27-30 November 2003

Seniors Skeptical Of Medicare Bill
Many Expect No Break on Cost of Pills
By Manuel Roig-Franzia
Washington Post, 29 November 2003
EXCERPT: "It's a fake -- no hope as far as I can see," said Charles Rudnick, 89, as he strolled down the Lincoln Road outdoor mall, arm-in-arm with his girlfriend, Naomi Liegner. "The drug companies are ruining the elderly with their prices." The Medicare bill on its way to President Bush promises federal help to pay for prescription drugs and invites private companies into the Medicare insurance market. But many seniors are suspicious. They don't trust the politicians. They don't trust the drug companies, and many -- stunningly -- are looking with jaundiced eyes at AARP, the powerful lobbying group for people 50 and older that threw its considerable weight behind the legislation to the dismay of many of its members. "Bush has conned the rest of the public into thinking it's for their benefit," said Sanford Goodman, 76, who retired to Palm Beach after practicing as a chiropractor in New York. "Over the long-term period, it's going to cost the retiree a lot more for their drugs." The Medicare bill was greeted by made-for-television moments in Florida. Seniors chanted and sliced up their AARP membership cards at a rally outside a Palm Beach retirement complex. Even Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), a longtime ally of AARP who has announced that he will soon join the ranks of Florida retirees, criticized the group's backing of the Republican-sponsored plan.

America's Enemy Within
Armed checkpoints, embedded reporters in flak jackets, brutal suppression of peaceful demonstrators. Baghdad? No, Miami
By Naomi Klein
The Guardian, 26 November 2003
EXCERPT: In December 1990, President George Bush Sr travelled through South America to sell the continent on a bold new dream: "A free trade system that links all of the Americas." Addressing the Argentine Congress, he said that the plan, later to be named the Free Trade Area of the Americas, would be "our hemisphere's new declaration of interdependence the brilliant new dawn of a splendid new world." Last week, Bush's two sons joined forces to try to usher in that new world by holding the FTAA negotiations in Florida. This is the state that Governor Jeb Bush vowed to "deliver" to his brother during the 2000 presidential elections, even if that meant keeping many African-Americans from exercising their right to vote. Now Jeb was vowing to hand his brother the coveted trade deal, even if that meant keeping thousands from exercising their right to protest.

26 November 2003

Conservatives Work to Destroy Norms of the American Democratic Process Government by Juggernaut Washiongton Post, 25 November 2003 EXCERPT: The House Republicans' manipulation of the Medicare vote was characteristic of the bullying, win-by-any-means style that has become the congressional norm. More than at any time during their nine years in control, congressional Republicans have been unabashed in their exercise of raw political power. However poisonous relations between the parties were heading into the 108th Congress, this session has witnessed levels of partisanship unhealthy not only for both sides but for the people they're supposed to represent. Hardball isn't new to politics; Democrats happily employed the rules to their advantage when they held power, and, in the Senate, where the minority has greater protections, they still do. Republicans once clamored for fair treatment and railed against their subjugation at Democratic hands. But their use of the rules to impose their will is making the Democrats look benevolent by comparison. "The Republicans had better hope that the Democrats never regain the majority," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said the day after the House Medicare vote. [BWUSA emphasis] SEE ALSO: ...And Mischief (WP) "Democracy is a fragile web of laws, rules and norms. The norms are just as important to the legitimacy of the system as the rules. Blatant violations of them on a regular basis corrode the system. The ugliness of this one will linger." SEE ALSO: Medicare Vote Got Surreal in House (MSNBC) SEE ALSO: Deal on TV Cap Fractures Coalition (LA Times) "The Republicans went into a closet, met with themselves and announced a 'compromise,' " SEE ALSO: Republican Aide Improperly Got Democratic Memos (Reuters) SEE ALSO:   Audio Link   "Ideological March" Diane Rehm Show - Congressional Update 26 Nov 2003 Political analysts join Diane to talk about the recent frenzied days in Congress including the vote on Medicare reform legislation and the delay on the energy bill. Guests: Charlie Cook, editor and publisher of the "Cook Political Report" Tom Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution Norm Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute

Some Experts Foresee Revolt by Elderly Over Drug Benefits
By GARDINER HARRIS
New York Times, 26 November 2003
EXCERPT: With good intentions and bright advisers, Congress overwhelming passed legislation in 1988 that would insure the elderly against catastrophic medical expenses, including crushing drug costs. But affluent retirees quickly concluded that they were being asked to pay for something that their employers already gave. They rose in revolt. Congress repealed the legislation within months. Some experts envision a similar fate for the Medicare drug benefit that the Senate sent to President Bush's desk yesterday. The legislation provides billions in tax incentives to discourage employers from dropping the drug benefits that they provide to about 11 million retirees. But if, as pessimists expect, many large employers calculate that the incentives are not enough, millions more retirees than Congress expects will watch as their relatively rich private drug benefits are replaced by the government's more meager package.

Republicans Urge Inquiry of Head Start
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
New York Times, 26 November 2003
EXCERPT: Facing an increasingly raw fight over the future of Head Start, Congressional Republicans asked the General Accounting Office today to examine the federal government's financial oversight of the program, which serves almost one million preschoolers who live in poverty. The request follows reports of mismanagement at more than a dozen Head Start centers around the country, several of which have been highlighted by House Republicans who had sought to transfer control of Head Start to the states. A limited version of the House bill to reauthorize Head Start, which would have permitted eight states to take over their Head Start programs, did not survive in the Senate bill. Today's request, made in a letter to David Walker, comptroller general of the accounting office, did not mention specific accusations of fraud or abuse, and stopped short of requesting a full-scale audit. But it asked the agency, the investigative arm of Congress, to "examine the functioning of Head Start program monitoring and financial controls." Sarah Greene, president of the National Head Start Association, which represents Head Start providers nationwide, criticized the Republicans for what she called "a smoke and mirrors campaign" intended to discredit Head Start providers. The group released the results of a survey it had done showing that Head Start teachers earned average salaries of $21,000 a year, less than half the average kindergarten teacher's salary of $43,000. "If you're looking for statistics that are actually shocking here, that's the real scandal," Ms. Greene said.

25 November 2003

Anarchy and the FBI
By Mickey Z
ZNet, 24 November 2003
EXCERPT: In a November 23, 2003 piece entitled, "F.B.I. Scrutinizes Antiwar Rallies," New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau broke the rather unsurprising news with this lead: "The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squads, according to interviews and a confidential bureau memorandum." Representing the land of the free, F.B.I. officials told Lichtblau the comforting news that the "intelligence-gathering effort was aimed at identifying anarchists and 'extremist elements' plotting violence, not at monitoring the political speech of law-abiding protesters." If there was ever a fail-safe, catch-all band of villains, it's the anarchists. Evoke the term "anarchist" and everyday citizens look the other way when law enforcement (sic) agencies bend the rules.
SEE ALSO: An Anarchist F.A.Q. Webpage

Undermining the Rx Benefit
By Thomas Oliphant
Boston Globe, 25 November 2003
EXCERPT: There was only one subject that produced agreement during the long tussle among conservatives and progressives, Democrats and Republicans over how to provide some measure of prescription drug insurance for retired people and the disabled within Medicare. That subject was the cost of drugs in the United States, something so out of control that it threatens to undermine if not destroy the alleged benefit that will be available to some in about three years.

Whose Trojan Horse?
Are Democrats smiling on the inside tonight?
By Mickey Kaus
Slate, 24 November 2003
EXCERPT: Whose Trojan Horse? Are Democrats really desperately fighting Bush's Medicare prescription drug bill tooth and nail? I know it seems as if they are, but the whole current debate has the air of deep Kabuki. ... Why aren't the Democrats thinking along these lines: a) We'll oppose the bill now. That way when middle class seniors wake up a few years from now and realize the benefits to them are meager (or object to the means-testing) we can say 'We told you so' and resume our favorite role as their champions. b) By screaming about the threat of privatization (even though the threat of privatization has been largely contained in the bill) we lay down a sheet of protective fire that should help preserve the traditional Medicare system for decades. c) We will lose, and the bill will pass, but that's good too! Because, just between us, the bill is a long-term win for Democrats. It establishes the basic principle of a drug benefit, and we can make great hay campaigning to increase these benefits, and otherwise fiddling with the system, in the years ahead. If passing the bill helps Bush win the 2004 election--well, we weren't going to beat him in 2004 anyway. ... In short, I don't believe Sen. Kennedy is actually upset that the GOP bill will pass. I think he's faking the outrage and smiling on the inside.

G.O.P. Leaders Dropping Push for an Energy Bill This Year
By CARL HULSE
New York Times, 25 November 2003
EXCERPT: Congress abandoned its efforts to enact new energy legislation this year as Senate Republican leaders said Monday night that time had run out to resolve an impasse blocking a vote on the measure. Despite a last-ditch effort by the Bush administration to rescue the measure, a spokeswoman for the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, said the proposal would be pushed over until 2004.

