That Was The Week That Was … disturbing, and full of psycho-sexual tension; the first topic on our Harper’s list is connected to the last, sex and death twisted together by the politics of patriarchy, rape and control. Note the snip of whackadoodle, vapid commentary we’ve come to call ‘a Bushism,’ because it’s the kind of inappropriate response and limited thought process that elucidates the two bonus pieces — new records set by the Dubby and his policies.
Jude
HARPER’S WEEKLY REVIEW
April 22, 2008
Pope Benedict XVI toured the United States. Kathleen
Battle, Harry Connick Jr., and Kelly Clarkson serenaded
him, President George W. Bush gave him a crystal cross and
a birthday cake, Placido Domingo threw him a birthday
party (but forgot to invite him), Jews welcomed him into a
Manhattan synagogue, and fans at Yankee stadium performed
the wave in his honor. Three Girl Scouts fainted in his
presence. The Senate and the House took half a day off so
that more than 100 members of Congress, including House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader John Boehner,
and Senator Edward Kennedy, could take a bus to Nationals
Park, in Washington, D.C., to hear the Pope deliver
Mass. Baker Liturgical Art, LLC, the Connecticut-based
clothing company hired by the Vatican, revealed that more
than 150 artisans (including 50 seamstresses), and 1,500
yards of fabric were necessary to outfit the Pope and his
entourage in new vestments for their 6-day stint in the
United States. Brian Baker, the company’s president, also
created a one-size-fits-all flex-miter for the
occasion. The Pope turned 81, Supreme Court Justice John
Paul Stevens turned 88, and 75-year-old Democratic Senator
John Murtha said that 71-year-old John McCain is too old
to be president. “Let me tell you something,” said
Murtha. “It’s no old man’s job.” Christie’s was unable to
sell the skeleton of a 65-million-year-old, 25-foot-long
triceratops.
Suicide bombers struck in Gaza, Afghanistan, and Iraq. “We
are seeing the globalization of suicide bombs,” said
Mohammed Hafez, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate
School; U.S. officials revealed that suicide bombing was
on the rise, with more than 658 attacks worldwide last
year, double the number in any of the past 25 years. Iraqi
police were cracking down on drivers who neglect to wear
their seatbelts. “It is a symbol of civilization,” said
Ahmed Wahayid, a taxi driver. “Western people in Europe
and America have it.” Ohio Governor Ted Strickland signed
into law a bill that allows disabled hunters to shoot from
their cars. Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard
Dean told superdelegates that they had to decide between
Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton “starting now.”
Bruce Springsteen endorsed Obama. Zodiac Vodka announced
that Obama, a Leo, will defeat Clinton, a Scorpio, in the
race for the Democratic nomination. “Leo has never lost to
a Scorpio,” said the company. “Scorpio, however, has lost
to 11 of the 12 signs.” A German TV station aired segments
from recently discovered top-secret Stasi porno movies
with names like “Private Werner’s Big Surprise” and
“Fucking for the Fatherland.” “I didn’t recognize myself,”
said a former actor/soldier. “Neither did my wife, thank
God.” President Bush and British Prime Minister Gordon
Brown met and discussed the “special relationship” between
the United States and the United Kingdom. “If it wasn’t a
personal relationship,” said Bush, “I wouldn’t be inviting
the man to a nice hamburger or something. Well done, I
might add.” A new study revealed that forgoing beef at
least once a week could drastically curb greenhouse gas
emissions.
A Yale art major convinced the press that her senior
thesis project chronicled the nine months she spent
artificially inseminating herself “as often as possible”
and then repeatedly inducing abortions; a Yale spokeswoman
said that the artist’s claims were false and that the
project was “performance art.” Argentines were upset about
a recent episode of “The Simpsons” in which Homer’s
friends praised “military dictator” Juan Peron for
successfully disappearing people and for his lovely wife,
“Madonna.” “This type of program causes great harm,” said
former congressman Lorenzo Pepe. “That part about
Madonna–that was too much.” Astronomers watched baby
stars being spawned in galaxy M83, more than 15 million
light-years away; a NASA spacecraft captured images of
solar burps spewing from the Sun and ripping the tail off
a passing comet; scientists built a tiny operating table
in order to perform laser nanosurgery on a one millimeter
worm; and researchers tinkering with the genes of female
fruit flies were able to make them produce an alluring
song by vibrating one of their wings, an action previously
seen only in males. A woman hitchhiking from Milan to Tel
Aviv dressed as a bride in order to promote world peace
was raped and strangled in Turkey. “Her travels were for
an artistic performance and to give a message of peace and
trust,” said the artist’s sister, “but not everyone
deserves trust.”
– Claire Gutierrez
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/04/WeeklyReview2008-04-22
Disapproval of Bush breaks record
Susan Page, USA
WASHINGTON - President Bush has set a record he’d presumably prefer to avoid: the highest disapproval rating of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup Poll.In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken Friday through Sunday, 28% of Americans approve of the job Bush is doing; 69% disapprove.
The approval rating matches the low point of his presidency, and the disapproval sets a new high for any president since Franklin Roosevelt.The previous record of 67% was reached by Harry Truman in January 1952, when the United States was enmeshed in the Korean War.
