes, and federal regulators expect to release a statement urging mortgage lenders to help financially troubled borrowers hold onto their homes. According to testimony submitted to the House Financial Services Committee, Fannie Mae's chief executive, Daniel H. Mudd, is expected to say that his company is altering its loan products so that lenders can qualify more high-risk borrowers for refinancing. Fannie Mae is targeting adjustable-rate mortgages, which typically offer low teaser rates that increase later. Under a campaign dubbed HomeStay, Fannie Mae would allow lenders it works with to refinance homes without first having to clear up borrowers' unpaid bills on their credit reports.
http://www2.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=352464978493976133&postID=2338882322419919143
Lawmakers praised the Coast Guard's move, saying the service had followed Congress's urgings to rein in the Deepwater contractors. "Ending Coast Guard's reliance on a single private-sector entity to oversee the entire project, increasing transparency and taking back oversight responsibility is critical," said Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who has drafted a bill to revoke the contractors' Deepwater role. "This announcement shows me that the Coast Guard has been listening."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601607.html?referrer=email
Now to the other news of the day.
Red text is the "real" headline buried in the article.
Blue text is my own commentary.
Violet text is the blog quote of the day.
AFRICA
Once again, the biggest story of the decade doesn't show up until Tuesday... like I posted yesterday, there is something of a pattern here.
Sudan said Monday that it had dropped its objections to large-scale United Nations assistance to the overwhelmed African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur, setting the stage for the possible assignment there of United Nations peacekeepers. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan has repeatedly defied United Nations requests and pressure from governments elsewhere in Africa and around the world to permit international intervention in Darfur, saying such action would violate his country’s sovereignty. But on Monday, Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem Mohamad, Sudan’s ambassador to the United Nations, sent a letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the 15 member states of the Security Council saying that Sudan would accept what is known as the “heavy support package” and that it hoped that it would “proceed expeditiously.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/17/world/africa/17nations.html?th&emc=th
Nigeria’s highest court ruled Monday that electoral officials had illegally excluded a top opposition candidate for president, Atiku Abubakar, from the ballot for the presidential election on Saturday. The ruling, a firm rebuke of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s efforts to prevent politicians he says are corrupt from running for office, throws the already chaotic election season in Africa’s most populous nation and largest oil producer into deeper turmoil. The unanimous decision also applies to candidates for governor who were barred from races for suspected corruption in half a dozen states. Those state elections took place last Saturday, amid widespread allegations of fraud and intimidation. The ruling raised fresh doubts about whether the results would stand.
ELECTION REFORM
(I'VE BEEN SAYING FOR OVER A DECADE THAT WE NEED A YEARLY PUBLIC REFERENDUM THAT WE FILL OUT ALONG WITH OUR TAX FORM TO CREATE A CAUSE AND EFFECT RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TAXES AND VOTING, LOOK FOR A FULL-FLEDGED EDITORIAL ABOUT THIS IDEA SOMETIME SOON!)
"Tax reformers who want to highlight the relationship between what Americans pay to the federal government and what they receive in return should advocate moving tax filing day closer to Election Day," writes Kristina Rasmussen, senior government affairs manager for the NTU in Washington, in a new policy brief, "Tax Time Should be Election Time: Moving Tax Filing Day Closer to Election Day." Rasmussen says the current income tax system, with its withholding and refunds, is structured to "to lull taxpayers into complacency."
"There's a disconnect between what we pay for government services and what we get when we pick (our candidates) in November," she says in a phone interview. "We pay for them in April."