Bush Sacrifices Ozone Layer to Boost Re-election Prospects
By Geoffrey Lean
Independent (UK), 23 November 2003
EXCERPT: President George Bush has brought the international treaty aimed at repairing the Earth's vital ozone layer close to breakdown, risking millions of cancers, to benefit strawberry and tomato growers in the electorally critical state of Florida, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. His administration is insisting on a sharp increase in spraying of the most dangerous ozone-destroying chemical still in use, the pesticide methyl bromide, even though it is due to be phased out under the Montreal Protocol in little more than a year. And it has threatened that the United States could withdraw from the treaty's provisions altogether if its demand is not met.

The Progress Report: How America's Getting Screwed
By David Sirota, Christy Harvey and Judd Legum
Center for American Progress, 24 November 2003
Don't miss this superb, detailed breakdown of Bush and G.O.P policies on health care, energy and Iraq.

The Unilateral President
By Walter Cronkite
Denver Post, 23 November 2003
EXCERPT: For almost three years now, the world has been given quite a different view of the United States than the one to which it had been accustomed. It has seen global leadership abandoned and replaced with what now is known as American unilateralism - the Bush administration's disdain for international agreements and sometimes for diplomacy itself. The unilateralism has been a virtual addiction - a truculent constant in a presidency otherwise marked by inconstancy.

The Uncivil War
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times, 25 November 2003
EXCERPT: One of the problems with media coverage of this administration," wrote Eric Alterman in The Nation, "is that it requires bad manners." He's right. There's no nice way to explain how the administration uses cooked numbers to sell its tax cuts, or how its arrogance and gullibility led to the current mess in Iraq. So it was predictable that the administration and its allies, no longer very successful at claiming that questioning the president is unpatriotic, would use appeals to good manners as a way to silence critics. Not, mind you, that Emily Post has taken over the Republican Party: the same people who denounce liberal incivility continue to impugn the motives of their opponents.

The Spam Scam
Tapped, The American Prospect, 24 November 2003
EXCERPT: Congratulations are in order to whichever clever congressman or congresswoman figured out that he or she could write a pro-spam bill, label it an "anti-spam" bill, get the media to refer to it as an anti-spam bill and then watch it sail through Congress.

Wal-Mart's Big City Blues
by DAN LEVINE
The Nation, 24 November 2003
EXCERPT: Having plundered America's countryside and suburbs for decades, Wal-Mart is now setting its sights on unfamiliar urban territory: a grassy lot in Hartford, Connecticut. But as the mega-corporation expands out of America's conservative strongholds, it must contend with a phenomenon it hasn't previously encountered--an opposition armed with a living-wage ordinance. Forging a countermovement to the retailer's one-step-from-welfare wage policy, activists have successfully pushed living-wage ordinances in 110 cities and counties across the country since the mid-1990s, most often in Northern, urban areas--like Hartford--and in California. Typically those laws require companies seeking city contracts, property tax abatements or other public subsidies to pay their employees a living wage, which can come to several dollars above hourly minimum-wage rates.

24 November 2003

The Real Problem with Medicare
Tapped, The American Prospect, 23 November 2003
EXCERPT: Take a look at the OECD's numbers for public health care expenditures as a percent of GDP and you'll see that the American government is spending a larger portion of its economy -- 6.2 percent in 2001 -- on health care than are many countries offering universal coverage. ...Unfortunately, the OECD doesn't have data on the per capita public spending in dollar terms, but by combining this data with this data, I generated a table of 2001 per capita public health spending in purchasing-power-parity-adjusted U.S. dollars (I can email the Excel file to interested parties). The results are a bit surprising -- the American government spends more per capita ($2169.828) than any other country with available data except for Iceland ($2191.047) and Norway ($2496.6). More than Sweden ($1934.04), more than Canada ($1976.736), more than France ($1946.36) and way more than Britain ($1637.424) or Spain ($1142.4).[BWUSA emphasis]
SEE ALSO: The Second Biggest Scam in Washington (TNR)

Military Gets Break From Environmental Rules
By Brad Knickerbocker
CSMonitor.com, 24 November 2003
EXCERPT: The bill allows the Navy to redefine "harassment" under the Marine Mammal Protection Act, making it easier to use low- frequency sonar suspected of harming whales and dolphins. The Pentagon's $401 billion authorization bill for the 2004 fiscal year also exempts military bases from stringent habitat-protection requirements under the federal Endangered Species Act. In addition, the Pentagon, as it has in the past, is seeking exemptions to the Clean Air Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (which governs hazardous waste), and the Superfund Act responsible for cleaning up toxic-waste sites around the country. Last year, an exemption to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act was granted the military as well. The scope of the issue is enormous. The Defense Department oversees some 25 million acres of military bases and other training facilities. The military's pollution problems - including corroding bombs and rockets, and old chemical munitions now outlawed - date back over a century. Over the years, military facilities have come to include 131 hazardous-waste sites on the federal Superfund priority list. They are also home to more than 300 threatened or endangered species. Ironically, the pressures of nearby urban development (especially in places like southern California) have turned military ranges into prime habitat.

"It's an idea that has legs"
Pentagon Considers Creating Postwar Peacekeeping Forces
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post, 24 November 2003
EXCERPT: The Pentagon has begun to look seriously at creating military forces that would be dedicated to peacekeeping and reconstruction after future conflicts, defense officials said. The idea is to forge deployable brigades or whole divisions out of units of engineers, military police, civil affairs officers and other specialists critical to postwar operations. The move marks a reversal for the Bush administration, which came into office strongly resistant to peacekeeping missions and intent on trying to get Europeans and other allies to shoulder more of that burden. It also comes in the face of traditional U.S. Army opposition to the idea of establishing forces focused on peacekeeping. Army officials have argued that combat troops can be used for peacekeeping when necessary and that additional units with recovery-related skills can be cobbled onto combat divisions to meet postwar demands.

Sixties Flashback
F.B.I. Scrutinizes Antiwar Rallies
By Eric Lichtblau
New York Times, 23 November 2003
EXCERPT: The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squads, according to interviews and a confidential bureau memorandum. The memorandum, which the bureau sent to local law enforcement agencies last month in advance of antiwar demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco, detailed how protesters have sometimes used "training camps" to rehearse for demonstrations, the Internet to raise money and gas masks to defend against tear gas. The memorandum analyzed lawful activities like recruiting demonstrators, as well as illegal activities like using fake documentation to get into a secured site.
SEE ALSO: Patriot Act II Headed Our Way (LewRockwell.com)

"The only thing we have to fear is fearmongering itself."
Bush Starts Pre-emptive Campaign Strategy: Scaring Up Votes
By Maureen Dowd
New York Times, 23 November 2003
EXCERPT: First came the pre-emptive military policy. Now comes the pre-emptive campaign strategy. Before the president even knows his opponent, his first political ad is blanketing Iowa today. "It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known," Mr. Bush says, in a State of the Union clip. Well, that's a comforting message from our commander in chief. Do we really need his cold, clammy hand on our spine at a time when we're already rattled by fresh terror threats at home and abroad? When we're chilled by the metastasizing Al Qaeda, the resurgent Taliban and Baathist thugs armed with deadly booby traps; the countless, nameless terror groups emerging in Turkey, Morocco, Indonesia and elsewhere; the vicious attacks on Americans, Brits, aid workers and their supporters in Iraq, Afghanistan and Turkey? The latest illustration of the low-tech ingenuity of Iraqi foes impervious to our latest cascade of high-tech missiles: a hapless, singed donkey that carted rockets to a Baghdad hotel. Yet the Bush crowd is seizing the moment to scare us even more.

America Neglecting Geography at Its Peril
Alexander B. Murphy
21 November 2003
Courtesy of RJ
EXCERPT:
The issue is not just whether people know the names and locations of capital cities or rivers -- a common misconception of what geography is all about. The question is whether voters and decision makers understand the geographic context within which events are situated. ...It takes geographical blinders of this sort to make comparisons between the reconstruction of Iraq and the post-World War II reconstruction of Japan or Germany. Yet such comparisons were made, and they often went unchallenged. Is it surprising that the course of Iraq's postwar reconstruction has not run according to many people's expectations?

Alabama on My Mind: Why do People Vote Against Their Own Interests?
By Katrina Vanden Heuvel
The Nation, republished 22 November 2003
EXCERPT: Why do people consistently vote against their self-interest? Consider Alabama, where low-income people, who hardly benefit from tax cuts that jeopardize government services, recently voted down a referendum that tried to shift the burden from overtaxed working people to under-taxed business interests. Alabama's citizens, as a New York Times editorial comment pointed out, voted "for fewer social services, less education, and a shoddier legal system--to become, that is, more like a third-world nation." Through a decision made by its own residents, Alabama is now entrenched at the bottom of the national rankings in government services.