Bush’s rating has worsened amid “collapsing optimism about the economy,” says Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies presidential approval. Record gas prices and a wave of home foreclosures have fueled voter angst.
Bush also holds the record for the other extreme: the highest approval rating of any president in Gallup’s history. In September 2001, in the days after the 9/11 attacks, Bush’s approval spiked to 90%. In another record, the percentage of Americans who say the invasion of Iraq was a mistake reached a new high, 63%, in the latest poll.Assessments of Bush’s presidency are harsh. By 69%-27%, those polled say Bush’s tenure in general has been a failure, not a success.
Low approval ratings make it more difficult for presidents to maneuver, limiting their ability to get legislation passed or boost candidates in congressional elections.
“The president understands war and the slowdown in the economy weigh down public opinion, but the situation in Iraq is improving and the economy is about to get a big boost from the stimulus package,” said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.Bush has had dismal ratings through most of his second term. His approval rating hasn’t reached as high as 50% since May 2005. He’s been steadily below 40% since September 2006.
Views of Bush divide sharply along party lines. Among Republicans, 66% approve and 32% disapprove. Disapproval is nearly universal - 91% - among Democrats. Of independents, 23% approve, 72% disapprove of the job he’s doing. ++
U.S. deficit at record high and rising
The federal deficit hit $311 billion for the first half of fiscal year 2008, up from $162 billion the year before.
Peter Grier, The Christian Science Monitor
April 23, 2008
WASHINGTON - Deficit? What deficit? Three big intersecting events - war in Iraq, the economic downturn, and the presidential race - this year have combined to knock fiscal discipline far down the list of Washington’s policy priorities.
In fact, the federal deficit hit an all-time high of $311 billion for the first half of this budget year, reports the Treasury Department. And Congress is discussing further moves to help distressed homeowners and stimulate the economy. Iraq and Afghanistan will cost at least another $170 billion in supplemental funds through the end of next year.
Given the need, the current rush of spending might be understandable, say some deficit hawks. But they worry that Washington will use recession and war as excuses to stop caring about red ink altogether. They also warn that current deficits leave Washington ill-prepared to face an imminent explosion of spending on Social Security and Medicare caused by retiring baby boomers.
“I’ve spent a professional lifetime worrying about the federal budget and fiscal responsibility. And I’ve never been more worried than now,” said Alice Rivlin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, at a recent Brookings Institution symposium in Washington.
This February, in the president’s annual budget submission to Congress, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) predicted the federal deficit for fiscal year 2008 would come in at $410 billion.
That figure would represent a big jump from the fiscal 2007 deficit of $162 billion, admitted the White House. But, measured as a percentage of the nation’s gross domestic product, $410 billion in red ink is well within recent historical norms, according to administration budget documents. Moreover, the “primary” reasons for the rise would be short term: the cost of the stimulus bill and a slowdown in tax receipts caused by the softening economy.
Fast-forward to April. Treasury figures now show that the deficit is likely to be larger than OMB had anticipated, since it was $311 billion through the first half of the fiscal year alone.
Why the extra red ink? The economy has been even worse than the White House predicted - and Congress increased the size of the stimulus package beyond what the administration wanted.
A 300 percent increase
Tax receipts generally pick up in the summer, so the deficit is unlikely to surpass $600 billion. But $450 billion, or even $500 billion is possible.
“There is no fiscal discipline this year, and they have an excuse to not have any: the economy,” says Stan Collender, managing director of Qorvis Communications and a veteran federal budget expert. “The deficit is going to increase close to 300 percent, and nobody is saying anything.
“Next year, the gap between Uncle Sam’s income and outgo might increase even further. Costs for Iraq and Afghanistan will continue to mount, even if large numbers of troops begin to come home. Congress may rein in the disliked Alternative Minimum Tax, costing the government further revenue. A new president is likely to have new - possibly expensive - priorities. “It’s not hard to come up with a $600 billion [fiscal 2009] deficit,” says Mr. Collender.
The degree to which parsimony is out of fashion in national politics perhaps can be seen in presumptive GOP nominee John McCain’s April 15 speech on his economic proposals. Senator McCain emphasized tax reductions - he proposed eliminating the federal gas tax for the summer, for instance - and did not repeat his previous assurances that he’d balance the budget in his first term in office.
At an April 2 round table hosted by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin suggested that reducing the federal budget “is not an end in itself,” according to a summary of the event published by CRFB. Rather than focusing on red ink, a president should talk about all the important issues related to the budget, including the need to protect US security and help American families, he said.
10,000 new retirees a day
Meanwhile, the baby boomers will become eligible for Social Security this year. That means the long-awaited tsunami of retirees washing into federal entitlement programs is almost upon the US. Over the next two decades, more than 80 million boomers will become eligible for Social Security and Medicare. That’s about 10,000 people per day. By definition, spending for these programs is on auto-pilot. More beneficiaries means higher federal spending - much higher.
