Tristero for Digby: Our Tax Dollars at Work

The New York Review of Books links to this recent heartbreaking, enraging account of systematic torture of Iraqis by American troops, CIA types, and others by Human Rights Watch. It demands a detailed accounting from this government but of course it won't get one, partly because not even American moderates take seriously anything a group like Human Rights Watch says concerning US human rights abuses. These are our tax dollars at work, present tense intended. The recent resolution from Congress condemning torture surely will be ignored.

The Daily Howler - 10/14/05

STILL ASKING! But what will happen to Baltimore’s kids? Jonathan Kozol’s still asking: // link // print // previous // next //

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2005

KRUGMAN GETS IT RIGHT: Three cheers for Paul Krugman! Somehow, he’s able to state a simple fact—a simple fact which most career liberals still avoid like a bad case of plague:

KRUGMAN (10/14/05): I don't believe that I'm any better than the average person at judging other people's character...

But many people in the news media do claim, at least implicitly, to be experts at discerning character—and their judgments play a large, sometimes decisive role in our political life. The 2000 election would have ended in a chad-proof victory for Al Gore if many reporters hadn't taken a dislike to Mr. Gore, while portraying Mr. Bush as an honest, likable guy. The 2004 election was largely decided by the image of Mr. Bush as a strong, effective leader.

So it's important to ask why those judgments are often so wrong.

Billmon: Hogtied

My last post -- on the dubious case of the purloined letter -- set me to thinking about Bush's desperate campaign to keep the American people on his side as he wages war against a growing horde of fanatical insurgents.

But in addition to the Miers nomination, it also reminded me of one of the great ironies of Shrub's presidency: an administration that came to power determined to win maximum freedom of action in foreign policy by going it alone (or recruiting ad hoc coalitions that would submissively follow Washington's lead) has ended up virtually paralyzed by the consequences of its own hubris. Consider:

• With the bulk of the U.S. active duty army marooned in the Iraq quagmire, pre-emptive (much less preventative) war is off the table. Syria, Iran and Hugo Chavez can all thumb their noses at the hegemon with relative impunity, secure in the knowledge that the 82nd Airborne won't come knocking on their doors any time soon.

• Bush's inbred arrogance, Field Marshal Von Rumsfeld's moral cluelessness and the neocons' casual contempt for "soft power" have made the United States radioactive not just in the Islamic world but to public opinion in much of the rest of the world as well. Governments that might once have considered enlisting in Uncle Sam's army won't risk it now. Even our nominal allies can only do so much. Like Pakistan's Musharraf, for example. He can't afford to catch Bin Ladin and we can't afford to make him.

Liberal Values

Great list of liberal values from Mark H. at Biomes blog.--Dictynna

Yes, I am a liberal. I’m not a moderate, I’m not a progressive. I’m a liberal. A label I am more proud of every day.
I do not hate America, I love her. And I believe in everything that is good about this country and I oppose everything that is not.
I despise corporate welfare.
I support the right of a woman to control her own body.
I believe every child should have access to the best education we can give them.
I oppose wars based on profit, greed and lies.
I believe it is our duty to protect ecosystems and biodiversity.
I want my children and grandchildren to inherit a healthy environment.
I believe that every person should be afforded the best health care regardless of their income.
I hate racism, sexism and homophobia.
I believe, as our founding fathers did, in the separation of church and state.
I favor fiscal responsibility and fairness in government.
I oppose cruelty to children, pets and wildlife.
I think the “war on drugs” is a sham.
I want energy independence and the emergence of alternative energy sources.
I don’t want to see our country interfering in another nation’s business, except to stop genocide or to encourage environmental responsibility.
I believe global warming is a real threat and that we need to take steps to stop this disaster in its tracks.
I believe in science, not mythology.
I think every American deserves the opportunities of an education and access to jobs that provide a living wage.
I believe in the free market, but that this free market must be regulated to protect the poor from the rich, the weak from the strong.
I believe in free speech and the right to criticize the government when it is acting against our people’s interests.
I am anti-torture.
I am a liberal. Live with it and learn from it. You vote against your own interests. I vote for the interests of everyone.

'NY Times' Publishes Devastating Judith Miller Article, Raising Serious Questions While Revealing Newsroom Controversy

By Greg Mtichell

Published: October 15, 2005 4:25 PM ET

NEW YORK Shortly after 3:30 p.m. on Saturday, The New York Times delivered its long-promised article probing Judith Miller's involvement in the Plame case. It reveals many devastating new details about her experience -- and dissent within the newspaper about her role and the way the Times handled her case.

Among other things, the 5,800-word article discloses that in the same notebook that Miller belatedly turned over to the federal prosecutor last month, chronicling her July 8, 2003, interview with I. Lewis Libby, she wrote the name "Valerie Flame." She surely meant Valerie Plame, but when she testified for a second time in the case this week, she could not recall who mentioned that name to her, the Times said. She said she "didn't think" she heard it from Libby, a longtime friend and source.

Katha Pollitt: If Not Miers, Who?