Power Rangers: America's Wealthy See Bush-Cheney as a Good Investment
By Craig Aaron
TomPaine.com, 22 November 2003
EXCERPT: At the start of every fundraising stump speech, President Bush insists he¹s focused on the ³people¹s business² and that ³the political season will come in its own time.² Yet as his fundraising haul tops $102 million, the only people the president seems to have time for are those bagging bundles of $2,000 checks. The Bush-Cheney re-election campaign¹s unprecedented fundraising effort over the past six months has relied on super-donors‹309 contributors who have attained elite status with the Bush organization, including 24 new bundlers quietly added to the list last week. The vast majority of the president¹s re-election funds have been collected by these bundlers at a series of exclusive, big-ticket events across the country. The campaign has already held more than 80 fundraisers in 41 states headlined by Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney or the first lady. In November alone, the big three have headlined 16 fundraisers in 11 states, raking in more than $10 million.

22-23 November 2003

Bush's War Economy
The Progressive, December 2003 issue
EXCERPT: ...Bush may get lucky. If Greenspan resists the temptation to raise interest rates, if oil prices stay low, if Congress keeps writing blank checks for war and occupation, if the housing bubble doesn't burst, if consumers pick up their spending, and if employers keep hiring more workers, Bush's recovery might just chug along through November. But then he would have made our economy ever more dependent on war. Already, he is using his war-engineered deficits to say there is no more money left in the Treasury to regulate corporations or address the crying needs of the country: the schools that are crumbling, the forty-three million people without health care, the thirty-five million people in poverty, the nine million people who go hungry. This is no accident. It is by design. He wants an economy that rewards the rich and releases corporations from oversight. He does not believe it is the role of government to care for the needy. He wants to privatize that function to faith-based groups. And he doesn't care if the public schools decay: If they do, the better his case for private school vouchers. For Bush, one of the primary functions of government is to wage war. And he's betting the store on that.

U.S. Warns Al Qaeda Could Attack Soon
Concerns follow recent terrorist bombings overseas
CNN.com, 21 November 2003
EXCERPT:  The federal government issued a public statement late Friday to warn of potential terrorist attacks as the Muslim religious holiday Ramadan comes to an end early next week. The statement, issued by the Department of Homeland Security, says recent terrorist bombings overseas have prompted concern for potential terrorist threats "to the United States and abroad." The national terrorism alert level will remain at yellow, signifying an "elevated" threat.

George W. Bush Loves Michael Jackson
By William Rivers Pitt
TruthOut.org, 21 November 2003
EXCERPT: A number of explosions tore through the British consulate in Turkey today, killing scores of people. George W. Bush is in England, surrounded on all sides by enraged British citizens whose massive protests have required nearly every police officer in London to be put on the line of defense. This is happening in a nation that has been, both in government and among the populace, one of the strongest allies America has ever known. There are a couple of wars happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, neither of which are going very well. A great many soldiers and civilians have died in the last year. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, and after nearly 750 days, the American people have still been given no explanation for why September 11 happened. It is 3:16 p.m. on Thursday afternoon as I write this. CNN has been covering, with total exclusivity, a parking lot outside a police station for the last hour. They covered an airplane landing. They covered the same airplane sitting still on the tarmac. They covered the airplane slowly moving into a hangar. All the while, talking head after talking head explored every conceivable facet of the parking lot, the plane, the tarmac, and the hangar, as well as a variety of parallel issues. No stone of data was left unturned. Why? Michael Jackson is about to surrender to police.

Required reading for AARP
The Prescription Drug Bill: Many Steps Backward
Henry J. Aaron, Senior Fellow, Economic Studies
Brookings Institution, November 21, 2003
EXCERPT: Moderate Democratic members of Congress may be strongly tempted to vote for the Medicare prescription drug proposal crafted by the conference committee that reconciled the versions passed by the House and Senate in June. For one thing, they have long sought to extend Medicare's coverage to prescription drugs, which are an increasingly important component of modern health care but whose cost can impose heavy burdens on low- and moderate-income beneficiaries. Furthermore, it is quite tempting to grab the $400 billion that a conservative president has put on the table this year for such a benefit, as it may be snatched away as lawmakers focus on mounting deficits. And the political risk from opposing passage is real: "Democrats killed the prescription drug benefit," Republican opponents will charge. Then there's the notion that even a seriously flawed bill, as this one certainly is, can be fixed later. Although these arguments have some force, three considerations should impel those who cherish Medicare and its achievements to vigorously oppose the conference committee bill.

Medicare Bill Too Close to Call in the House
President Bush urges approval
From Ted Barrett
CNN.com, 22 November 2003
EXCERPT: Hours before a scheduled House vote on the Medicare drug bill, Democrats and Republicans Friday were lobbying hard to affect its outcome, and President Bush himself called on lawmakers to approve it.

Opponents Block Energy Bill in Senate
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
AP in Yahoo!News, 21 November 2003
EXCERPT: Senate opponents blocked Congress from finishing its energy bill Friday, dealing a severe setback to President Bush (news - web sites)'s proposal to redirect the nation's energy agenda toward more production of oil, gas, coal and corn-based ethanol. Critics of the bill, both Democrats and Republicans, said it would provide too many favors to industry and hinder cleanup of water fouled by a gasoline additive.

White House Said to Prevail on Overtime Work Rules
By Thomas Ferraro
Reuters,21 November 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush administration won a Capitol Hill battle on Friday over proposed changes to U.S. overtime work rules that are supported by business and opposed by labor, congressional aides said. They said Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, had lifted his objections, clearing the way for passage of a huge year-end spending bill without a provision that would have blocked the new regulations. ...The administration, which has refused to back down from its proposal despite majority votes against it in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, contends the regulations would clarify and update often confusing and antiquated work rules. It also says the changes in the rules would guarantee overtime protection for an estimated 1.3 million more low-income, white-collar workers. But foes warn that the regulations, which the administration intends to put into effect in a few months, could cost more than 8 million Americans their overtime pay and result in companies forcing employees to work longer hours without compensation.

21 November 2003

Republican Grand Strategy: Accuse the  Opposition of Opposition
G.O.P. to Run an Ad for Bush on Terror Issue
By JIM RUTENBERG
New York Times, 21 November 2003
EXCERPT: After months of sustained attacks against President Bush in Democratic primary debates and commercials, the Republican Party is responding this week with its first advertisement of the presidential race, portraying Mr. Bush as fighting terrorism while his potential challengers try to undermine him with their sniping. The new commercial gives the first hint of the themes Mr. Bush's campaign is likely to press in its early days. It shows Mr. Bush, during the last State of the Union address, warning of continued threats to the nation: "Our war against terror is a contest of will, in which perseverance is power," he says after the screen flashes the words, "Some are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists."

The Radical: What Dick Cheney Really Believes
by Franklin Foer & Spencer Ackerman
The New Republic, 20 November 2003
EXCERPT: ...imparting George H.W. Bush's cautiousness to his former Defense secretary misreads Cheney entirely. Far from fitting into 41's foreign policy team, Cheney was its ideological outlier. On the greatest issue of the day--what to do about a declining Soviet Union and America's place in a unipolar world-- Cheney dissented vigorously. His Pentagon argued, again and again, that the only true guarantee of U.S. security lay in transforming threatening nations into democratic ones--a radical notion to the realists in the first Bush White House. Cheney's policy allies were not national security adviser Scowcroft and Secretary of State Baker but rather a set of intellectuals on the Pentagon policy staff who shared and helped him refine his alternative vision of U.S. power and purpose. In the '90s, this worldview came to be known as neoconservatism. Cheney was there first.

Company Headed by a Top Bush Supporter Blamed for Blackout
By H. Joseph Hebert
A.P., 20 November 2003
EXCERPT: The nation's worst blackout should have been contained by operators at Ohio's FirstEnergy Corp., a three-month U.S. and Canadian investigation concluded on Wednesday. The investigators also faulted Midwest regional monitors. In their report, they said the company's operators were inadequately trained and computer problems in its Akron, Ohio, control room kept them from recognizing immediately that problems on three lines were causing the Midwest grid to become unstable.

Thought Control: How Think Tanks Have Taken Over Political Debate
By Dteven C. Clemons
TomPaine.com, 19 November 2003
EXCERPT: It used to be that think tanks were funded to do independent basic research that upheld the organizations' missions but wasn't targeted at creating a specific effect. Increasingly, though, think tanks are being funded to do applied research aimed at created what's called an "advocacy impact," seducing legislators and administration officials to adopt their policy proposals or to heed their counsel on important policy questions. If that sounds like lobbying to you, you should know that it does to a lot of people who are a part of the think tank world and are increasingly concerned about these changes.