Due to entitlements, “without fundamental changes in our tax policy and our spending policy, deficits are going to grow from the rather benign levels that we’ve experienced in the last couple of years to levels that this nation has not experienced in peacetime,” said Robert Reischauer, also a former CBO chief and president of the Urban Institute, at the Brookings symposium.
A bipartisan group of experts organized by Brookings and the Heritage Foundation recommends that Congress enact explicit long-term budgets for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, and set limits on the automatic entitlement spending growth. Such action would force Congress to make trade-offs between entitlements and other fiscal priorities.
“What our proposal does is put those programs on the same playing field, if you like, as other programs,” said Stuart Butler, vice president of domestic and economic studies at the Heritage Foundation. “There should be an orderly discussion about the commitment we make and how money is allocated and so on.” ++
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
April 23rd, 2008
Happy Earth Day – here are some snips, hints and easy reads for you.
While we wait for Pennsylvania to shake out [and do remember that there's no paper trail in this state -- there are already reports of machines malfunctioning and the voting snags warned of yesterday in BradBlog] let’s look at what our favorite veggies are up to — here’s a peek at the indigestion to follow:
* The border fence that kills hopes, dreams and more, with Mike Chertoff the Chili Pepper
* The occupation, with Condi Rice the Radicchio and another “bring it on” moment
* Kids health, thanks to the entire Bushie bitter medley plate
* White House logs and other secrets with Bush the Bell Pepper
* Torture memos with John Yoo the Yau Choy
* HUD housing with newly appointed Steven Preston, crony Parsnip
* The Bell pepper makes Trojan Taco’s on the NAFTA Superhighway
* The Pentagon Peppers salt the airwaves with minions in a Trojan Horse
* Uncle Dick Cheney the Cayenne Pepper celebrates highest-ever oil prices and Halliburton profits
[ok, that's too cute by half but I needed distracting today -- I'm using a friends computer as my own continues to mess with me]
and last …
an article with news not directly attributable to our veggie medley, but certainly from the stock pot that produced them — our kids are illiterate; a quarter of them don’t know who Hitler was and a third of them don’t graduate from high school.
It’s time to clean the fridge and weed the garden, kids.
Jude
Government authority is crossing a line
Raul Reyes, USA Today
Last week, Eloisa Tamez, 73, lost the latest round in her ongoing fight with the U.S. government. A judge ordered her to let Washington survey her land near Brownsville, Texas. It lies in the path of a proposed border fence. Now, Tamez, heir to an original Spanish land grant dating to the 1700s, fears that her property will be seized with good reason.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff recently waived more than 30 laws in order to expedite construction of the border fence. He did so with little regard for the concerns of residents, local officials and environmentalists.
And though the proposed path would cut through the properties of many citizens, it would bypass land owned by the wealthy and politically connected. The Texas Observer reported that the fence would detour around the River Bend Resort and golf course, as well as developments owned by the Hunt family, whose members are major supporters of President Bush. The fence would also cause irreparable damage to wildlife; two Texas nature preserves would wind up in Mexico. They’d likely have to close.
Chertoff maintains that the fence is necessary because Americans have been adamant about border security. Yet two recent polls by CBS and CNN show that Americans rank illegal immigration lowest on their short list of the most pressing national problems.
The fence wouldn’t solve our immigration crisis. It would simply divert crossings to other places along the 2,000 mile border. It would do nothing about the 12 million unauthorized migrants already here. In fact, nearly half of all illegal immigrants entered the country legally and overstayed their visas, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Texas Gov. Rick Perry is right in assessing the fence as a waste of money.
Moreover, Congress has ceded too much power to Chertoff. In 2005, it granted him the authority to waive laws while prohibiting federal appeals courts from reviewing his decisions, undermining the system of checks and balances enshrined in our Constitution. Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club have filed petitions with the Supreme Court challenging the legality of the waiver. I hope the court accepts the case and voids the grant of power.
Alternatively, Congress should revoke this power because it is being abused.
In the meantime, Chertoff has free rein to destroy fragile ecosystems, flout our laws and trample on the rights of citizens like Tamez. How sad that we are willing to undermine our Constitution for an expensive, wasteful monument to American insecurity.
Raul Reyes is an attorney in New York and a member of USA TODAY’s board of
contributors.
Snipped from Juan Coles “Informed Comment” blog
[Condi] Rice has her ‘bring’em on moment’ in Iraq, talking trash to the Mahdi Army and calling Muqtada al-Sadr a ‘coward.’ Muqtada al-Sadr eluded Saddam Hussein for 4 years after Saddam killed his father and two elder brothers; and in 2004 he twice took on the US military. He may be a lot of things, but he is not a coward. Has Rice ever said anything about Iraq that was true or useful? Even as she was talking up ‘improved security’ in Baghdad, mortar shells were falling about her in the Green Zone…
President Is Rebuffed on Program for Children
ROBERT PEAR, NYT
April 19, 2008
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration violated federal law last year when it restricted states’ ability to provide health insurance to children of middle-income families, and its new policy is therefore unenforceable, lawyers from the Government Accountability Office said Friday.
The ruling strengthens the hand of at least 22 states, including New York and New Jersey, that already provide such coverage or want to do so. And it significantly reduces the chance that the new policy can be put into effect before President Bush leaves office in nine months.