By moving tax-filing day from April 15 to the first Monday in November, voters will be forced to link what they pay for government services with what they get in return.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/311833_taxday17.html
THE BUSH WARS
Democrats appear to be standing on firm political ground, as they work toward a final bill. A Washington Post-ABC News poll of 1,141 adults, conducted April 12-15, found that 58 percent trusted the Democrats in Congress to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq, compared with 33 percent who trusted Bush. The president has taken advantage of Congress's spring recess to pound Democrats over their legislation, which would impose benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet; create strict rules for resting, equipping and training combat troops; and set a 2008 date for the final withdrawal of U.S. troops. Despite those efforts, Bush has lost a little ground to Democrats, who in February were trusted by 54 percent to set Iraq policy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601099.html?referrer=email
Over the past six months, American troops have died in Iraq at the highest rate since the war began, an indication that the conflict is becoming increasingly dangerous for U.S. forces even after more than four years of fighting. From October 2006 through last month, 532 American soldiers were killed, the most during any six-month period of the war. March also marked the first time that the U.S. military suffered four straight months of 80 or more fatalities. April, with at least 58 service members killed through Monday, is on pace to be one of the deadliest months of the conflict for American forces. Senior American military officials attribute much of the increase to the Baghdad security crackdown, now in its third month. But the rate of fatalities was increasing even before a more aggressive strategy began moving U.S. troops from heavily fortified bases into smaller neighborhood outposts throughout the capital, placing them at greater risk of roadside bombings and small-arms attacks.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/17087215.htm
Insurgents in Afghanistan killed nearly 700 civilians last year, the largest annual number in more than five years of fighting since the toppling of the Taliban regime, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report issued Monday. The group blamed NATO-led coalition forces for an additional 230 civilian deaths in 2006, though estimates by some Afghan officials and human rights groups put the number much higher. Human Rights Watch said the attacks on civilians by Taliban militants and other insurgents should be considered war crimes because they "intentionally targeted civilian objects that served no military purpose, including schools, buses or bazaars."
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan17apr17,0,5911220.story?track=ntothtml
A suicide bomber struck a group of police officers in the normally peaceful north of Afghanistan on Monday, killing nine policemen and wounding 25, officials said. "According to eyewitnesses, the suicide bomber was wearing a black turban and ran toward our policemen, who were exercising on the main road outside their base, and blew himself up,” said Muhammad Omar, the governor of Kunduz Province. No civilians were harmed, he said.
http://www.nytimes.com:80/2007/04/17/world/asia/17afghan.html?th&emc=th
Can a soldier get used to death? That's what the soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, out of Fort Hood, Tex., are finding out here in an area of eastern Baghdad teeming with snipers and roadside bombs. They are also learning hard lessons about the consequences of President Bush's troop escalation that other battalions have so far been spared. Since U.S. and Iraqi forces began implementing their new Baghdad security plan Feb. 14, nine soldiers from the battalion have been killed. No battalion has had more. Even harder, after a relatively uneventful deployment that began last November, those nine deaths have occurred in the past 32 days.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601510.html?referrer=email
GONZO-GATE CONTINUES SWINGING OPEN
A leading congressional critic accused Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales on Monday of making misleading statements about a conversation with President Bush regarding a U.S. attorney who has said he was fired for political reasons. D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' former chief of staff, told Senate investigators over the weekend that the attorney general told him in early March that he and Bush had discussed U.S. Atty. David C. Iglesias' performance before the November election, Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a briefing with reporters. Gonzales said in a March 26 interview with NBC News that he had no recollection of a meeting with Bush about Iglesias. (and another soldier falls on his sword for the Bush gang) Schumer said Sampson's statement "appeared to contradict" the statement by Gonzales in his television interview.A Justice Department spokesman said Monday that Gonzales continued to have no recollection of the October meeting with Bush. Iglesias was fired about two months later. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usattys17apr17,0,1873302.story?track=ntothtml
Today's blog quote of the day, from Joan Walsh at Salon.com
"... nothing -- no written statement, and no delay of testimony -- can help Gonzales. ABC News reported a few hours ago that his statement is contradicted by e-mail released by the Justice Department, which showed the attorney general himself was gunning for California's Carol Lam months before she was fired. I used to think Gonzales was just an incompetent fall guy for a plot that emanated from Karl Rove's political operation, but it's starting to seem that he's part incompetent fall guy (because he clearly wasn't the mastermind of the whole operation) and part co-conspirator. I'm looking forward to his testimony Thursday bringing out both roles."