Wrecking Bill
The administration's Medicare measure would lead to a good program's demise.
By Robert Kuttner
The American Prospect, 20 November 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush administration's Medicare bill is a calculated first step toward ending universal Medicare in favor of vouchers. President Bush and his congressional allies have deftly baited this hook with meager prescription drug benefits. With legislators wanting to go home for Thanksgiving, the White House hopes to force a vote by this weekend. The haste is understandable: The more this cynical bill is exposed, the less legislators will fear voting against it. Consider:

FBI Handling of Mob Informants Condemned
Friday November 21, 2003 4:01 AM
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
AP in The Guradian, 21 November,2003
EXCERPT: While probing organized crime in New England since the 1960s, the FBI used killers as informants, shielded them from prosecution and knowingly sent innocent people to jail, House investigators said Thursday in concluding a two-year inquiry. The bureau's conduct ``must be considered one of the greatest failures in the history of federal law enforcement,'' according to the final report from the House Government Reform Committee. ``Federal law enforcement personnel tolerated and probably encouraged false testimony in a state death penalty case just to protect their criminal informants,'' said Rep. Dan Burton, who started the investigation when he was committee chairman. ``False testimony sent four innocent men to jail. They were made scapegoats in order to shield criminals,'' said Burton, R-Ind. The FBI came under criticism for trying to stonewall investigators. Lawmakers complained that the bureau delayed giving them access to audio recordings and logs of conversations involving New England crime boss Raymond Patriarca that provided vital information on the 1965 murder of Edward ``Teddy'' Deegan.

20 November 2003

Lawmakers Approve Expansion of F.B.I.'s Antiterrorism Powers - Republicans Once Again Shut Opposition Out of the Process
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
New York Times, 19 November 2003
EXCERPT: Congressional negotiators approved a measure on Wednesday to expand the F.B.I.'s counterterrorism powers, despite concerns from some lawmakers who said that the measure gave the government too much authority and that the public had been shut out of the debate. The measure gives the Federal Bureau of Investigation greater authority to demand records from businesses in terrorism cases without the approval of a judge or a grand jury. While banks, credit unions and other financial institutions are currently subject to such demands, the measure expands the list to include car dealers, pawnbrokers, travel agents, casinos and other businesses. The expansion, included in the 2004 authorization bill for intelligence agencies, has already been approved by both the House and the Senate, and lawmakers from both chambers approved the provision as part of the larger bill in a private session late Wednesday, officials said. Law enforcement officials said the F.B.I. would gain greater speed and flexibility in tracing suspected terrorist money. Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, introduced a motion to limit the life of the new law, but it was defeated on a party-line vote. "I'm concerned about this," Mr. Durbin said in an interview. "The idea of expanding the powers of government gives everyone pause except the Republican leadership." The approval came despite 11th-hour concerns raised by five Democrats and a Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who questioned why their panel — which has responsibility for overseeing the F.B.I. — was shut out of any discussion on the little-noticed proposal.
SEE ALSO: Groups Air Worries About Civil Liberties (AJC)

Gun Lobby Hinders FBI Terror Hunt
By Julian Borger
The Guardian, 19 November 2003
EXCERPT: The FBI now has the power to conduct extensive surveillance of suspected terrorists except if the suspect successfully buys a gun, because of a loophole backed by the gun lobby, the Washington Post has reported. The Post said the FBI is alerted if a terror suspect enters a gun shop and applies to buy a weapon under the National Instant Check System. But federal agents will not be told details of the purchase, or its location. Nor can they stop the sale on the grounds that the buyer is a suspected terrorist. If the sale is blocked (on other grounds), the FBI will have access to all available information. If it goes ahead agents will remain in the dark, because justice department rules reflect the National Rifle Association's (NRA) demands on privacy for gun-owners. The attorney-general, John Ashcroft, is a member and enthusiastic supporter of the NRA and was instrumental in thwarting the FBI from cross-checking lists of terror suspects against a list of approved gun purchases after the September 11 attacks.

Counting Votes and Attacks in Final Push for Medicare Bill
By ROBERT PEAR and ROBIN TONER
New York Times, 19 November 2003
EXCERPT: In a final blur of vote counting and deal making, Congressional negotiators raced on Wednesday to finish sweeping Medicare legislation, hoping to send it to the full House and Senate by week's end. But Democratic leaders mounted a furious new attack on the measure, assailing the endorsement by AARP on Monday as a betrayal of the organization's members and as a capitulation to the Republicans. Republican leaders continued to express confidence that the $400 billion bill was headed for final passage, but they also spent much of the day counting heads, adjusting the legislation to secure additional votes and making the case for the biggest overhaul of Medicare since its creation. "It's coming, a vote at a time," said J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, the speaker of the House. House Republican leaders, trying to shore up support among restless conservatives, brought back Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, to argue for the bill in a closed-door caucus on Wednesday.

Partisan Power Loss
Concocted in secret, refined behind closed doors, the GOP energy bill is a policy dead-end.
Harvey Wasserman
Mother Jones Magazine, November/December 2003 Issue
EXCERPT: Today, more than ever before, there is an energy plan ready and waiting to transform the US---and the world---with clean, cheap and reliable green power. But, instead of embracing the approach pioneered by Truman and fleshed out by Carter, the Bush administration and its cronies in Congress are playing the spoilers role once again. The Republican Energy Plan finally revealed over the weekend is a fossil/nuke wish list. And, make no mistake, this bill is a pure partisan play. It was first drafted in secret by Dick Cheney's industry-cozy energy task force, then refined in secret by two of fossil/nuke's best friends on Capitol Hill, Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Billy Tauzin. Reminiscent of their shotgun passage of the Patriot Act, the Republicans now want the Energy Bill rammed through Congress with virtually no debate. The bill offers billions in subsidies to the country's coal, oil, nuke, and gas conglomerates - the King CONG consortium that has spent so much to keep the Republicans in office. It guts the environmental safeguards woven into the fabric of American life since the salad days of Richard Nixon. It includes special dispensations for manufacturers of the gasoline additive MTBE, which is polluting groundwater in California and elsewhere (not surprisingly, many of the biggest producers of MTBE are based in Tauzin's home state of Louisiana) The bill removes restrictions -- in place since the New Deal -- on the electric utilities that gouge electric consumers and bring on blackouts. And it aims to drive a stake through the heart of the booming renewable energy industry that could, among other things, decentralize electric power production and make our rickety utility grid an unmourned nightmare of the past.

Negotiators Retain Limit on TV Owners
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
New York Times, 19 November 2003
EXCERPT: House and Senate negotiators shrugged off a White House veto threat on Wednesday and agreed to block a Bush administration plan to let the broadcast networks acquire more local television stations. The negotiators, who are fashioning a huge end-of-session spending bill, also decided to provide $13 million that poor students in Washington could use to pay for private schooling. The money represents a victory for President Bush, creating the first federally financed school voucher program after years of trying by Republicans.

Funds and Games
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times, 18 November 2003
EXCERPT: You're selling your house, and your real estate agent claims that he's representing your interests. But he sells the property at less than fair value to a friend, who resells it at a substantial profit, on which the agent receives a kickback. You complain to the county attorney. But he gets big campaign contributions from the agent, so he pays no attention. That, in essence, is the story of the growing mutual fund scandal. On any given day, the losses to each individual investor were small — which is why the scandal took so long to become visible. But if you steal a little bit of money every day from 95 million investors, the sums add up. Arthur Levitt, the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, calls the mutual fund story "the worst scandal we've seen in 50 years" — and no, he's not excluding Enron and WorldCom. Meanwhile, federal regulators, having allowed the scandal to fester, are doing their best to let the villains get off lightly.

The Making of the Corporate Judiciary
How big business is quietly funding a judicial revolution in the nation's courts
By Michael Scherer
Mother Jones Magazine, Nov-Dec issue
EXCERPT: Now, with a sympathetic ear in the White House, corporate America is taking its legal agenda to the federal bench with a behind-the-scenes campaign of high-powered lobbying and interest-group advertising. Pryor is just one of the corporate stars. Several of President Bush's nominees to federal appeals and district courts -- and even White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, a former Texas Supreme Court justice who now selects federal nominees for the president -- owe their careers to the support of the insurance, retail, and energy industries that got them elected on the state level. The nominees' legal approaches have been nurtured by a string of corporate foundations that fund university programs and ideological groups like the Federalist Society. And their promotion to the federal bench coincides with an ambitious corporate legislative agenda, backed by more than 475 lobbyists, that seeks to force limits on jury awards and move lawsuits out of state courts, where judges historically have favored plaintiffs. In Congress, the House Majority Leader, Rep. Tom DeLay, has formed a working group on "judicial accountability" to push for the approval of the president's nominees and launch investigations of liberal federal judges. "What you have is a wholesale effort to hijack the federal judiciary," says Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat and former corporate defense lawyer. "They clearly want to put in a more conservative judiciary and then start stacking the deck by removing more and more cases to the federal courts."