At issue is the future of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, financed jointly by the federal government and the states. Congress last year twice passed bills to expand the popular program, and Mr. Bush vetoed both.
State officials of both parties say the policy, set forth in a letter to state health officials on Aug. 17, has stymied their efforts to cover more children at a time when the number of uninsured is rising and more families are experiencing economic hardship.
In a formal legal opinion Friday, the accountability office said the new policy “amounts to a marked departure” from a longstanding, settled interpretation of federal law. It is therefore a rule and, under a 1996 law, must be submitted to Congress for review before it can take effect, the opinion said.
But Jeff Nelligan, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said, “G.A.O.’s opinion does not change our conclusion that the Aug. 17 letter is still in effect.”
The letter told states what steps they needed to take to be sure the children’s health program would not displace or “crowd out” private coverage under group health plans. The White House cited the policy as a justification for rejecting a proposal by New York State to cover 70,000 additional youngsters,
What happens next is not clear. New York, New Jersey and several other states have filed lawsuits challenging the Bush administration policy. In addition, Congress may consider legislation to suspend the directive.
Deborah S. Bachrach, a deputy commissioner in the New York State Health Department, said, “The opinion from the Government Accountability Office vindicates our position that the federal government did not have authority to issue the Aug. 17 directive.”
The 1996 law, the Congressional Review Act, was enacted to keep Congress informed about the rule-making activities of federal agencies. If Congress objects to a new rule, it can pass “a joint resolution of disapproval,” which the president can sign or veto.
Under the Aug. 17 directive, states cannot expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program to cover youngsters with family incomes over 250 percent of the federal poverty level ($53,000 for a family of four) unless they can prove that they already cover 95 percent of eligible children below twice the poverty level ($42,400).
Moreover, in such states, children who lose or drop private coverage must be uninsured for 12 months before they can enroll in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and co-payments in the public program must be similar to those in private plans.
The legal opinion was requested by Senators John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia, and Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine. In view of it, they urged the administration to rescind the Aug. 17 directive.
The administration told states they must comply with the directive by August of this year or else they face “corrective action.” Compliance could mean cutting back programs.
The Justice Department contends that the letter is “merely a general statement of policy with nonbinding effect,” But Gary L. Kepplinger, general counsel of the accountability office, said administration officials had treated it as “a binding rule.”
Bush determined to hide visitor logs from public
President Bush: Right to know? The American public has no rights
Capital Hill Blue
April 21, 2008
President George W. Bush, the most secretive President in history, will fight to keep White House visitor logs secret.
A decision to challenge a court ruling that says the logs are public record is “business as usual” for Bush, who believes the actions of his administration are above the law and not subject to public view.
Bush’s modus operandi in such matters is to stonewall until time, or his term in office, runs out. It often works and even when it doesn’t work, Bush simply ignores the will of the courts or the rule and law and does whatever he damn well please.
That’s the Bush way and Bush has pretty much had things his way for the past seven years.
Few expect it to be any different this time around.
Reports The Associated Press:
The Bush administration is challenging a court ruling that White House visitor logs are public documents, saying releasing the records would infringe on the separation of powers.
White House documents are normally exempt from public records laws, but a federal judge ruled in December that Secret Service visitor logs must be released. The court sided with a liberal watchdog group that sought records showing visits by prominent religious conservatives to the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s residence.
The Bush administration appealed and lawyers were scheduled to argue the case Monday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Government lawyers argue the president and vice president must be able to receive visitors and solicit advice privately. They portrayed the request for Secret Service records as an end-around, saying those same logs maintained by the White House would never be considered public documents.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington wants to use the Secret Service documents to show the influence religious conservatives have on the Bush administration. The government argues that proves the records are related to the White House, not to the workings of the Secret Service, and should not be released.
“The prospect of each and every appointment record immediately becoming the subject of forced public disclosure would surely cast a chill over the ability of the president and vice president to collect information and advice,” Justice Department lawyers wrote in court documents.
CREW lawyers reject that argument. They say the documents shouldn’t be considered White House records simply because a watchdog group is trying to find out what the White House is up to. The Secret Service created and controlled the documents, the lawyers said, so they should be public.
Nearly two dozen news organizations, including The Associated Press, filed court documents supporting the release of the Secret Service logs.
Which came first: memos or torture?
John Yoo’s legal opinions and questions about culpability and timing.
Scott Horton, LA Times
April 21, 2008
John C. Yoo likes the limelight, but it’s causing him some grief. Of the half a dozen lawyers who played important roles in a Bush administration decision to legalize the use of highly coercive interrogation techniques, only Yoo has emerged as the public face — and target — related to the policy.
In 2002 and 2003, Yoo was second in command at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and wrote two memos, one for Alberto R. Gonzales and one for the Pentagon, that provided broad legal authority for the use of extreme measures in the questioning of wartime detainees. In one famous phrase, the memo to Gonzales concluded that only techniques “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death,” could be considered torture. The 81-page Pentagon memo, declassified April 1, contained similar language and added fuel to the fire over torture and the White House. Through it all, Yoo has defended his position in the media.