[from the October 31, 2005 issue]

Dear Karl Rove,

I understand you're getting a lot of flak over the nomination of Harriet Miers to that pesky slot on the Supreme Court. Just in case it doesn't work out, I would like to propose another candidate: me. I realize my name might not be on your short list, since this is a new ambition of mine, and I haven't had time to organize a big shmoozy campaign like some people I could mention. It was actually the Miers nomination that gave me the idea--some people thought, Why her?, but I thought, Why not me? To save time in case you have to move quickly, I've prepared a list of reasons I would be the perfect person to refute the kinds of nasty, rude, unfair arguments being made by Ms. Miers's opponents. I think you will see I have all her strengths, and then some!

1. I am a woman and, moreover, have been one for years. I realize that means I will be subjected to a lot of sexist comments: The media will do silly pieces about my cooking and clothes and whether I am really as bad a mother as all that. Your enemies, of course, will say you chose me because of my sex. Here's the perfect double-whammy defense: While Laura Bush suggests that anyone who criticizes me is a creepy misogynist, which happens to be what I think too (perhaps she could also mention that my daughter has no actual criminal record and surely that counts for something), you point out that there are currently around 113 million adult women in the United States. Obviously if you just wanted a woman, you would never have chosen me. You would have chosen one of those other women--a reactionary judge like Edith Jones or Priscilla Owen, or maybe Jennifer Aniston because Brad has been so mean.

Bush Feared 'Looking Weak' on Iraq

By Robert Parryr 15, 2005

Less than two months before invading Iraq, George W. Bush fretted that his war plans could be disrupted if United Nations weapons inspectors succeeded in gaining Saddam Hussein’s full cooperation, possibly leaving Bush “looking weak,” according to notes written by a secretary to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The notes, taken by Blair’s personal secretary Matthew Rycroft, were included in a new edition of Lawless World, a book by University College professor Philippe Sands. The notes on the Jan. 30, 2003, phone call between Bush and Blair were reviewed by the New York Times, which said they were marked secret and personal. [NYT, Oct. 14, 2005]

Billmon: Letter Opener

Evidence seems to be accumulating that the celebrated letter from Ayman al-Zawahiri (bin Ladin's deputy) to the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- which the corporate media have been gobbling up like a dog in a meatball factory -- is actually what Al Qaeda claims it is: a fake. Juan Cole notices a curious fact: The opening salutation (blessings upon the Messenger of God etc. etc.) is in a form most commonly used in the Shi'a tradition -- a rather odd way for an Egyptian Sunni fundamentalist to greet a Jordanian Sunni fundamentalist who delights in the massacre of unarmed Shi'a women and children.

Greenspan's Successor

Who will fill the Fed chairman's shoes?
By Daniel Gross
Posted Friday, Oct. 14, 2005, at 1:00 PM PT

As Alan Greenspan's 18-year tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board enters its final months, speculation is growing as to whom President Bush will nominate to succeed him. The crowds at Intrade are betting on Ben Bernanke, current chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Asked to rank potential nominees, economists polled by the Wall Street Journal gave the highest marks to Bernanke and longtime Greenspan understudy Donald Kohn, a member of the Fed's Board of Governors (the Economist also believes Kohn is "the best choice"). Harvard eminence Martin Feldstein and Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Roger Ferguson followed close behind in the Journal poll. Glenn Hubbard, the former Bush economic adviser who is now the dean at Columbia University's business school, is also in the mix.

Ku Klux Klan Coming To Midland Public Television

Disgusting.--Dictynna

“The Klan,” a video news program distributed by the Ku Klux Klan will be airing on MCTV in Midland. The first airing of the program will be on Saturday, October 22nd at 11:30 pm.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 10/14/05

"Now that Mr. Bush's approval ratings are in the 30’s, we're hearing about his coldness and bad temper, about how aides are afraid to tell him bad news," writes Paul Krugman. "Does anyone think that journalists have only just discovered these personal characteristics?"

Knight Ridder's Tom Lasseter says his week spent with "a crack unit of the Iraqi army ... suggests that the [U.S. exit] strategy is in serious trouble," as "the mostly Shiite troops are preparing for, if not already fighting, a civil war against the minority Sunni population." Plus: 'Fear and loathing in militia hell.'

The Washington Post reports that the Army has identified over 330 soldiers wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan who have returned home, only to be hit by 'Financial Friendly Fire.'

Bush asked to explain why he won't release heatoil

Fri Oct 14, 2005 01:26 PM ET

By Tom Doggett

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts asked the Bush administration on Friday to explain why it will not tap the government's emergency heating oil stockpile, even though federal law allowed it do so this week after heating fuel prices reached high levels.

For the first time ever, the U.S. Northeast experienced sustained high heating oil costs long enough to hit the price trigger that gives President George W. Bush the option to release supplies from the 2-million-barrel heating oil reserve. The White House declined to use the reserve for the moment.

Political Appointees Re-Write Commerce Department Report On Offshore Outsourcing; Original Analysis Is Missing From Final Version

BY RICHARD McCORMACK richard@manufacturingnews.com

---

The Commerce Department has responded to a half-year-old request by Manufacturing and Technology News for the release a long-awaited study on the issue of "offshore outsourcing" of IT service-sector jobs and high-tech industries. But the 12-page document represented by the agency as its final report is not what was written by its analysts. Rather, it was crafted by political appointees at Commerce and at the White House, according to those familiar with it.