19 November 2003

 Audio Link
Medicare Reform Bill
Diane Rehm Show, NPR, 19 November 2003
President Bush and Congressional leaders are pushing hard for passage of Medicare reform legislation that introduces prescription drug benefits and market competition. We'll talk about what's in the bill and its chances for passage.
Karen Ignani, president and CEO, American Association of Health Plans and Health Insurance Association of America
Julie Rovner, health policy correspondent for National Public Radio and special correspondent for the "National Journal"'s "Congress Daily"
Judith Stein, president, Center for Medicare Advocacy

New Advertorials Raise Old Ethical Questions
Concern Over TV Pay-for-Play Rules
By Joe Strupp
Editor & Publisher, 19 November 2003
EXCERPT: Should newspaper ethicists worry that two TV stations passing off paid segments as regular programming will inspire publishers to give that notion a try in print? Or do these watchdogs already have more than enough to monitor in the burgeoning field of newspaper advertorials and the growth of "custom publishing"? Recent episodes at WFLA-TV in Tampa, Fla. and WLBT-TV in Jackson, Miss., have sparked some concern that if television news organizations are beginning to break standard ethical rules, newspapers may be more open to similar missteps. "Once the barn door is open, people can get together and rationalize how it can be done for anything -- even newspapers," said Gordon D. "Mac" McKerral, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, which issued a statement last week slamming the two TV affiliates. "Is it that desperate a situation for revenue out there?"

U.S. Moves to Limit Textile Imports From China
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
New York Times, 19 November 2003
EXCERPT: The Bush administration moved on Tuesday to severely restrict the growth of a half-billion dollars' worth of Chinese textile imports and immediately found itself caught between battle cries from the industry for more protectionism and anxiety among global investors who fear it. Invoking special "safeguard" clauses in its trade agreements with China, the Commerce Department said it would begin discussions to impose new quotas that could sharply reduce China's rapidly growing exports of knit fabrics and a handful of other products. In themselves, the actions affect only a sliver of China's exports to the United States. But textile companies and unions are putting heavy pressure on President Bush to expand the agenda to cover nearly all of the $10.3 billion in imports of Chinese clothing and fabric.

6 Democratic Candidates Attack Medicare Measure
By RACHEL L. SWARNS
New York Times, 19 November 2003
EXCERPT: Six of the Democratic presidential candidates mounted a heated attack on the new Medicare bill on Tuesday at a forum sponsored by AARP. The contenders denounced the plan to provide drug benefits to the elderly as a Republican-led effort to privatize and undermine the federal insurance program. Several hopefuls sharply criticized AARP, the powerful lobbying group for older Americans, for endorsing the bill on Monday. Hundreds of the elderly in the audience here applauded the criticism. It was a rare display of unanimity among rivals who condemned the plan as a gift to pharmaceutical companies and insurers and a threat to elderly Americans. The chorus of criticism foreshadowed the battle ahead in Congress and in the presidential campaign.

Cautious Otimism, Dismay Greet Gay Marriage Decision - Bush Denounces Decision
By Martin Finucane
Boston Globe, 19 November, 2003
EXCERPT: For some, it was an occasion to pop champagne corks and start planning spring weddings. For others, including President Bush, it was cause for dismay over what they saw as the further erosion of traditional family values.The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's ruling that same-sex couples are legally entitled to wed under the state constitution drew both praise and criticism Tuesday from around Massachusetts and the nation. ...President Bush immediately denounced the decision and vowed to pursue legislation to protect the traditional definition of marriage. ''Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman,'' Bush said in London. ''Today's decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court violates this important principle. I will work with congressional leaders and others to do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage.''

18 November 2003

Democratic Candidates Assail Energy and Medicare Bills
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post, November 2003
EXCERPT: Democratic presidential candidates lined up yesterday in opposition to Republican deals on energy and Medicare -- legislation that if passed would give President Bush two key political victories one year before the election. Even before many of the details were known, the candidates blasted Bush for what they view as shortchanging consumers and using the bills to reward his campaign contributors. "The latest energy plan and the prescription drug benefit are more paybacks for George W. Bush's special-interest friends and campaign contributors," said Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), expressing the emerging Democratic message. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) is the only Democratic presidential candidate who may decide to support the Medicare bill, while all are united in opposing the energy bill. The two bills are the most significant policies to circulate on Capitol Hill in years. The Medicare bill received a big boost yesterday when AARP, the premier seniors lobby, endorsed it. The candidates are coming together so quickly because they say the bills are bad policy.

Medicare Monstrosity
By E. J. Dionne Jr
Washington Post, 18 November 2003
EXCERPT: They went in to design a prescription drug benefit for seniors and came out with an aardvark. It's said that a camel is a horse designed by committee. But the camel metaphor doesn't do justice to the Medicare prescription drug bill that came out of a House-Senate conference over the weekend. It is not a compromise but a weird combination of conflicting policy preferences. It is unprincipled in the technical sense. Nobody's principles are served by this bill. The problem is that many conservatives, especially in the House, don't like Medicare as it is. They would prefer a system in which the government guaranteed everyone a certain amount of money that could be used to buy private health insurance. Ending Medicare as we know it is their long-term goal. They call this "expanding choice." ...How do you know this bill is such a great deal for the drug companies and HMOs? On word of an agreement last week, share prices of drug stocks soared. Watch your television set for the millions of dollars in advertising the drug and managed-care industry groups will spend to praise this bill. Watch your wallet, too.

Judges Question Detention of American
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
New York Times, 18 November 2003
EXCERPT: Two federal appeals court judges were hostile to the Bush administration's position yesterday as the government argued that the requirements of the antiterror effort meant that the president could indefinitely detain an American who was arrested in this country as an "enemy combatant" and deny him contact with his lawyer. "As terrible as 9/11 was, it didn't repeal the Constitution" one judge, Rosemary S. Pooler, said.

Bush Administration Prepares to Gut Social Security
By Leigh Strope
A.P., 17 November 2003
EXCERPT: With the stock market climbing and a re-election campaign approaching, the Bush administration is renewing its push to overhaul Social Security with personal investment accounts. The Social Security Administration, with AARP and the National Association of Manufacturers, is organizing town hall meetings across the country to help build public support for changes. Supporters of personal accounts say President Bush's political advisers have been urging them to increase their efforts in battleground states with debates, speeches and fund-raisers.

Energy Bill Has $23 Billion in Tax Breaks, Mostly for Energy Companies
By H. Josef Hebert
AP, 17 November 2003
EXCERPT: Democrats failed to force any significant changes in a Republican-drafted energy bill Monday as a House-Senate conference sped toward approving the massive legislation and clear the way for final congressional approval, probably this week. While Senate Democrats temporarily won concessions on a half-dozen issues, the changes were rejected by the GOP-dominated House negotiating team. House negotiators debated the measure late into the evening. Among amendments turned back by the House after being offered by Senate negotiators was a provision to require electric utilities to produce 10 percent of their power from renewable fuels. The utility industry had fought the fuel use mandate. Two-thirds of the $23 billion in tax breaks in the bill would go to the oil, gas and coal industries, prompting one Democrat to label it "a hodgepodge of subsidies for the politically well-connected." Congressional estimates released Monday put the cost of the total package, the first overhaul of the nation's energy priorities in a decade, at $32 billion over 10 years, including about $9 billion for nontax measures and revenue losses.

Will She or Won't She? It's Decision Time for Hilary
By Gary Younge
Guardian (UK), 18 November 2003
EXCERPT: With nine candidates standing for the Democratic presidential nomination, polls continue to show Ms Clinton as the favourite. The trouble is she is not one of the nine. But despite her insistence that she is not running, many people believe she could yet throw her hat in the ring. Friday marks the deadline for entering the Democratic primaries; this week is her last chance to change her mind.

Embattled Mutual Fund Reports Assets Under Management Continue to Decline
By Martin Finucane
Associated Press, 17 November 2003
EXCERPT: Investors continue to pull money out of Putnam Investments, with assets under management declining by $7 billion in the past week and $21 billion overall since the mutual funds scandals surfaced last month.
Putnam on Monday reported $256 billion in assets under management as of Friday. A week earlier, it had $263 billion under management. At the end of October, the company had $277 billion under management.

Senior's group endorses GOP plan
AARP Has Toothless Bite In Pursuit of Real Prescription Drug Assistance
AP, 17 November 2003
EXCERPT: Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota said, "When seniors see the details of the Republican plan, the AARP leadership will undoubtedly regret this ill-advised decision." House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said, "AARP's national leadership has been co-opted by Republicans pushing a partisan bill that fails to provide a real prescription drug benefit under Medicare." Republicans for months had yearned for AARP's endorsement as a foil against Democratic allegations that the GOP is out to gut the government-run health insurance program for 40 million older and disabled Americans. They believe the group's seal of approval will put pressure on Democrats to support the bill, however much they dislike specific provisions. "AARP is a vitally important group, not because they swing votes necessarily, but because they do represent seniors, 40 million seniors," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. The legislation would create a prescription drug benefit for the elderly beginning in 2006 and establish a new role for private health plans in Medicare, encouraging them to offer seniors the choice of receiving coverage under managed care plans and preferred provider organizations. One of the last issues resolved in months of closed-door negotiations involved efforts to keep employers from dropping drug coverage for retirees once the new drug benefit kicks in in 2006. The issue was high on AARP's list of priorities. Frist, R-Tenn., and Hastert met twice with Novelli at key moments in the negotiations on the drug bill, Republican congressional officials said. These Republican officials said Novelli made three demands: more money to entice employers to maintain health benefits for their retirees; a temporary, limited program of competition between traditional Medicare and private insurance plans, and the removal of a Senate provision that AARP said would allow employers to eliminate all health benefits for retirees eligible for Medicare or state health plans. The compromise negotiators and congressional leaders reached Saturday satisfied AARP on all three.