http://www.salon.com/opinion/walsh/misc/2007/04/16/va_tech_gonzales/index.html
IN THE UPROAR over the firing of U.S. attorneys, most of the attention has been focused on Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, and it will be again later this week when he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee. But it's increasingly clear that important questions about the firings must be directed to the White House, which inspired the plan, prodded it along and may well have selected at least one target more because of partisan politics than performance.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601442.html?referrer=email
Leading conservatives called for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign Monday, saying he has "brought the rule of law into disrepute" by firing eight U.S. attorneys for questionable reasons. In a letter to Gonzales and President Bush, the American Freedom Agenda, a conservative constitutional rights group, said the attorney general is an "unsuitable steward of the law." Gonzales "has presided over an unprecedented crippling of the Constitution's time-honored checks and balances," wrote five of the group's members, including former Republican Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Fein and Richard Viguerie, a conservative activist and author.
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/04/17/17gonzales.html
'...Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has made trying times at the Justice Department measurably worse with his failed leadership and intellectual rigor and fairness. You now can also believe Daniel Metcalfe, a former Justice Department official who began his career there during the Nixon Administration. Metcalfe this week tells the Legal Times' Tony Mauro that Team Gonzales "shattered" the independence of the Justice Department with short-sighted political policies. "It became quite clear that under Gonzales, the department placed no more than secondary value on the standards that I and my office had valued so heavily for the preceding 25 years -- accuracy, integrity, responsibility and quality of decision-making being chief among them," Metcalfe told Mauro. Do yourself a favor and read the entire interview. It is a fascinating indictment of the Gonzales tenure and ought to put to rest the straw man argument that the Attorney General's critics are only weak-kneed Democrats out for political blood.'
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/benchconference/?referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email
WOLFOWITZ SCANDAL CONTINUES TO TAKE TOLL
"As I write these words, Wolfowitz is still head of the World Bank, the job President Bush chose for him in 2005 as a reward for failure at the Pentagon. But the time for him to be fired has again arrived. Instead of the grand corruption of cooking the Iraq intelligence books, Wolfowitz has been caught in the squalid little impropriety of using his influence to get his World Bank girlfriend a job at the State Department, at a salary that exceeds that of the secretary of state herself. It is all the more ironic in that Wolfowitz made stamping out corruption a World Bank crusade. The real problem with Wolfowitz, however, is that he is a compulsive idealist who cannot see that the price of his ideals may be too high to pay, or that they may do more harm than good."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/04/17/the_problem_that_is_paul_wolfowitz/
MEDIA, THE BLOGS AND THE INTERNET
Yahoo has expanded its alliance with newspaper publishers, adding the McClatchy chain and four other companies to its recently formed online ad-sharing network, executives involved in the initiative said yesterday. The effort now includes 12 publishing companies, representing 264 U.S. newspapers, that have agreed to collaborate with Yahoo in selling advertisements and will feature Yahoo's search engine on their online editions, locking out Internet rival Google. The newspapers will offer their advertisers a chance to buy space on Yahoo's Web site and will accept online display ads sold by Yahoo. (the lines between internet and mainstream journalism continue to blur)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041600540.html?referrer=email
THE ENVIRONMENT
Global warming poses a "serious threat to America's national security" and the military should act now to minimize the destabilizing consequences of rising temperatures, a panel of retired generals and admirals warned Monday. Shortages of food and water could cause weak governments to collapse, increasingly severe natural disasters could draw U.S. forces into humanitarian missions (sure beats going there for wars!) in volatile areas, and melting Arctic ice could spark territorial disputes over shipping routes and natural resources.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-defense17apr17,0,7402227.story?track=ntothtml