Yoo is now a tenured professor at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall. Recently, the National Lawyers Guild launched a campaign to have him fired because of his role in the torture issue. This move has touched off a controversy, especially among legal academics concerned about tenure and academic freedom. Boalt Hall Dean Christopher Edley Jr. posted a response on the school’s website in which he criticized the torture memos but defended Yoo: He was merely a “legal advisor”; real culpability rested with those who directed or implemented the administration’s program, not with Yoo. Edley saw no basis on which Yoo could be charged with a crime. He quoted university guidelines under which the “commission of a criminal act which has led to conviction in a court of law” provides the basis for dismissal of a tenured professor.
It’s easy to understand the concern that academics have. If Yoo were fired on the strength of a public outcry about his ideas on torture, it could send a chill through academia. America’s strengths as a nation include the preservation of an atmosphere in higher education that encourages the free expression of ideas, even radical and highly unpopular ones.
But does academic freedom really sit at the heart of this controversy? It’s not Yoo’s ideas in an academic setting that give rise to his current problems but his conduct as a government lawyer. Yoo says that he was asked his opinion about technical legal issues related to interrogation and detainee treatment during wartime, and he gave it his best shot. He also argues that he strained to give policymakers and actors the greatest possible latitude in which to manage a difficult conflict. But he only advised and theorized; others took the decision to implement the program.
But Yoo’s account of how and why the torture memos were crafted may not hold up. Congress is preparing hearings into the subject, and they have invited Yoo to testify. International law scholar Philippe Sands and other writers have punched holes in Yoo’s claims about the facts. It
increasingly appears that the Bush interrogation program was already being used before Yoo was asked to write an opinion. He may therefore have provided after-the-fact legal cover. That would help explain why Yoo strained to take so many implausible positions in the memos.
It also appears that government lawyers had told Bush administration officials that some of the techniques already in use were illegal, even criminal. In fact, a senior Pentagon lawyer described to me exchanges he had with Yoo in which he stressed that those using the techniques could face prosecution. Yoo notes in his Pentagon memo that he communicated with the Criminal Division of the Justice Department and got assurances that prosecutions would not be brought. The question becomes, was Yoo giving his best effort at legal analysis, or was he attempting to protect the authors of the program from criminal investigation and prosecution?
In any case, Yoo kept the program running. Even the man who came in to run the Office of Legal Counsel after Yoo’s departure, Jack Goldsmith, has written that he understood Yoo’s project this way. Goldsmith also rescinded Yoo’s memos.
According to Human Rights First, more than 100 people have died in U.S. detention in the war on terrorism. It documented 11 cases where the deaths resulted from coercive interrogation techniques, and others where there was at least some connection. Yoo insists that there is no relationship between the deaths and his advice, because he didn’t set policy or carry it out, he merely offered a legal opinion. But had he refused to give the opinion that was sought, the program might have been suspended and some of those detainees might be alive.
Much of the legal work surrounding the torture memos was done in the shadows. It’s possible that when all the facts about their preparation and use come out, Yoo will be exonerated. But the criminal law and ethical issues surrounding his work on the memos are very serious.
Is it right to say that lawyers dispensing bad advice in memos face no liability for what happens when people act in reliance on them? At the end of World War II, the U.S. took a different view in one narrow area. When the legal advice had to do with the treatment of detainees in wartime, the U.S. argued, lawyers had to adhere closely to the law or face prosecution.
In one case, two German Justice Ministry lawyers were charged and sentenced to 10 years in prison for giving advice that allowed the creation of a special internment system for suspected insurgents. Their advice was close to that dispensed by Yoo.
The Bush administration came to Washington promising a culture of accountability. In this area, as in so many others, it has delivered just the opposite.
New York attorney Scott Horton teaches at Columbia Law School.
HUD Watch
Snipped from Froomkin, WaPo
Michael Abramowitz and Carol Leonnig write in The Washington Post:
“President Bush yesterday named Steven C. Preston as his new secretary of Housing and Urban Development, installing a well-regarded corporate and government administrator — yet one with little experience in housing issues — as his point person in dealing with the consequences of the subprime mortgage meltdown. . . .
“The selection of Preston drew a mixed response. Those who have worked with him on small-business issues appeared impressed. . . .
“But consumer advocates and some other housing experts appeared surprised by the selection. Howard Glaser, a consultant and former HUD official in the Clinton administration, predicted Preston would be a ‘caretaker’ until the next administration arrives.
“‘Installing someone at HUD who continues to have no expertise in housing is a major flaw,’ he said. ‘We’ve gone through this entire crisis without any significant leadership from HUD, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to change.’”
José Can You See? Bush’s Trojan Taco
Greg Palast, TomPaine via OurFuture
Monday, April 21, 2008
Psst! George Bush has a secret.
While you Democrats are pounding each other to a pulp in Pennsylvania, the President has snuck back down to New Orleans for a meeting of the NAFTA Three: the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of Mexico.