At an estimated cost of $335,000 -- or $28,000 per page -- the document MTN received from the Commerce Department's Technology Administration contains no original research and forsakes its initial intent of providing a balanced view of outsourcing, according to those inside and outside the agency.

Groups Threaten to Boycott American Girl

More craziness...--Dictynna

By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer 5 minutes ago

NEW YORK - American Girl, manufacturer of a highly popular line of dolls and children's books, has become the target of conservative activists threatening a boycott unless the toy maker cuts off contributions to a youth organization that supports abortion rights and acceptance of lesbians.

The protest is directed at an ongoing American Girl campaign in which proceeds from sales of a special "I Can" wristband help support educational and empowerment programs of Girls Inc., a national nonprofit organization which describes its mission as "inspiring girls to be strong, smart and bold."

Vivian Malone Jones, 63, Dies; First Black Graduate of University of Alabama

By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: October 14, 2005

Vivian Malone Jones, who on a blisteringly hot June day in 1963 became one of two black students to enroll at the University of Alabama after first being barred at the door by the defiant governor, George C. Wallace, died yesterday in Atlanta. She was 63.

The cause was a stroke, her sister Sharon Malone told The Associated Press.

Her entrance to the university came as the civil rights struggle raged across the South. On June 12, the day after Ms. Jones and James Hood were escorted into the university by federalized National Guard troops, the civil rights leader Medgar Evers was shot to death in Jackson, Miss.

Nuclear Plant Has Flaw Undetected for 19 Years

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: October 14, 2005

PHOENIX, Oct. 13 (AP) - A potential problem with the emergency reactor core cooling system at the nation's largest nuclear power plant went undetected from 1986, when the plant began producing electricity, until last week, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the plant operator confirmed Thursday.

The issue, a design flaw, was identified when engineers at the plant, the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station, did an analysis after commission overseers raised questions at a detailed inspection early last week. The analysis showed that the emergency cooling system might not operate as expected to provide water to reactor cores after a small leak in the reactor cooling lines, said a commission spokesman, Victor Dricks.

Brooklyn High School Is Accused Anew of Forcing Students Out

What a surprise...--Dictynna

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: October 12, 2005

The nonprofit group that forced New York City to promise to stop pushing failing students out of the public schools filed suit yesterday charging that Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn has continued to force students out, in violation of the law and the city's pledge.

Moreover, the suit charges, many struggling students at Boys and Girls High are essentially warehoused in the school auditorium, where they fill out worksheets for three hours a day and attend no classes. As a result, they fail to earn course credits needed for promotion, and then are told they can no longer attend the school, the suit contends.

Thatcher reveals her doubts over basis for Iraq war

By Andrew Grice
Published: 14 October 2005

Baroness Thatcher has criticised Tony Blair for taking Britain to war in Iraq on the basis of flawed evidence about Saddam Hussein's weapons. The former prime minister's embarrassing criticism emerged as Mr Blair was among the 670 guests who attended a party to mark her 80th birthday.

Although Lady Thatcher remains a strong supporter of the decision to topple Saddam by invading Iraq, it is the first time she has questioned the basis for the war. Yesterday's Washington Post reported that when asked whether she would have invaded Iraq given the intelligence at the time, Lady Thatcher replied: "I was a scientist before I was a politician. And as a scientist I know you need facts, evidence and proof - and then you check, recheck and check again."

Republican National Committee debuts online news program

RAW STORY

The Republican National Committee today unveiled a new interactive Web-based news program entitled "In The Know," seeking to shore up support for Bush court nominee Harriet Miers and efforts to reach out to minority voters, RAW STORY has learned.

A Sliver of Hope

Perhaps the Iraqi Constitution has a chance of success, after all.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Friday, Oct. 14, 2005, at 7:42 AM PT

Two developments in the past few days crack open the possibility that a Yes vote on Iraq's constitution this weekend might mark a small step toward a stable, somewhat democratic government after all. Note: That's "small step," not "giant leap," and "possibility," not "probability"—more like a sliver of a hope—but the picture is brighter than it was two weeks ago, when I wrote (as did others) that the Iraqis would be better off if they voted the document down.

The first event was the widely reported deal in which several Sunni leaders agreed to endorse the constitution in exchange for a Shiite pledge that the new Iraqi parliament—to be elected this December—will consider substantive amendments.

Jitters at the White House Over the Leak Inquiry

By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
Published: October 14, 2005

WASHINGTON, Oct. 13 - Karl Rove nosed his Jaguar out of the garage at his home in Northwest Washington in the predawn gloom, starting another day in which he would be dealing with a troubled Supreme Court nomination, posthurricane reconstruction and all the other issues that come across the desk of President Bush's most influential aide.

Storms Alter Louisiana Politics

Population Loss Likely to Reduce Influence of Black Voters

By Michael A. Fletcher and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, October 14, 2005; Page A07

The massive population shift caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita holds seismic political implications for Louisiana, which faces a near-certain reduction of its congressional delegation and a likely loss in black-voter clout that could severely affect the state's elected Democrats.