The next big thing in hybrid vehicles could be a garbage truck. A combination of fuel cost pressure, pollution problems and promising technology is drawing virtually all the U.S. trucking industry's leading makers and fleet owners to hybrid trucks. The trucks, which convert braking energy into supplementary power, aren't in mass production yet, but that's almost entirely a pricing issue.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/special_packages/good_news/16664603.htm
...67-page report, which examines everything from freshwater ecosystems to tourism, said North America has suffered severe environmental and economic damage because of extreme weather events such as hurricanes, heat waves and forest fires. Without "increased investments in countermeasures," the authors wrote that they are at least 90 percent sure that "hot temperatures and extreme weather are likely to cause increased adverse health impacts from heat-related mortality, pollution, storm-related fatalities and injuries, and infectious diseases." (How inconvenient...)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601546.html?referrer=email
Authorities are searching for poachers who have killed six rare one-horned rhinoceros in the past four months in a protected game reserve in India's northeastern Assam state, the state's chief warden said Tuesday. Two of the animals were killed in the past week inside the famed Kaziranga National Park, a 166-square mile habitat, said M.C. Malakar, Assam state's chief wildlife warden. An increase in poaching has surprised authorities because only five rhinos were killed in 2006 and seven in 2005. "It is clear funds are flowing to attract shooters to kill rhinos for their horns and we can't rule out poaching syndicates within India and from abroad backing this fresh campaign at targeting rhinos in Kaziranga," Malakar told The Associated Press. Rhino horns are in great demand globally, particularly in Southeast Asia, for their alleged efficacy in producing aphrodisiacs and traditional medicines. Some people (Arab princes have a lot of easy oil-cash to trade for the lives of these rare creatures, just to make another knife) also use them to make decorative dagger handles.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1104AP_India_Rhino_Poaching.html
LABOR AND ECONOMIC NEWS
The California Supreme Court handed workers a major victory Monday, in effect tripling the back pay they can seek if they are forced to work through meal and rest breaks required by state law. The long-awaited decision affects hundreds of thousands of white-collar workers in industries such as retail, food service, insurance and banking who are called managers or assistant managers but who spend much of their day ringing up sales, stocking shelves or sweeping the floor alongside the workers they oversee.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-overtime17apr17,0,3338908.story?track=ntothtml
It’s not official, but it’s virtually indisputable. Poverty in America is much more widespread than has been previously acknowledged. According to the Census Bureau, nearly 37 million Americans — 12.6 percent of the population — were living in poverty in 2005. That means that four years into an economic expansion, the percentage of Americans defined as poor was higher than at the bottom of the last recession in late 2001, when it was 11.7 percent. But that’s not the worst of it. Recently, the bureau released 12 alternative measures of poverty, and all but one are higher than the official rate.
http://www.nytimes.com:80/2007/04/17/opinion/17tue4.html?th&emc=th
Sallie Mae, the nation's largest student loan company, announced yesterday that it would be bought by a group of private investors in a $25 billion deal that could reduce public scrutiny of the lender at a time when the student loan industry is under siege. The enormous deal underscores the potential for profit that Wall Street sees in the $85 billion-a-year student loan industry, even as Congress considers slashing billions of dollars in federal loan subsidies and an expanding nationwide probe reveals fresh conflicts of interest in the student lending world.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041600160.html?referrer=email
Fannie Mae, one of the nation's biggest investors in home mortgages, plans to unveil a campaign today that would allow lenders to refinance certain borrowers' homes, and federal regulators expect to release a statement urging mortgage lenders to help financially troubled borrowers hold onto their homes. According to testimony submitted to the House Financial Services Committee, Fannie Mae's chief executive, Daniel H. Mudd, is expected to say that his company is altering its loan products so that lenders can qualify more high-risk borrowers for refinancing. Fannie Mae is targeting adjustable-rate mortgages, which typically offer low teaser rates that increase later. Under a campaign dubbed HomeStay, Fannie Mae would allow lenders it works with to refinance homes without first having to clear up borrowers' unpaid bills on their credit reports.