You’re not supposed to know that - for two reasons:
First, the summit planned for the N.O. two years back was meant to showcase the rebuilt Big Easy, a monument to can-do Bush-o-nomics. Well, it is a monument to Bush’s leadership: The city still looks like Dresden 1946, with over half the original residents living in toxic trailers or wandering lost and broke in America.
The second reason Bush has kept this major summit a virtual secret is its real agenda. More important, the agenda-makers, the guys who called the meeting, must remain as far out of camera range as possible: The North American Competitiveness Council.
Never heard of The Council? Well, maybe you’ve heard of the counselors: the chief executives of Wal-Mart, Chevron Oil, Lockheed-Martin and 27 other multinational masters of the corporate universe.
And why did the landlords of our continent order our presidents to a three-nation pajama party? Their term is “harmonization.”
Harmonization has nothing to do with singing in fifths like Simon and Garfunkel. Harmonization means making rules and regulations the same in all three countries. Or, more specifically, watering down rules - on health, safety, labor rights, oil drilling, polluting and so on - in other words, any regulations that get between The Council members and their profits.
Take for example, pesticides. Wal-Mart and agri-business don’t want to reduce the legal amount of poison allowed in what you eat. Solution: “harmonize” US and Canadian pesticide standards to Mexico’s.
Can they do that? Can Bush just say, “Eat your peas - even if they’re radioactive?” Under NAFTA, at least the way George Bush reads it (or has it read to him), he can. At any rate, he does.
The three chiefs of state will meet privately with the thirty corporate chiefs where they are also expected to legally erase more of our borders, to expand the “NAFTA highway.” Technically, the NAFTA highway is a set of legal rules governing transcontinental shipment. Some fear NAFTA highway expansion will allow a new flood of cheap Mexican products into the US and Canada. Not so. Their hunger to expand the NAFTA highway is to bring in even cheaper Chinese goods.
Say what?
As trade expert Maud Barlow explained to me, the new “NAFTA highway” will allow Chinese stuff dumped into Mexico to be hauled northward as duty-free “Mexican” products. That’s one of the quiet agendas of this “Summit for Security and Prosperity,” the official Orwellian name for this meet. Think of the SSP “harmonization” as the Trojan Taco of trade.
Barlow is Chairwoman of the Council of Canadians. She is known as the “Ralph Nader of Canada” (not Nader version 2.0, The Spoiler Candidate, but Nader version 1.0, the consumer advocate). Because Americans are too distracted by the Punch-and-Judy primaries to complain about this lobby-fest on the bayou, Canadian Barlow is leading street protests against this greed-grab.
I caught up with this courageous Canadian (I’ve seen her face down corporate bullying we can’t imagine in the US) on her way down to New Orleans. Barlow’s particular concerns are first, the NSS agreement promotes a five-fold increase in the mining of Canadian tar sands for import, as liquid crude oil, into the USA, an idea filthier than a re-make of Debbie Does Dallas.
“This is an insane model of development,” she says, especially given Bush’s recent claim that he wants to slow global warming.
Bush himself is pushing his Canadian and Mexican counterparts to adopt US-style “Homeland Security” measures so that, says Barlow, “we’ll all be zip-locked together in one security bag.”
There will be other anti-SSP protesters in New Orleans as well, from America’s populist Right. They are concerned that the Security and Prosperity Summit is worse than the “NAFTA on steroids” that Barlow fears.
The populists see in the SPP a nascent “North American Union,” and the elimination of the good old US of A.
They’re wrong, of course. The U.S. of A. has been long eliminated, at least economically. The Competitiveness Council is a multinational crew, with one shared set of country clubs, beach homes, art collections, union busters and lobbyists knowing no borders.
The populist radio hosts railing against the coming North American Union don’t realize that these CEOs won’t take away their flags or Fourth of July or Star-Spangled Banner. The rags and flags will always be kept around to con the schmucks along the Yahoo Belt into donating their children to the Iraq Occupation or other misadventures. A billionaire like Carlos Slim, the richest man on the planet (sorry, Mr. Gates), didn’t buy the Mexican government to “protect” his nation from Gringos but to protect his media monopoly.
So there is no United States of America nor Canada nor Mexico - at least as we like to imagine ourselves in our national fairy tales: self-governing democracies run by we the people or nosotros el pueblo. There’s just the diktats of the North American Prosperity Council. Get used to it.
Barlow said that the US Ambassador to Canada told her the legal changes wrought in New Orleans will not be put before the three national Congresses for a vote. “We don’t want to open up another NAFTA.” So, they’ll skip the voting stuff. Democracy is so, like, 20th Century.
Is Bush just a reluctant participant in this “harmonizing” of our economic fate? The meetings are secret, so I can’t say for sure. But I note that, at the opening ceremony, if you read his lips, you can see our president singing the national anthem as, “José, can you see?”
The Pentagon’s Corrupt Sock Puppet ‘Military Analysts’ Exposed
Gareth Porter, HuffPo via CommonDreams
Monday, April 21, 2008
In Sunday’s New York Times, investigative reporter David Barstow exposes television’s “military analysts” on the Iraq War as sock puppets of the Pentagon who consciously peddle the Bush administration’s talking points on Iraq while hiding their own vested economic interest in selling the public on the Bush administration’s happy talk about the war.