Less than two months after Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, leaving much of New Orleans and surrounding areas unlivable, Louisiana officials are beginning to grapple with the bewildering new political landscape. The storms and resultant flooding caused more than 1 million residents to flee their homes, many for far-flung destinations from which they may never return.

Consumer Prices Rise Sharply

By Nell Henderson and Stephen Barr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 14, 2005; 10:51 AM

Hurricane Katrina helped push inflation up sharply last month, guaranteeing that millions of Americans receiving Social Security and other federal benefits will see their payments rise in January by the largest amount since 1991, the government reported today.

But the Labor Department also reported that the widely followed consumer price index for all urban consumers, rose 1.2 percent last month and 4.7 percent in the 12 months that ended in September. That was the biggest monthly rise since March, 1980, and the biggest 12-month increase since May, 1991.

Tristero for Digby: Major Discoveries

First of all, More Hobbits found. This would seem to indicate that Homo floresiensis is a real new species discovery, but there are still a lot of scientists who think the skeletons represent modern humans with microcephaly. Also, in a different story about the new hobbit skeleton, there's some speculation that hobbits may have descended not from Homo Erectus, as the main discoverers believe, but from australopithecines, hominids like the famous Lucy.

Digby: Don't Look At Me

Read this very interesting Hardball transcript of a discussion between Chris Matthews and Andrea Mitchell as they dissect the body of public evidence we have about Fitzgerald's investigation. They speculate grandly about what Fitzgerald's up to --- and you can see that there is some serious trepidation about Fitz coming in and trashing the place by expecting Republicans to uphold the law.

But there is one tiny bit of information that they both fail to mention in their wide ranging discussion of all things Fitzgerald: the fact that both of them were subpoenaed in the case! And neither of these fine reporters have actually, you know, reported what that was about.

The Daily Howler - 10/12/05

BORN TOO LATE! If only Franke-Ruta had been around to fight hard for Candidate Gore: // link // print // previous // next //

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2005

BIG APPLE/BIG EASY: Was New York’s fourth-grade reading test easier this year? (See THE DAILY HOWLER, 10/6/05.) In this morning’s Times, James Kadamus says no, it was not. Kadamus is Deputy Commissioner of the state’s Education Department. He says the 2005 test was carefully constructed to be just as tough as the previous version:

KADAMUS: All questions used on the 2004 and 2005 tests were "field-tested" at the same time with the same students from urban, suburban and rural schools. This gave an accurate appraisal of the difficulty level of each question and each test. Scoring was adjusted accordingly.

All major tests, including the SAT and Advanced Placement exams, use similar methods to ensure a consistent level of difficulty over time.

If Kadamus is right, the 2005 test was just as hard as the test from 2004.

The Daily Howler - 10/13/05

AS THE DEAN SLEEPS! David Broder, snoring loudly, headlines a dumb, addled press corps: // link // print // previous // next //

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2005

AS THE DEAN SLEEPS: We never cease to be amazed by the way our mainstream press corps “reasons.” This morning, The Dean brought our analysts out of their chairs with these data from Kamarck and Galston’s new report:

BRODER (10/13/05): The perception that Democrats are weak on confronting terrorism and hostile to the culture of the deeply religious has cost the party dearly, especially among married women and Catholics. Galston and Kamarck calculate that the odds of a married woman supporting the Republican candidate rose from just under 40 percent in 1992 to nearly 55 percent last year. Clinton, a Baptist, carried the Catholic vote by nine points in 1992, while John Kerry, a Catholic, lost among his co-religionists by five points.

We’re generally sympathetic to Karmarck and Galston, but what’s up with that puzzling, highlighted claim?

Juan Cole - 10/13/05

Iraq Anarchy Grows
Constitution Deal May attract IIP

Veteran British reporter Robert Fisk, according to the Independent, finds much of Iraq to have significantly deteriorated since his last visit and to be in a "state of anarchy" and found it bizarre for the Western press to focus on procedural matters like the referendum on the constitution.

' He said that the portrayal of Iraq by Western leaders ­ of efforts to introduce democracy, including Saturday's national vote on the country's proposed constitution ­ was "unreal" to most of its citizens. In Baghdad, children and women were kept at home to prevent them from being kidnapped for money or sold into slavery. They faced a desperate struggle to find the money to keep generators running to provide themselves with electricity. "They aren't sitting in their front rooms discussing the referendum on the constitution."

Billmon: House of Card

If Howard Fineman is right, and Andrew Card really is making a move to topple Karl Rove, then this country could be in a heap of trouble. Rove, at least, is smart, even if it is a feral, devious brand of intelligence. Card, on the other hand, is as dense as a truck load of gravel -- a half-full truck load of gravel.

He'd might even tell you that himself, in fact he already has:

Like his boss, Card is an aggressively lowfalutin character . . . "I'm not a very smart person," Card says. "I have to work really hard at remembering things."

Having dealt with Card at various points during my own aggressively undistinguished career as a journalist, I can vouch for the fact that Andy is not misunderestimating himself.