14 State Attorneys General Ask Courts to Quickly Block Bush EPA Rule Change
By Devlin Barrett
AP, 17 November 2003
EXCERPT: More than a dozen state attorneys general Monday sought to block the federal government from implementing a rule change they argued would lead to more air pollution from the nation's power plants.

17 November 2003

CHARADE '04
A Tyranny of Symbols
Neither political party is serious about addressing our major domestic problems. Can the press move them off the dime?
BY MATTHEW MILLER
Columbia Journalism Review, 14 November 2003
EXCERPT: Welcome to another presidential campaign, that indispensable quadrennial moment when our leaders debate real fixes for America's biggest problems. Or so runs democratic theory. The reality, especially when it comes to our domestic woes, is that we're mostly in for another year of bipartisan charades and pseudo-solutions, which the press tacitly enables and which make voters turn away in disgust. Need proof that domestic debate isn't serious?

Skepticism Grows Among US Voters
By Jim Lobe
Asia Times, 15 November 2003
EXCERPT: Popular doubts about United States President George W Bush's credibility and his justification for going to war in Iraq are on the rise, according to a new survey conducted by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA). The survey of a random sample of more than 1,000 voters, which echoes the results of other recent national polls, found that 55 percent of respondents believed that the administration went to war on the basis of incorrect assumptions, particularly the notion that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the US or its allies. And despite subsequent denials by senior administration officials, an overwhelming 87 percent of the public felt that the administration before the war portrayed Iraq as an imminent threat. While 42 percent believed that the administration did have the evidence to justify such a depiction, a strong majority of 58 percent said that it did not. This disparity, according to PIPA, which conducted the survey between October 31 and November 10, has translated into major questions about the president's personal veracity and credibility. Only 42 percent of those polled said that they believed that Bush was "honest and frank", while 56 percent said they had doubts about the things he says.

House, Senate Republicans Agree on Energy Bill Democrats Kept From Participating
By Dan Morgan and Peter Behr
Washington Post, 14 November 2003
EXCERPT: House and Senate Republicans today said they had reached agreement on the most far-reaching energy legislation in more than a decade. ...The bill was negotiated by Republicans with no participation by Democrats. House-Senate conferees are to meet Monday to approve the package, which could reach the House floor Tuesday. But passage by the closely divided Senate is uncertain, especially given the frayed tempers after this week's battle over judicial nominees. ...Sources said the bill contains around $20 billion in tax breaks for energy industries, more than double what the Bush administration had recommended. In final negotiations, Republicans agreed to a series of parochial provisions, including nearly $1 billion for shoreline restoration in Louisiana, home state of Rep. W. J. "Billy" Tauzin (R), chief House negotiator. The bill contains tax breaks and other incentives for utilities to build new transmission facilities to reduce congestion on the nation's power grid. It also sets up procedures for states and regions to improve the reliability of electricity delivery.

No Home Runs in Energy Bill -
Little Impact Expected for Imported Oil, Pollution, Power Grid
By Dan Morgan and Peter Behr
Washington Post, 16 November 2003
EXCERPT: The energy bill before Congress is a bulky tome of more than 1,000 pages, with thousands of provisions affecting every corner of the country. But for all its size, industry officials and environmental activists of widely divergent viewpoints generally agree that it will have only a modest impact on the nation's most pressing energy problems, including its reliance on foreign energy supplies, an overburdened electricity grid and fuels that pollute the air and may alter the atmosphere. For those who want to deal aggressively with the dangers of climate change and air polluted by auto exhausts, power plants and factories, the bill is a disappointment.

The Real Stakes Over That Leaked Democratic Memo
By Dan Kennedy
Boston Phoenix, 14 November 2003
EXCERPT: You might have missed this one. For once, the Republican Party¹s hyper-aggressive attempts to inject phony partisan talking points into the mainstream appear to have failed. (Although it¹s still early; stay tuned.) But last week¹s flap over a leaked memo by an aide to a Democratic member of the Senate Intelligence Committee was not merely much ado about nothing. It was also as pure an example as you¹ll find of viciousness and cynicism in the service of George W. Bush. The memo was leaked to Fox News Channel talk-show host Sean Hannity ‹ an interesting choice in itself, since it¹s hard to imagine that anyone would leak genuine news to that self-important blowhard. You leak to Hannity if you want spin, and spin is what he provided.

Is Howard Dean Another Bill Clinton?
By Robert Weissman and Russell Mokhiber
ZNet, 15 November 2003
EXCERPT: Howard Dean is a man with strong Clinton-esque tendencies. He's a self-described triangulator. Say good words about the environment. Take some positive action. Schmooze with the environmentalists. But when push comes to shove, don't offend the powers that be. Mark Sinclair is an senior attorney with the Conservation Law Foundation in Vermont. Sinclair was dismissed in 2001 from Dean's Council of Environmental Advisers because of his criticisms of the Governor. Sinclair says that two utilities in Vermont -- Green Mountain Power and Central Vermont Public Service -- along with IBM -- control the state.

Congress Raises Executive Minimum Wage to $565.15/Hour
The Onion, 14 November 2003
EXCERPT: "This is good news for all Americans who work in the upper levels of commerce," DeLay said. "Almost a third of America's hard-working executives toil at corporations day after day, yet still live below the luxury line. It was about time we gave a boost to the American white-collar worker." The wage was calculated to help executives meet the federal standard-of-easy-living mark of $1.1 million a year. DeLay said that, although his goal is to ultimately reach an executive minimum wage of $800 per hour, he was satisfied with what he characterized as a "stop-gap measure." "Many of the thousands of Americans overseeing the nation's factories, restaurant chains, and retailers can't even afford a jet," DeLay said. "It's our long-term goal to ensure that no one who sees to it that others work hard for a living will have to go without the basic necessities of the good life."

Personal Bankruptcy Filings Jump 7.8 Pct.
By MARCY GORDON
AP in MyWayNews, 14 November 2003
EXCERPT: The record-setting pace of new personal bankruptcies continued in the 12 months ending Sept. 30, with their number rising 7.8 percent, according to data released Friday. Personal bankruptcies jumped to 1,625,813 from 1,508,578 during the same period a year earlier, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts data show. The upward trend had been expected to continue despite signs of recovery in the economy and as effects still linger from the consumer spending binge of the 1990s. The rate of bankruptcies generally lags other economic indicators. The bankruptcy filings "are being overwhelmingly driven by individuals with household debt," said Samuel Gerdano, executive director of the American Bankruptcy Institute, a group of bankruptcy judges, lawyers and experts. "They do reflect the buildup of heavy consumer debt."
Courtesy of The Agonist

Republican Leaders Reach Deal On Medicare
For the First Time, Plan Would Cover Drug Costs
By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post, 16 November 2003
EXCERPT: Leaders of Congress last night announced a hard-fought agreement in principle on the largest expansion of Medicare since the program's birth, promising older Americans the first federal help in paying for prescription drugs while tilting the health insurance system heavily toward the private sector. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and key lawmakers who have been bargaining over Medicare legislation for months said they had reached consensus on all the outstanding disagreements over a $400 billion plan to redesign the program. But they released no details, said they still were waiting for final budget estimates on whether the plan was affordable and acknowledged that they were uncertain the long, intricate bill could pass both chambers of Congress.

  Book Review 
The Crisis of American Journalism
A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag: America Today
by Peggy Noonan
Reviewed by Piyush Mathur
EXCERPT: Had irrationalism, vacuity and tediousness been the book's only features, I would have probably opted out of reviewing it. Unfortunately, however, Noonan's rhetoric has the additional demerit of being pathetically truncated and therefore politically dangerous; a review is further warranted because the book exemplifies a certain crisis of representation that appears to have gripped mainstream American journalism past the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

15-16 November 2003

For Middle Class, Health Insurance Becomes a Luxury
By STEPHANIE STROM
New York Times, 16 November 2003
EXCERPT: The majority of the uninsured are neither poor by official standards nor unemployed. They are accountants like Mr. Thornton, employees of small businesses, civil servants, single working mothers and those working part time or on contract. "Now it's hitting people who look like you and me, dress like you and me, drive nice cars and live in nice houses but can't afford $1,000 a month for health insurance for their families," said R. King Hillier, director of legislative relations for Harris County, which includes Houston. Paying for health insurance is becoming a middle-class problem, and not just here. "After paying for health insurance, you take home less than minimum wage," says a poster in New York City subways sponsored by Working Today, a nonprofit agency that offers health insurance to independent contractors in New York. "Welcome to middle-class poverty." In Southern California, 70,000 supermarket workers have been on strike for five weeks over plans to cut their health benefits. The insurance crisis is especially visible in Texas, which has the highest proportion of uninsured in the country — almost one in every four residents.