This very long and very well-documented story lays bare the most blatantly obnoxious feature of the “Military-Industrial-Media Complex” which ensures that the airwaves convey the administration’s major messages on the war day in a day out. The story should mobilize the blogosphere and news media figures who still have some integrity to demand immediate reform of a massively corrupt network system of covering military affairs.
For starters, the networks should be forced to fire every “military analyst” who has been recruited accepted all-expenses-paid trips to Iraq, uncritically mouthed the administration talking points while concealing their special relationship or maintained vested financial interests in Pentagon contracts through business relationships with contractors.
Based on 8,000 pages of email messages, transcripts and records, Barstow recounts a successful effort by Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon to use retired military officers to create a “media Trojan horse” on the Iraq War. Not only did the “military analysts” routinely violate basic ethical standards of journalism by accepting trips completely arranged and paid for the administration; they were consciously participating in its strategy to manipulate public opinion by regurgitating the pro-war arguments they were given in top-level official briefings - which they had to promise to keep secret.
But even worse, Barstow shows how they had a personal financial stake in parroting the administration’s war propaganda. He reports that several dozen military analysts who appear constantly on Fox, CNN and other networks and invariably support the administration’s line “represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants.”
Even when they knew they were being fed Pentagon BS, these agents of the war system could not utter a critical word about administration policy. They were afraid of retribution from Pentagon officials who could affect contracts for which their companies were competing. One corrupted former television analyst told Barstow he refrained from even the slightest criticism of the Pentagon’s policies because of the fear “some four-star could call up and say, ‘Kill that contract.’”
Several of these officers told Barstow that even the “mildest criticism” would bring telephone calls expressing official displeasure within minutes of being on the air. When one analyst went so far as to say that the United States was “not on a good glide path right now” in Iraq, the Pentagon immediately “fired” him from the analysts group which had received privileged access to high-ranking administration officials.
In the most egregious cases, such as retired Air Force general Thomas G. McInerney of Fox News, “analysts” operated just like employees of the Pentagon. McInenery assured the Pentagon in an e-mail in late 2006 that he would use in his on-air appearances the latest talking points that he had just been given.
The story of the Pentagon’s “media Trojan horse” should bring overwhelming public pressure for the immediate termination of any “military analyst” who has been compromised by links with the Pentagon and/or its business allies. The television networks should adopt transparent rules about who can and can’t be hired as analysts on military issues that would keep out paid agents of the war system. Unfortunately the networks themselves appear to be such an integral part of that system that they couldn’t care less about conflicts of interest.
Halliburton Profit Rises After Oil Climbs to Record
Jim Kennett, Bloomberg
April 21
Halliburton Co., the world’s second-largest oilfield contractor, said profit rose 5.8 percent after crude topped $100 a barrel, prompting producers to increase spending on Middle East and Latin American projects.
First-quarter net income climbed to $584 million, or 64 cents a share, from $552 million, or 54 cents, a year earlier, the Houston-based company said today in a statement.
The number of drilling rigs active outside North America rose 6.5 percent as New York oil futures traded 68 percent higher than a year earlier. Revenue jumped 18 percent to $4.03 billion as sales gains outside North America made up for pricing pressures in the U.S., Halliburton said.
“The story with Halliburton is international, and the international story is supported by sharply higher oil prices,” said Gene Pisasale, who helps oversee $25 billion in assets, including about 682,000 Halliburton shares, at PNC Capital Advisors in Baltimore. “That bodes well for international exploration, much of which is oil-oriented.”
Competition from rival oilfield contractors is affecting the prices Halliburton can charge on long-term projects in such markets as the Middle East and West Africa, Chief Executive Officer David Lesar told investors on a conference call. Losing a bid can mean the company is out of business in that region for a number of years, he said.
Margin Concerns
Those comments and concern over rising diesel costs, which are narrowing profit margins on some well services, held back Halliburton’s shares today, said Mark Urness, an analyst at Calyon Securities USA Inc. in New York.
Halliburton rose 3 cents to $47.46 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. All but five companies in the 15- member Philadelphia Oil Service Sector Index had bigger gains. Schlumberger Ltd., the biggest oilfield contractor, climbed 5 percent.
Halliburton’s per-share profit matched the average of 10 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Earnings from the company’s largest division, which helps clients maximize production from established fields, rose 11 percent.
Demand strength in the Middle East and Latin America made up for a 2 percent decline in North American business and a “relatively flat” environment in Europe, Africa and the former Soviet Union, Halliburton said.
`Next Leg Up’
Lesar, 54, said more demand growth is coming. “The fundamentals of the world oil and gas market are projecting that the next leg up in the extended cycle is near,” he said in the statement.
Schlumberger, based in Houston and Paris, on April 18 reported a 13 percent gain in first-quarter net income. Baker Hughes Inc., the No. 3 oilfield-services company, is scheduled to report its results tomorrow.
Halliburton’s profit from drilling and evaluation services climbed 6.1 percent. The segment includes drill-bits, drilling fluids and directional drilling, which allows a customer to change the direction of a well to target a reservoir.