Billmon: Let's Break a Deal

It's hard to know what to make of the latest bargain struck in the constitutional bazaar in Baghdad, other than that it appears to have rendered Saturday's referendum completely superfluous.

That's pretty ironic, considering that the vote is supposed to mark yet another "turning point" in the Global War to Plant the Tree of Democracy in the Garden of Peace and Prosperity in the Middle East. But instead, Iraqis are being asked to cast their votes for or against a complex document that only a handful of them have even seen, that's already been amended, and that is supposed to be thrown open to even more amendments in the next parliament. All this at the behest of the same small clique of factional clan leaders who secretly drafted the deeply flawed original.

Billmon: Riding the Waiver

I suppose if Patrick Fizgerald threw me in jail for 85 days, my principles would get pretty flexible, too:

At her second appearance before the grand jury, Times reporter Judith Miller took questions for more than an hour after turning over notes detailing her June 23, 2003, conversation with Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby. An entry in her notes referred to Joseph Wilson, covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's diplomat husband . .

Billmon: The Right's Iraq

One of the most fascinating -- and deeply amusing -- aspects of the Great Miers Revolt has been watching the conservative rebels react with growing disgust and anger to the tactics the White House is using to try to bulldoze Shrub's pen pal through the confirmation process.

The Rovian game plan is, in all its essentials, the same sleazy blend of double speak, half-truths, non sequiturs, demagogic appeals and knees-to-the-groin smears that were used to sell the invasion of Iraq. But those who applauded then -- and again when the same patented blend of slime was used in the Cheney-Bush reelection campaign -- are howling about it now that they're the intended targets.

Religious right calls on US government to regulate the ACLU

by John in DC - 10/13/2005 04:40:00 PM

The religious right wants Congress to pass laws curtailing the activities of specific civil rights groups like the ACLU.

Time to state the obvious: The religious right is filled with Nazis. You don't like the term "Nazi?" Well too bad. One good thing I got out of the Holocaust Museum this past weekend was an amazing lesson in how quickly Hitler consolidated power his first six months in office by banning the opposition and slowly (or quickly) whittling away at the rights of Germany's citizens in an effort to create a murderous totalitarian regime.

Book burning is Nazi. Demonizing minorities is Nazi. Using the organs of the state to attack civil rights organizations is Nazi. Having the state regulate the intimate relations of its citizens is Nazi. You don't like the comparison? Too bad. Some of us have learned the lessons of history and don't plan on repeating them again. Others are so blinded by history that they refuse to dedicate themsleves to truly ensuring it never happens again.

Shakespeare's Sister: Hackocracy

The title of this post is taken from the cover story on the Oct. 17 issue of The New Republic, which notes:

[W]hile cronies populate every presidency, no administration has etched the principles of hackocracy into its governing philosophy as deeply as this one. If there’s an underappreciated corner of the bureaucracy to fill, it has found just the crony (or college roommate of a crony), party operative (or cousin of a party operative) to fill it.

And just when one might foolishly think the Bush administration can’t get any more hackocratic than it already is, oddjob points to this article, which reports that a political loyalty test is now being used by the National Park Service in filling all positions of mid-level management and above.

The National Park Service has started using a political loyalty test for picking all its top civil service positions, according to an agency directive released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Under the new order, all mid-level managers and above must also be approved by a Bush administration political appointee.

The October 11, 2005 order issued by NPS Director Fran Mainella requires that the selection criteria for all civil service management slots (Government Service grades or GS-13, 14 and 15) include the "ability to lead employees in achieving the ...Secretary's 4Cs and the President's Management Agenda." …

The President's Management Agenda includes controversial policies and proposals such as aggressive use of outsourcing to replace civil servants, reliance on "faith-based initiatives" and rollbacks of civil service rights.

The order, which is described as “an unprecedented political intrusion into what are supposed to be non-partisan, merit system personnel decisions,” applies to “park superintendents, assistant superintendents and program managers, such as chief ranger or the head of interpretive or cultural programs.”

Bush Teleconference With Soldiers Staged

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer Thu Oct 13, 4:35 PM ET

WASHINGTON - It was billed as a conversation with U.S. troops, but the questions President Bush asked on a teleconference call Thursday were choreographed to match his goals for the war in Iraq and Saturday's vote on a new Iraqi constitution.

"This is an important time," Allison Barber, deputy assistant defense secretary, said, coaching the soldiers before Bush arrived. "The president is looking forward to having just a conversation with you."

James Dobson Speaks on Miers

Dobson Says His Support Stems from a Private Chat With Rove About Nominee's Evangelicism

Oct. 12, 2005 — - James Dobson, founder of the conservative group Focus on the Family, made waves earlier this month when he said he had confidential information that led him to back President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court -- even as other conservatives spoke out against the nomination.

Dobson's position led to widespread calls for him to disclose the nature of his information.

Today, Dobson claimed to do so during Focus on the Family's 30-minute daily radio program, which the group says is aired on over 3,000 radio facilities each day across the United States.