http://www2.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=352464978493976133&postID=2338882322419919143
Lawmakers praised the Coast Guard's move, saying the service had followed Congress's urgings to rein in the Deepwater contractors. "Ending Coast Guard's reliance on a single private-sector entity to oversee the entire project, increasing transparency and taking back oversight responsibility is critical," said Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who has drafted a bill to revoke the contractors' Deepwater role. "This announcement shows me that the Coast Guard has been listening."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/16/AR2007041601607.html?referrer=email
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Saturday's Morning News
Red text is the "real" headline buried n the article.
Blue text is my own commentary.
Violet text is the blog quote of the day.
PELOSI'S MASTERFUL HAND
Nancy Pelosi knew Earl Blumenauer would be a hard case, but she left two messages on his cellphone anyway. A liberal, bow-tied, bicycle-riding peacenik from Oregon, Blumenauer had voted against the Iraq war and every dollar since to pay for it. He was not about to embrace a bill that threw $100 billion more into the fighting, even if it would force the president to bring the troops home. "I've been trying to get ahold of you," the House speaker said when she caught up with the Portland Democrat in the Capitol's basement. They sat down. She said she empathized with his dilemma — she too had opposed the war from the start and wanted it ended fast. But in her mind the choice was simple: Hand President Bush a victory or hand him a rebuke. "She convinced me," said Blumenauer, whose vote helped give Pelosi her most important legislative victory. "For me, there was no attempt at pressure. I was able to convey my concerns. She was there. She was listening." Pelosi's performance on the war spending bill highlighted what has become her signature: an aggressive leadership style that seeks to put Congress on par with the White House (isn't that what the founders of our nation meant in the first place by creating co-equal branches of government?) and prove that her notoriously fractious party (hey, a big tent is a big tent) can indeed govern. Her style has surprised some in the caucus. (not me) Liberals who expected camaraderie say she's a poor listener, (read; pragmatist) and conservatives who expected a cold shoulder say listening is one of her better skills. (read; statesman extraordinaire)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pelosi14apr14,0,3546220.story?track=ntothtml
BLOG QUOTE OF THE DAY (thanx to Glenn Greenwald and Salon.com)
Norah O'Donnell does not understand why anyone would think that there is reason to believe that the White House and Rove may not be entirely forthcoming when answering the Senators' questions. She literally does not comprehend the general concept of oversight and specifically the rationale as to why someone would be reluctant to place blind trust in the Bush administration's assertions.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/14/various_items/
AFRICA
Heavily armed security forces took to Nigeria's streets Friday on the eve of elections that many people here fear will spark violence across an already tense nation. In a nationally televised address, President Olusegun Obasanjo declared Nigeria ready to begin its two-part election, with races for state governors and legislators on Saturday and a vote for president a week later. But he warned, "The federal government will leave no stone unturned in vigorously checking . . . acts of violence and thuggery."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041302047.html?referrer=email
LABOR UNIONS AND EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP
After five years of multi-billion-dollar losses, airlines began making money in 2006 and executives are cashing in, setting the stage for contentious negotiations with employees whose labor contracts start expiring later this year."It's going to get nasty," said Michael Boyd, an industry consultant. The airlines "have really messed this up. The employees worked hard, gave back and it looks like management is basically saying, 'Thanks for the giveback, suckers.' " At United Airlines Inc., which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February, workers were infuriated when they learned about Chief Executive Glenn Tilton's 2006 shares and options package, potentially worth $38 million. Unions representing United's pilots and flight attendants on Friday urged members who hold stock in the company to vote against management's nominees for the board, including Tilton.