S.E.C.'s Oversight of Mutual Funds Said to Be Captive of the Industry
By STEPHEN LABATON
New York Times, 16 November 2003
EXCERPT: The Securities and Exchange Commission failed for years to police the mutual fund industry effectively because it was captive to the industry when writing new regulations, was preoccupied by other problems on Wall Street and was severely short of staff and money, current and former officials say.

Richard Perle Libel Watch, Week 34
By Jack Shafer
Slate, 14 November 2003
EXCERPT: Eight months ago, foreign policy hawk Richard N. Perle vowed to sue investigative reporter Seymour M. Hersh for libel over Hersh's New Yorker feature, "Lunch With the Chairman." Perle described the story as "all lies, from beginning to end," in the March 12 New York Sun. Perle, a leading neoconservative thinker and member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, told the Sun Hersh had libeled him by falsely implying that was using his Pentagon position for personal financial gain. With just 18 weeks to file before the statute of limitations expires on his libel claim, one would expect Perle and his lawyers would be cracking. But today, instead of playing legal offense, Perle's counselors might be regrouping in a defensive formation. Yesterday's (Nov. 12) Financial Times reports that Hollinger International, which publishes the Chicago Sun-Times and London's Daily Telegraph, among other publications, is "examining investments made by Richard Perle, the former senior US defence adviser who is a Hollinger director, on behalf of the company." According to the FT's Stephanie Kirchgaessner, the Perle probe is part of a larger internal inquiry led by former SEC Chairman Richard Breeden into "so-called 'related-party transactions,' or deals in which members of Hollinger's board or Hollinger executives benefited from deals the publisher agreed with other companies." Under investigation are "nearly $300m in management fees to Conrad Black, chief executive and chairman, and his deputies." The studied transactions include a $2.5 million investment in Trireme Partners, the venture capital company co-managed by Perle that Hersh scrutinized so heavily in The New Yorker feature. Kirchgaessner continues: "Also under review is a $14m investment the company made under Mr Perle's direction through Hillman Capital, a venture capital group controlled by Gerald Hillman—who has since become a partner at Trireme and, like Mr Perle, is a member of the US Defense Policy Board." Perle and Hillman had no comment. Somewhere, Sy Hersh was sipping Scotch with his socks off, enjoying life.

Incredible ethics...
Report Finds No Violations by Perle at the Pentagon (because he's only a temp)
By STEPHEN LABATON
New York Times, 15 November 2003
Position and influence are not relevant factors.
EXCERPT: The Pentagon's inspector general concluded this week that Richard N. Perle violated no ethics laws or rules when he was leading an influential Pentagon advisory board while at the same time representing two companies in their dealings with the government.
SEE ALSO: Richard Perle Libel Watch, Week 34 (Slate)

Republican to Label Criticism "Political Hate Speech"
By Brendan Nyhan
Spinsanity, November 13, 2003
EXCERPT: Over the last two months, the Republican Party has begun a systematic effort to label attacks on President Bush by Democratic presidential candidates as "political hate speech," a new piece of political jargon intended to delegitimize criticism of Bush. It appears this strategy will expanded in the coming months -- a recent memo from Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie urged party officials to adopt the term in their rhetoric. ..."political hate speech" is a carefully crafted term designed to create a hazy, non-logical association between two concepts. In this case, the phrase associates criticism of the president with "hate speech," which generally refers to speech that attacks others on the basis of their race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. ...This is a key tactic of political jargon, which often seeks to undermine the legitimacy of criticism by invoking hazy but powerful emotional symbols.

Bush's Best Speech: A Dharma Lesson for Global Hegemonists
By Paul Street
ZNet, 13 November 2003
EXCERPT: According to the Buddhist writer Pema Chodron, "not harming ourselves or others is the basis of enlightened society.  It is how there could be a sane world."   In Chodron's view, "the first and most fundamental harm" is done by and to our selves.  It is "to remain ignorant by not having the courage to look at ourselves honestly." When we do exhibit that courage, she argues, "it comes as quite a shock to realize how much we've blinded ourselves to the ways in which we cause harm.  Our style is so ingrained that we can't hear when people try to tell us, either kindly or rudely, that we're causing harm by the way we are or the way we relate to others.  We've become so used to the way we do things that somehow we think that others are used to it too." George W. Bush's recent speech before the National Endowment for Democracy ("President Bush Discusses Freedom in Iraq and the Middle East," available online at www.whitehouse.gov) is an excellent  case in point.  It epitomizes the cowardly, moral self-blindness that Chodron sees at the heart of global insanity. According to the arch-conservative New York Times columnist William Safire, it is "Bush's best speech," and it "is worth reading." (Safire, "The Age of Liberty," New York Times,November 10, 2003).  Bush' address certainly merits a careful reading, though not for the reasons Safire thinks.

Republican Bill Gives Away Billions to Their Rich Friends
By Matt Bivens
The Nation, 14 November 2003
EXCERPT: How's this for offensive and non-democratic? Republicans, working in private -- while Democrats, frustrated, tried to figure out what they were up to by reading the newspapers -- have unveiled their Frankenstein Monster, the so-called energy bill. Its 1,700 pages would give away $16 billion, or maybe $20 billion, or perhaps $80 billion -- incredibly, intelligent observers are still trying to determine that. "In fact, nobody but a few insiders even know all that is in the bill," observes Ralph Nader. "Where are the pages containing the changes, rejections, additions and golden handshake insertions?" (By comparison, we had weeks of spirited debate over whether to spend $20 billion on Iraqi reconstruction projects.) Whether it's $20 billion or $80 billion, what's certain is who is getting it: the oil, coal, gas and nuclear industries, big GOP sugar-daddies all.

Keeping Us On Our Misanthropic Toes: The New Prescription Medicare Bill
By Molly Ivins
Intellivu.com, 14 November 2003
EXCERPT: Gee, it seemed like such a good idea -- a plan to help senior citizens with their outrageous drug bills. It's bad enough the drug companies are ripping off the rest of us, but seniors on fixed incomes are just brought to their knees by these unconscionable prices. They've been begging for help for years, and for years the pols have been promising to deliver. And now they will. Oops. Bad news. According to a report by the co-directors of Boston University's School of Public Health titled, "New Medicare RX Benefit Means Big Profits for Drug Companies," we have once more failed to sufficiently overestimate what special interest money can do to legislation written by our elected representatives. According to the report, "An estimated 61.1 percent of the Medicare dollars that will be spent to buy more prescriptions will remain in the hands of drug makers as added profits."
SEE ALSO: Molly Ivins: Call Me a Bush-Hater (AlterNet)

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27-30 November 2003

Iraqi Leaders Say U.S. Was Warned of Disorder After Hussein, but Little Was Done
By JOEL BRINKLEY and ERIC SCHMITT
New York Times, 30 November 2003
EXCERPT: In the months before the Iraq invasion, Iraqi exile leaders trooped through the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department carrying a message about the future of their homeland: without a strong plan for managing Iraq after toppling Saddam Hussein, widespread looting and violence would erupt. ...That miscalculation and the low priority given to planning for the aftermath of Mr. Hussein's fall have taken on new significance with the recent wave of deadly attacks and the Bush administration's abrupt decision this month to accelerate its timetable for transferring control to the kind of Iraqi authority that leading exiles were calling for a year ago. The exiles were among the most energetic cheerleaders for the war, and critics of the Bush administration have accused some of them of skewing the facts in the process. But more than a dozen of the leaders who have returned to Iraq said in interviews here that they had also warned about the chaos that could follow. The fact that the administration embraced their encouragement to go to war but apparently discounted their warnings is an insight into the Pentagon's prewar planning.

Iraq's Shiites Insist on Democracy. Washington Cringes.
By ALEX BERENSON
New York Times,29 November 2003
EXCERPT: For seven months, the United States has tried to finesse two crucial questions about the future of Iraq: How much control will the country's Shiite majority have over the drafting of a constitution? And how Islamic will that constitution be? The answers could determine whether Iraq becomes a multiparty democracy, an Islamic theocracy, or even slides into civil war. Last week, those questions took on a new urgency. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most important Shiite religious leader in Iraq and probably the most powerful local leader of any kind, said he opposed the American plan to turn over power to an Iraqi government next year without direct elections. Ayatollah Sistani has vast influence over Iraq's 15 million Shiites, and so far he has urged them to show patience with the occupation. But he has insisted that delegates elected by popular vote write Iraq's constitution and approve its new government.