Digby: Fredo, You Broke My Heart

Via Americablog, Murray Waas is quoted as saying:

...Apparently Lewis Libby and Karl Rove, during the course of the special prosecutor's investigation, they almost certainly never thought that either Judith Miller or Matthew Cooper or the journals would cooperate. It's been very rare that a prosecutor – a federal prosecutor has been [inaudible] to pressure journalists into testifying against their will. It's very rare that journalists have testified, and it's almost a historical thing now for Judith Miller to spend 85 days in jail. So, I think it was -- Libby was apparently in the hope that Miller wouldn’t testify, as Karl Rove was, that Matthew Cooper wouldn’t.

Data on Marriage and Births Reflect the Political Divide

By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: October 13, 2005

When it comes to marriage and babies, the red states really are different from the blue states, according to a new Census Bureau analysis of marriage, fertility and socioeconomic characteristics.

People in the Northeast marry later and are more likely to live together without marriage and less likely to become teenage mothers than are people in the South.

The bureau's analysis, based on a sample of more than three million households from the American Community Survey data of 2000-3, is the first to examine the data by state.

A Big Debate on Little People: Ancient Species or Modern Dwarfs?

Off topic, but this fascinates me.--Dictynna

By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD

New discoveries in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores, notably another jawbone, appear to give additional support to the idea that a separate species of little people new to science and now extinct lived there as recently as 12,000 years ago.

But a vigorous minority of skeptical scientists were unmoved by the new findings. They contend that the skeletal remains are more likely to be deformed modern human beings, not a distinct species.

The group of Australian and Indonesian researchers who announced the first findings a year ago and proclaimed the new species Homo floresiensis describe the additional bones in a report to be published tomorrow in the journal Nature.

Treated for Illness, Then Lost in Labyrinth of Bills

By KATIE HAFNER
Published: October 13, 2005

When Bracha Klausner returned home after an extended hospital stay for a ruptured intestine three years ago, she found stacks of mail from doctors and hospitals waiting for her.

There were so many envelopes - some of them very thick - that at first, Mrs. Klausner, 77, could not bring herself to open them, and she stored them in large shopping bags in her Manhattan apartment.

Top Advisory Panel Warns of an Erosion of the U.S. Competitive Edge in Science

By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: October 13, 2005

A panel of experts convened by the National Academies, the nation's leading science advisory group, called yesterday for an urgent and wide-ranging effort to strengthen scientific competitiveness.

The 20-member panel, reporting at the request of a bipartisan group in Congress, said that without such an effort the United States "could soon loose its privileged position." It cited many examples of emerging scientific and industrial power abroad and listed 20 steps the United States should take to maintain its global lead.

O'Reilly accused Oregon of "judicial fascism"

On the October 10 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show and on the October 11 edition of his Fox News program, Bill O'Reilly baselessly asserted that Oregon was "being hijacked by the judges." Infuriated by a recent Oregon Supreme Court ruling that a statute prohibiting live sex acts in adult venues constituted a violation of free expression under the Oregon state constitution, O'Reilly decried the action as "judicial fascism" and claimed that the Oregon judiciary wanted "to turn it [Oregon] into a secular paradise," falsely attributing Oregonian policies on physician-assisted suicide and medical marijuana to the courts.

The Next Great Theft?

Max B. Sawicky
October 13, 2005

Max B. Sawicky is an economist at the Economic Policy Institute. He can be reached at his blog, MaxSpeak, You Listen!

With the death of his Social Security privatization scheme, President Bush is trying to resuscitate his domestic agenda with an electric slide to tax reform. Some things never change: Doubtless, Bush will try to continue comforting the comfortable and afflicting the afflicted by shifting the tax burden from the wealthy to everyone else. How he will try and do it this time around remains to be seen.

The next shoe to drop will be the report of his Advisory Commission on Tax Reform. The commission is scheduled to deliver its recommendations on November 1. We may have gotten a sneak peek in the past few days, as commission members have floated a few trial balloons. The chief option put forward is to eliminate the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which would be a tax cut for relatively wealthy, and to replace the cut revenue by reducing or eliminating deductions for health insurance, home mortgage interest and state and local income tax.

Report Says U.S. Reduces Protection of Waters, Wetlands

October 13, 2005 — By Alan Elsner, Reuters

WASHINGTON — In the past four years, the United States has drastically cut back on its protection of waterways and wetlands, whose erosion was cited as a factor in the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina, according to a report issued Wednesday.

The report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, examined how the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency assert jurisdiction over many of the nation's waterways and wetlands.

Environmental groups criticized government practices discussed in the report.

Syrian Official Found Dead

Interior Minister Was Questioned in U.N. Lebanon Probe

By Alia Ibrahim
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, October 13, 2005; Page A12

BEIRUT, Oct. 12 -- Syria's interior minister was found dead Wednesday in his office in the Syrian capital, Damascus, in what the government described as a suicide. The death of Maj. Gen. Ghazi Kanaan came just days before the planned release of a U.N. report on suspected Syrian involvement in the car-bomb assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister.

Kanaan, 63, who for two decades was Syria's top intelligence official here in neighboring Lebanon, fatally shot himself, according to a statement issued by SANA, the official Syrian news agency. The statement gave no further details, saying only that an official investigation had been launched.