(we need more unions encouraging and enabling employee ownership on a bigger scale, i.e. democracy in the workplace)
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-airlines14apr14,0,4597869.story?track=ntothtml
DOJ DOCUDUMP UNCOVERS MORE DECEPTION BY BUSH ADMINISTRATION
Long before they fired a group of U.S. attorneys, senior White House and Justice Department officials were already discussing some politically connected insiders for their replacements, documents released Friday show. The documents, turned over to congressional investigators in a widening probe of the firings, undercut earlier claims that the prosecutors were terminated for purely performance reasons. They also show that the administration prized attorneys who shared its Republican ideology. For instance, the personnel charts of some prosecutors note their membership in the conservative Federalist Society. (the red badge of shame?)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usattys14apr14,0,497040.story?track=ntothtml
Blue text is my own commentary.
Violet text is the blog quote of the day.
PELOSI'S MASTERFUL HAND
Nancy Pelosi knew Earl Blumenauer would be a hard case, but she left two messages on his cellphone anyway. A liberal, bow-tied, bicycle-riding peacenik from Oregon, Blumenauer had voted against the Iraq war and every dollar since to pay for it. He was not about to embrace a bill that threw $100 billion more into the fighting, even if it would force the president to bring the troops home. "I've been trying to get ahold of you," the House speaker said when she caught up with the Portland Democrat in the Capitol's basement. They sat down. She said she empathized with his dilemma — she too had opposed the war from the start and wanted it ended fast. But in her mind the choice was simple: Hand President Bush a victory or hand him a rebuke. "She convinced me," said Blumenauer, whose vote helped give Pelosi her most important legislative victory. "For me, there was no attempt at pressure. I was able to convey my concerns. She was there. She was listening." Pelosi's performance on the war spending bill highlighted what has become her signature: an aggressive leadership style that seeks to put Congress on par with the White House (isn't that what the founders of our nation meant in the first place by creating co-equal branches of government?) and prove that her notoriously fractious party (hey, a big tent is a big tent) can indeed govern. Her style has surprised some in the caucus. (not me) Liberals who expected camaraderie say she's a poor listener, (read; pragmatist) and conservatives who expected a cold shoulder say listening is one of her better skills. (read; statesman extraordinaire)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pelosi14apr14,0,3546220.story?track=ntothtml
BLOG QUOTE OF THE DAY (thanx to Glenn Greenwald and Salon.com)
Norah O'Donnell does not understand why anyone would think that there is reason to believe that the White House and Rove may not be entirely forthcoming when answering the Senators' questions. She literally does not comprehend the general concept of oversight and specifically the rationale as to why someone would be reluctant to place blind trust in the Bush administration's assertions.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/14/various_items/
AFRICA
Heavily armed security forces took to Nigeria's streets Friday on the eve of elections that many people here fear will spark violence across an already tense nation. In a nationally televised address, President Olusegun Obasanjo declared Nigeria ready to begin its two-part election, with races for state governors and legislators on Saturday and a vote for president a week later. But he warned, "The federal government will leave no stone unturned in vigorously checking . . . acts of violence and thuggery."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041302047.html?referrer=email
LABOR UNIONS AND EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP
After five years of multi-billion-dollar losses, airlines began making money in 2006 and executives are cashing in, setting the stage for contentious negotiations with employees whose labor contracts start expiring later this year."It's going to get nasty," said Michael Boyd, an industry consultant. The airlines "have really messed this up. The employees worked hard, gave back and it looks like management is basically saying, 'Thanks for the giveback, suckers.' " At United Airlines Inc., which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February, workers were infuriated when they learned about Chief Executive Glenn Tilton's 2006 shares and options package, potentially worth $38 million. Unions representing United's pilots and flight attendants on Friday urged members who hold stock in the company to vote against management's nominees for the board, including Tilton.