Oil Experts See Long-Term Risks to Iraq Reserves
By JEFF GERTH
New York Times, 29 November 2003
EXCERPT: As the Bush administration spends hundreds of millions of dollars to repair the pipes and pumps above ground that carry Iraq's oil, it has not addressed serious problems with Iraq's underground oil reservoirs, which American and Iraqi experts say could severely limit the amount of oil those fields produce. In northern Iraq, the large but aging Kirkuk field suffers from too much water seeping into its oil deposits, the experts say, and similar problems are evident in the sprawling oil fields in southern Iraq. Experts familiar with the Iraqi oil industry have said years of poor management damaged the fields, and some warn that the current drive to rapidly return the fields to prewar capacity risks reducing their productivity in the long run.

Intelligence Weaknesses Are Cited
Agencies Not Equal to Needs of Preemptive Attack Policy
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post, 29 November 2003
EXCERPT: More than 10 years' work by U.S. and British intelligence agencies on Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons or programs has "major gaps and serious intelligence problems," according to a new study by Anthony H. Cordesman, a Middle East and intelligence expert who is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Even a cursory review" of charges the U.S. and British administrations made in white papers released before the Iraq war "shows that point after point that was made was not confirmed during the war or after the first [six] months of effort following the conflict," Cordesman found in his study, a draft of which he provided to The Washington Post. Although the United States has the world's most sophisticated technical systems for collecting and analyzing intelligence, Cordesman found, the Iraq experience shows that U.S. intelligence is "not yet adequate to support grand strategy and tactical operations against proliferating powers or to make accurate assessments of the need to preempt." Preemption, or waging war to prevent an enemy from attacking, is a key part of the Bush war on terrorism policy. Another new nongovernmental report, on the Bush administration's controversial claim that Iraq was seeking specialized aluminum tubes to use in a centrifuge to create nuclear weapons material, raises questions about whether senior policymakers ignored technically qualified critics to promote the Iraqi threat.

Supporting Moderation in Saudi Arabia
Mansour alNogaidan NYT
International Herald Tribune, 29 November 2003
EXCERPT: The most recent government crackdown on terrorism suspects, in response to the car-bombing this month of a compound housing foreigners and Arabs in Riyadh, is missing the real target. The real problem is that Saudi Arabia is bogged down by deep-rooted Islamic extremism in most schools and mosques, which have become breeding grounds for terrorists. We cannot solve the terrorism problem as long as it is endemic to our educational and religious institutions.

U.S. Plans for Iraq: a Dilemma Over 'Exit'
Bush 'exit strategy' hits snags well before transfer deadline
Steven R. Weisman
International Herald Tribune, 29 November 2003
EXCERPT: Two weeks ago, the Bush administration settled on an "exit strategy" for Iraq in which the United States committed itself to installing a sovereign government in Baghdad by next summer - well ahead of its previous schedule and just as the presidential election will be getting under way. But the administration's initial plan for that transfer of authority has unraveled, raising doubts about whether the June 30 deadline for ending the American occupation authority in Baghdad is still feasible. The fundamental quandary faced by the administration is whether the United States has left itself enough time to put in place a government in Baghdad that can survive and be seen as legitimate by Iraqis and the rest of the world. "We're boxed in," said an administration official. "We have a highly difficult set of issues to deal with here. We can't settle for just anything that gets us out of Iraq." President George W. Bush's Thanksgiving Day pledge in Baghdad that American military forces "will stay until the job is done" is not the issue. The Pentagon plans to keep 100,000 troops or more in Iraq well into 2006. At stake, rather, is the sudden need for speed in fulfilling Bush's desire to transfer sovereignty to a friendly Iraqi regime on a hurried-up schedule for next year, coupled with the need to have some sort of electoral process as the best way to insure that regime's validity. U.S. policy makers say that it is not just the American election timetable that requires quick action to transfer power. Hostility to the American occupation is growing so fast, these policy makers say, that if Iraq does not get to self-government quickly, attacks on American forces could increase, along with Iraqi support for them. Running counter to the pressure to speed up the pace of the transfer is the concern that any future government of Iraq be seen as something that Iraqis themselves have chosen. The 24-member Iraqi Governing Council, handpicked by the American occupation, is not currently seen that way by most Iraqis.

Parallels Between U.S. Occupation of Iraq and U.S. Involvement in Vietnam
By Erich Marquardt
Power and Interest News Report, 28 November 2003
EXCERPT: Whether or not Washington is able to bring stability to Iraq before the U.S. public becomes disenchanted with U.S. objectives there largely depends on the size and capacity of the guerrilla movement. General Abizaid claimed on November 13 that the insurgency against the U.S. occupation "does not exceed 5,000." Yet, at the same time, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released a report, titled "appraisal of situation," written by the CIA station chief in Baghdad, which contradicted Abizaid's claims, warning that the insurgency could contain 50,000 guerrillas. Furthermore, the CIA report concluded that more and more ordinary Iraqis were siding with the insurgency due to their disillusionment with the U.S. occupation and because of the instability plaguing the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein's hold on power. These assessments indicate that the U.S. occupation in Iraq is becoming increasingly precarious, and it is not yet clear how the U.S. public will respond to deadlier and bolder attacks launched on U.S. forces.

Retired General Garner Discusses Iraq Occupation
By MICHAEL McDONOUGH
Associated Press in The Guardian, 26 November 2003
Courtesy of Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo
Among the many serious mistakes described by retired general Jay Garner was the sacking of Tom Warrick by an administration official higher up than Donald Rumsfeld. The order presumably came from Vice President Cheney. Tom Warrick was one of the principle authors of the State Department's document "the Future of Iraq Project, a multivolume collection of reports and documents put together by a series of working groups during the lead up to the war. In retrospect, Warrick's groups' work -- though disparaged and warred with at the time by hawks at the Pentagon -- predicted much of what's transpired in the last six months." EXCERPT: The retired general who headed the first occupation government in Iraq said Wednesday the United States made major mistakes, including disbanding the Iraqi army, putting too few troops on the ground and failing to explain the goals of the war. Jay Garner, in his most critical comments yet, said in an interview broadcast Wednesday that the series of mistakes began in April when the U.S. military did not act quickly to maintain law and order and preserve the buildings needed for the government ministries.

Exit strategy...30 June 2004
U.S. Weighs Elections for Iraq's Provisional Government
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Robin Wright
Washington Post, 27 November 2003
EXCERPT: Less than two weeks after overhauling its plans for Iraq's political transition, the Bush administration is considering more major revisions that could include elections for a provisional government in an attempt to appease the country's most powerful Shiite Muslim cleric, senior U.S. officials said. Holding elections would be a major reversal for the administration, which has long argued that the absence of an electoral law and accurate voter rolls would make a nationwide ballot time-consuming, disruptive and open to manipulation by religious extremists and loyalists of former president Saddam Hussein. But the senior officials said the administration may be forced to organize elections to satisfy Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. A senior cleric who has strong support among Iraq's Shiite majority, Sistani appears to have rejected a plan devised earlier this month to select a provisional government through 18 regional caucuses. Two Shiite politicians said Sistani told them on Wednesday that he does not support the caucuses and instead wants the provisional government chosen through a general election. "Elections are now a possibility," said a senior U.S. official close to Iraq's political transition. "We're scrambling to find a solution."  ..."Will it work?" a senior administration official said. "Something's got to work. June 30 is turnover day, which is when Iraqis will have full authority and power, and nothing's going to change that."

World Leaders 'Neglecting Aids'
Africa has been worst hit by Aids
BBC News, 27 November 2003
EXCERPT: The world is losing the war against Aids, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has warned.
In a BBC interview, Mr Annan criticised political leadership in the developed as well as the developing world. He urged people in the developing world to challenge their own governments and insist on their right to support. Forty million people are infected with the HIV virus that may lead to Aids - three million have already died of the disease this year alone. Asked if he, as head of the UN, was winning the war against Aids, Mr Annan said: "I'm not winning the war because I don't think the leaders of the world are engaged enough."

Rally of the Realists
By Jim Lobe
Asia Times, 27 November 2003
Although internal fights within the administration on issues such as policy towards Syria, Iran and North Korea remain fierce, there are growing indications that the influence of the hawks, neo-conservatives in particular, is on the wane. New attacks on the neo-cons by key foreign policy figures, as well as suggestions that hawks in the Pentagon and Vice President Dick Cheney's office are losing influence in several key areas, including Iraq, are adding to this impression. While Bush himself still deploys the soaring "we're-bringing-democracy-to-the-Arab-world" rhetoric that has been a neo-conservative trademark for the past 15 months - most recently in his trip last week to Britain - the growing consensus here is that the decision to accelerate the transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi government belies a sharp reduction in those ambitions. Similarly, the speed with which Washington is trying to recruit former soldiers and police - with only pro-forma training and vetting for past loyalties to the Ba'ath regime of former president Saddam Hussein - marks a major departure from the thorough de-Ba'athification program that neo-conservatives said was absolutely necessary if democratic governance was to have a chance in Iraq.

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