Decision on Plan B Called Very Unusual

By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 13, 2005; Page A09

A long-awaited report on the 2004 Food and Drug Administration decision to reject an application to allow easier access to the "morning after pill" concludes that the decision was highly unusual, was made with atypical involvement from top agency officials, and may well have been made months before it was formally announced.

The draft report by the Government Accountability Office, requested by Congress in the summer of 2004, is to be finalized and made public by the end of the month. But some congressional staffers have been briefed on its conclusions in recent weeks, and some were allowed yesterday to read the findings.

World Temperatures Keep Rising With a Hot 2005

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 13, 2005; Page A01

New international climate data show that 2005 is on track to be the hottest year on record, continuing a 25-year trend of rising global temperatures.

Climatologists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies calculated the record-breaking global average temperature, which now surpasses 1998's record by a tenth of a degree Fahrenheit, from readings taken at 7,200 weather stations scattered around the world.

SEC Issues Subpoena To Frist, Sources Say

Records Sought On Sale of Stock

By Carrie Johnson and Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 13, 2005; Page A01

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has been subpoenaed to turn over personal records and documents as federal authorities step up a probe of his July sales of HCA Inc. stock, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued the subpoena within the past two weeks, after initial reports that Frist, the Senate's top Republican official, was under scrutiny by the agency and the Justice Department for possible violations of insider trading laws.

Tax panel seeks cap on break for homeowners

By Christopher Swann in Washington
Published: October 11 2005 21:45 | Last updated: October 11 2005 21:45

The president's panel on tax reform is pushing for a cap on the mortgage interest tax deduction, long considered one of the country's untouchable tax breaks.

The loophole, which along with other tax breaks for homeownership costs the US Treasury about $100bn (€83bn, £57bn) a year in lost revenue, disproportionately benefits wealthier Americans.

George W. Bush had instructed the panel upon its formation to take account of “the importance of homeownership and charity in American society”, a statement that led some to suggest that tampering with existing generous incentives for property ownership would be taboo.

But in the final weeks of its deliberations it is leaning towards curbing the tax privileges of higher-end homeowners.

From abroad, challenges to US role as top innovator

Ramped-up R&D in China and India blunts economic edge of US.

By Mark Trumbull | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

For decades, America was the preeminent destination for the world's innovators. Scientists of all kinds left their homelands to learn the ropes at top-flight US universities - and often stayed put to earn high salaries. Many countries struggled to stop this brain drain to the US.

But today, the giant sucking sound may be flowing in the other direction. Just this year, 325,000 Chinese earned engineering degrees. The US, by contrast, gave out just 60,000 - fewer than it did a decade ago. And international enrollment at US campuses has been falling.

Harold Meyerson: The Vanishing Middle

Wednesday, October 12, 2005; A17

We're leveling down.

With the bankruptcy filing Saturday of Delphi Corp., the largest American auto parts manufacturer, the downward ratcheting of living standards that has afflicted the steel and airline industries hit the auto industry big-time. As Delphi executives tell the tale, they need to reduce the hourly pay of their 34,000 unionized employees from the current $26 to $30 range to a somewhat more modest $10 to $12.

No one denies that Delphi is losing money -- about $5.5 billion over the past year and a half. Its labor costs are roughly 10 times those in Mexico and China, where an increasing number of parts that go into cars assembled in the United States are made.

Scalia Turns Journalists Away From Speech

By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer Wed Oct 12, 7:55 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The real Antonin Scalia seems to be back. The Supreme Court justice mugged for cameras and gave unusual interviews in New York, where he led the Columbus Day parade.

Back in Washington, however, journalists were turned away from his speech to life insurance executives and Scalia talked about gossip-seeking reporters during a court argument about free speech rights. A court spokeswoman said the speech should have been open to some reporters.

Philanthropy the Wal-Mart way

Will the Walton Family Foundation become a $20 billion tax-exempt opponent of public education?

Today most people think they know the story of Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, owned by the Walton family of Bentonville, Arkansas. Together the Waltons own 39 percent of the corporation that brings discounted merchandise to the public through Wal-Mart and its other stores. The company has more than 5,000 stores (3,400 in the U.S.), is the world's largest private employer, and is the world's largest company based on revenue with more than $280 billion in annual sales.

Report: Lawyers say investigation into CIA leak widens to probe 'broader conspiracy' around Iraq

RAW STORY

There are signs that prosecutors now are looking into contacts between administration officials and journalists that took place much earlier than previously thought, the Wall Street Journal will report Wednesday, RAW STORY can reveal. Excerpts from the coming story:

#

Earlier conversations are potentially significant, because that suggests the special prosecutor leading the investigation is exploring whether there was an effort within the administration at an early stage to develop and disseminate confidential information to the press that could undercut former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, Central Intelligence Agency official Valerie Plame.

The Mahablog: Hooey; or, Why Paper Money Is Unconstitutional

"I told the people on the campaign trail that I'll pick somebody who knows the difference between personal opinion and the strict interpretation of the law. You might have heard that several times. I meant what I said." -- George W. Bush

"For now, I'll sit the Miers fight out until I know with some certainty that she's a vote for our values." -- Gary Bauer

We've known for a long time the "interpretation of the law" speech is hooey. During the Terri Schiavo episode the social conservatives made it clear they have no regard whatsoever for the constitution, federalism, separation of powers, or the rule of law. They want what they want, period, even if they have to pull on their jack boots and stomp all over democratic principles to get it.