Worldwide, the number of active rigs rose 2.4 percent from a year earlier, with most of the gains occurring in South America and the Eastern Hemisphere, according to a count by Baker Hughes. North American drilling activity climbed 1.4 percent, driven by a 2.1 percent increase in the U.S.
International Expansion
Halliburton is adding research and training centers from Russia to Singapore as it diversifies away from North America, which accounted for 47 percent of revenue last year. U.S. and Canadian business is dominated by regional natural-gas markets, where weather can cause prices to surge or plummet.
Lesar splits his time between the U.S. and Halliburton’s regional corporate headquarters in Dubai. The Eastern Hemisphere accounted for 41 percent of Halliburton’s first-quarter revenue. Lesar has said he’d like the region ultimately to account for half of sales.
Halliburton derived 54 percent of its profit from North America in the first quarter, down from 58 percent a year earlier. Latin American operations had a 45 percent increase in earnings. Brazil’s recent deepwater discoveries, fields called Tupi and Carioca, will fuel increased spending by oil companies, PNC’s Pisasale said.
“With the recent developments in Brazil, you’re going to see a lot more activity down there,” he said. “The Tupi and the Carioca discoveries, which are particularly huge, multibillion-barrel fields, bode well for service companies like Halliburton and Schlumberger.”
State Oil Companies
Overseas work is being driven by government-owned oil companies that increasingly hire Halliburton and other services providers to do work previously done by international oil companies like Exxon Mobil Corp. Service companies work under contracts, while oil companies take a stake in the field being developed.
Halliburton’s work with state oil companies includes a three-year contract to drill wells at Saudi Arabia’s massive Khurais project and a three-year deal with Mexico awarded in January. Today, the company announced a contract for the offshore portion of Saudi Arabia’s Manifa oil project.
Halliburton is the largest oilfield contractor in North America and the largest provider of so-called pressure pumping, which injects water or sand into rock formations to make gas flow more easily.
Increased competition cut into pricing for pressure pumping, or fracturing as it is sometimes called, in the past two quarters, according to Halliburton.
Clueless in America
BOB HERBERT, NYT
April 22, 2008
We don’t hear a great deal about education in the presidential campaign. It’s much too serious a topic to compete with such fun stuff as Hillary tossing back a shot of whiskey, or Barack rolling a gutter ball.
The nation’s future may depend on how well we educate the current and future generations, but (like the renovation of the nation’s infrastructure, or a serious search for better sources of energy) that can wait. At the moment, no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S.
An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life — and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day.
Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900.
“We have one of the highest dropout rates in the industrialized world,” said Allan Golston, the president of U.S. programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a discussion over lunch recently he described the situation as “actually pretty scary, alarming.”
Roughly a third of all American high school students drop out. Another third graduate but are not prepared for the next stage of life — either productive work or some form of post-secondary education.
When two-thirds of all teenagers old enough to graduate from high school are incapable of mastering college-level work, the nation is doing something awfully wrong.
Mr. Golston noted that the performance of American students, when compared with their peers in other countries, tends to grow increasingly dismal as they move through the higher grades:
“In math and science, for example, our fourth graders are among the top students globally. By roughly eighth grade, they’re in the middle of the pack. And by the 12th grade, U.S. students are scoring generally near the bottom of all industrialized countries.”
Many students get a first-rate education in the public schools, but they represent too small a fraction of the whole.
Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, offered a brutal critique of the nation’s high schools a few years ago, describing them as “obsolete” and saying, “When I compare our high schools with what I see when I’m traveling abroad, I am terrified for our work force of tomorrow.”
Said Mr. Gates: “By obsolete, I don’t just mean that they are broken, flawed or underfunded, though a case could be made for every one of those points. By obsolete, I mean our high schools — even when they’re working as designed — cannot teach all our students what they need to know today.”
The Educational Testing Service, in a report titled “America’s Perfect Storm,” cited three powerful forces that are affecting the quality of life for millions of Americans and already shaping the nation’s future. They are:
• The wide disparity in the literacy and math skills of both the school-age and adult populations. These skills, which play such a tremendous role in the lives of individuals and families, vary widely across racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups.
• The “seismic changes” in the U.S. economy that have resulted from globalization, technological advances, shifts in the relationship of labor and capital, and other developments.
• Sweeping demographic changes. By 2030, the U.S. population is expected to reach 360 million. That population will be older and substantially more diverse, with immigration having a big impact on both the population as a whole and the work force.
These and so many other issues of crucial national importance require an educated populace if they are to be dealt with effectively. At the moment we are not even coming close to equipping the population with the intellectual tools that are needed.
While we’re effectively standing in place, other nations are catching up and passing us when it comes to educational achievement. You have to be pretty dopey not to see the implications of that.
But, then, some of us are pretty dopey. In the Common Core survey, nearly 20 percent of respondents did not know who the U.S. fought in World War II. Eleven percent thought that Dwight Eisenhower was the president forced from office by the Watergate scandal. Another 11 percent thought it was Harry Truman.
We’ve got work to do.
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
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April 22nd, 2008