(we need more unions encouraging and enabling employee ownership on a bigger scale, i.e. democracy in the workplace)
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-airlines14apr14,0,4597869.story?track=ntothtml
DOJ DOCUDUMP UNCOVERS MORE DECEPTION BY BUSH ADMINISTRATION
Long before they fired a group of U.S. attorneys, senior White House and Justice Department officials were already discussing some politically connected insiders for their replacements, documents released Friday show. The documents, turned over to congressional investigators in a widening probe of the firings, undercut earlier claims that the prosecutors were terminated for purely performance reasons. They also show that the administration prized attorneys who shared its Republican ideology. For instance, the personnel charts of some prosecutors note their membership in the conservative Federalist Society. (the red badge of shame?)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-usattys14apr14,0,497040.story?track=ntothtml
As (Paul) pointed out earlier, one of the documents released today apparently catches Kyle Sampson in another bind. And during a conference call with reporters today, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that Sampson had not been fully honest with the committee last month. At issue is whether Sampson gave a false impression when he said that he didn't have "in mind any replacements" for any of the U.S. attorneys who were asked to resign. "He left a clear impression that they did not have people in mind for a replacement," Schumer said, calling it "extremely troubling." "The contradictions continue to pile up.... The issue of replacements now becomes central." (thanx again to Paul Kiel at TPM) http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/
THE BUSH WARS
A platoon of elite Marine Special Operations troops reacted with "excessive force" after an ambush in Afghanistan last month, opening fire on pedestrians and civilian vehicles along a 10-mile stretch of road and killing 12 people -- including a 4-year-old girl, a 1-year-old boy and three elderly villagers -- an investigation by an Afghan human rights commission alleges.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041302171.html?referrer=email
A suicide bomber blew himself up outside an Afghan police headquarters in the east of the country on Saturday, killing at least eight people, officials said. The attack came as the U.S.-led coalition said it had killed 35 Taliban insurgents in fierce fighting two days ago. Seven of those killed in the suicide attack in Khost were border police and the eighth was a civilian, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. Six policemen were also wounded. Taliban commander Mullah Hayatullah Khan told Reuters by telephone his insurgents had carried out the attack. (thanx to Needlenose for the Reuters link) http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyid=2007-04-14T123131Z_01_ISL213969_RTRUKOC_0_US-AFGHAN-VIOLENCE.xml
SPY ON US WHILE YOU CAN, MONKEYBOY
The proposed revisions to FISA would also allow the government to keep information obtained "unintentionally," unrelated to the purpose of the surveillance, if it "contains significant foreign intelligence." Currently such information is destroyed unless it indicates threat of death or serious bodily harm. And they provide for compelling telecommunications companies and e-mail providers to cooperate with investigations while protecting them from being sued by their subscribers. The legal protection would be applied retroactively to those companies that cooperated with the government after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041301932.html?referrer=email
CHENEY HISSES AGAIN
Vice President Cheney (propagandist-in-chief) accused congressional Democrats today of reviving the "far-left platform" of George McGovern from the 1970s, an agenda that he said would raise taxes, declare surrender in an overseas war and leave the United States exposed to new dangers. In a sharp-edged speech, Cheney escalated the Bush administration attack on Congress for passing war spending legislation that would mandate withdrawing at least some U.S. troops from Iraq.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041301980.html?referrer=email
ROVE WATCH
(thanx to Marci Wheeler at The Next Hurrah, author of "Anatomy of Deceit)
So we've learned that Karl Rove does 95% of his emailing on the RNC servers. No word if he spends an equivalent percentage of time on RNC-supplied phones (now that question would clarify why Rove was using the RNC laptop, wouldn't it?). But I'm going to assume, for the moment, that that 95% figure also means Karl Rove perceives 95% of the work he does to be political--to be unrelated to our nation's business. There's only a few conclusions I can draw from that. Either, we're paying Rove $165,200 for 104 hours of work (52X40/20). Or almost $1600/hour. (the high price of our political sado-masochism) Which I'm guessing would rank right off the charts on the government pay scale.
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/04/95.html
Karl Rove's personal attorney yesterday dismissed any suggestion that the White House senior adviser purposely deleted e-mail to evade scrutiny, saying that Rove was always under the impression that his messages were being saved (So, just who actually took the illegal initiative to delete them? Is there another Scooter or Sampson in wings waiting to take the fall?) by either the White House or the Republican National Committee. "He has always understood that his e-mails, that his RNC and campaign e-mails, were being archived from very early in the administration," said Robert D. Luskin.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041302043.html?referrer=email
GROWING WOLFOWITZ WORLD BANK ROMANCE SCANDAL
World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz personally dictated the terms under which the bank gave what it called his "domestic partner" substantial pay raises and promotions in exchange for temporarily leaving her job there during his tenure, according to documents released by the bank's executive board yesterday. The board issued a statement saying it will "move expeditiously to reach a conclusion on possible actions to take," amid rising speculation over whether the embattled Wolfowitz will resign or be asked to step down.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041300788.html?referrer=email
The woman at the center of the storm surrounding World Bank President Paul D. Wolfowitz has spent the past few months trying to get one of the signature efforts of President Bush's Middle East democracy campaign off the ground. The Foundation for the Future, as the effort is called, has made no grants and held only two board meetings since its creation 1 1/2 years ago. Though Shaha Riza, who has been romantically linked to Wolfowitz, is not listed as part of the staff on the organization's Web site, she is the only person working in the group's offices, located within the Henry L. Stimson Center, a think tank. The Washington office is listed as a "branch," according to the site, which promises that soon a main office will be established in Beirut. The United States contributed almost two-thirds of the foundation's $56 million budget, (for one lone employee to manage?) according to the State Department, which said last night that the foundation plans to hire a chief operating officer and chief financial officer next month.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041302172.html?referrer=email
...now it is clear that the chorus of calls in recent days for Mr. Wolfowitz’s ouster is only partly about his involvement in setting up a comfortable job, with a big pay raise, for a bank officer who is Mr. Wolfowitz’s companion. At its core, the fight about whether Mr. Wolfowitz should stay on at the bank is a debate about Mr. Bush and his tumultuous relationship with the rest of the world, particularly the bank, the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which have viewed themselves — at various moments since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 — as being at war with the Bush White House and its agenda.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/washington/14assess.html
THE ENVIRONMENT
The driving season stretching from Memorial Day through Labor Day is known for pinching motorists. But since the devastating hurricanes of 2005, the pain at the pump each year has returned earlier and with a particularly sharp bite, prompting cries from legislators and causing automakers to scramble to produce smaller, fuel-efficient models. (isn't Honda's and Toyota's domination evidence that we have actually been demanding this for decades?) This year, the federal government's Energy Information Administration is predicting that motorists will pay an average of $2.81 a gallon, just six cents less than last summer's steep levels. Others, including James Mulva... of ConocoPhillips, warn that prices could hit an average of $3.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041302126.html?referrer=email
A little over four years ago, when the forces of deregulation were riding high, this page observed that the federal courts could turn out to be the last, best hope for slowing the Bush administration’s assault on the body of bipartisan environmental law established over the last four decades and, by extension, on the environment itself. As things have turned out, this is pretty much what has happened. In the last few weeks alone, federal judges at the district or appellate level have: Rejected efforts to weaken protections for the national forests, including the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest; Overturned a government plan that would have hastened the decline of endangered salmon in the Pacific Northwest; Rebuffed challenges to clean air laws governing pollution from older power plants; Invoked the Clean Water Act to prevent mining companies from laying waste to streams and valleys in Appalachia. In some cases the courts have done more than just play defense. In the Supreme Court ruling on global warming two weeks ago, the court not only protected existing law but aggressively enlarged its reach, (guess who the dissenters were...) ruling that the Clean Air Act all but required the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/opinion/14sat1.html?th&emc=th
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