Tristero for Digby: And The Beat Goes On

No doubt, the Bush administration has hit a rough patch, which has caused Americans who love their country to breathe a sigh of relief. Some of us have predicted Bush's political demise. But let's get real here. The dismantling of America continues apace. Where normal people feel compassion for the poor and the abject, and wish to offer unconditional help, the Bush administration senses only great opportunities for advancing ultra-right ideologies (and rewarding rich cronies, of course).

Tristero for Digby: "We Can Do Better"

Like most Americans, Strindberg-style morbidity and pessimism quickly becomes tiresome around Casa Tristero. For all I know, Swedes get sick of Strindberg, too, but one of the most striking features of our national consciousness, that folks from other places never cease to comment on, is Americans' sense of optimism with purpose. Often, it is true, this is carried to a dangerous fault. But it's a country-wide tic we have and it can't easily be denied. So, being an American, I can't write a post like The Third Way And The Highway without reflexively thinking, "Lighten up, man! Your audience is dying out there." So I won't draw attention in this post to the untidy fact that the Pakistani death toll has reached 42,000 or that there's a serious food crisis in the Guatemalan villages ravaged by the mudslides or even that dozens of people were killed today in a suicide car bomb in Iraq. Nope. Below, I'll accentuate the positive. Enjoy!

Here is an article that provides a rough outline of Dean's plans for the Democrats.

Tristero for Digby: There's No Fun With Analogies When Slaughter Is The Subject

Matthew Yglesias channels Tom Friedman and compares the invasion of Iraq to a football play in the Super Bowl. Okay, Matt is very, very young and trying to find his voice so let's not dwell on this unspeakable lapse of taste. As readers of my blog know, I have zero patience with anyone who euphemizes or romanticizes war, even those like Chris Hedges, who have the best of intentions and have experienced war firsthand.

The Daily Howler - 10/11/05

KEEPING KANSAS! Buchanan says Bush doesn’t want to dump Roe. It makes an intriguing speculation: // link // print // previous // next //

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2005

OOPS: Jury duty! And we almost forgot! We had planned to limn Louis Freeh this morning. We’ll postpone until tomorrow.

KEEPING KANSAS: In our view, the most interesting speculation about the Miers nod was voiced by Pat Buchanan on this week’s Meet the Press. Bush may not want to overturn Roe, the pundit resignedly said:

BUCHANAN (10/9/05): Tim, on abortion, I am not sure the president the United States wants to see Roe v. Wade overturned. His wife does not, his mother does not. He refuses to say whether he wants to say whether he wants to see Roe v. Wade overturned. There are a number of Republicans, moderate Republicans, who say, "Well this would be a political disaster." I'm not sure the president of the United States wants the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Leave aside Bush’s wife and mother; Roe v. Wade has been the great GOP political organizing principle of the past thirty years. What’s the Matter with Kansas? was all about it; Roe v. Wade gives the GOP something to organize red-state voters around. Meanwhile, if Roe ever gets overturned, many centrists will be newly angry with the GOP; presumably, that’s what Buchanan meant when he said that some moderate Republicans see Roe’s overturn as “political disaster.” If Karl Rove is involved in the selection of Court nominees, this sort of Machiavellian political calculation would surely be part of the stew.

Juan Cole - 10/11/05

18 Killed
Arab League Convoy Attacked
Last Minute Negotiations on Constitution

Guerrilla violence killed 18 persons in Iraq on Monday, including one US GI. Protesters in Ramadi said they had not yet seen the offical text of the constitution and think the government is conspiring to keep it from them, according to the Washington Post. Many in Baghdad also say they have not seen it.

Billmon: Rummy's Blackmail Ring

Has Rummy been using drummed up charges of sexual misconduct to silence his military critics? Scott Horton at Balkinization examines the evidence -- beginning with the railroad job

done on Guantanamo whisteblower John Yee, and continuing with the cases of three generals who, in one way or another, questioned Rumsfeld's official actions and ended up publicly disgraced and/or chased into retirement for allegedly engaging in consensual sexual relationships:

• Maj Gen Thomas J Fiscus, Judge Advocate General of the Air Force – known to have criticized rules on treatment of detainees – accused of sexual misconduct.

• Lt Gen John Riggs – questioned the level of troop commitments to the Iraq campaign – accused of sexual misconduct and technical contract infractions.

• Gen Kevin Byrnes – responsible for incorporating changes in doctrine on interrogation and treatment of detainees, rumored to have had reservations about changes hammered through by Rumsfeld – accused of sexual misconduct.

A big hat tip to Scott for picking up on this story (and to Atrios for linking to it.) I started looking it myself a few months ago, after Byrnes bit the dust, but was distracted by other things. The pattern wasn't as clear to me then as it appears now -- I remembered what had happened to Fiscus, but overlooked Riggs and Yee.

Bush Panel in Broad Agreement to Cut Investment Tax (Update1)

Oct. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The financial-services industry is poised to emerge a big winner from the recommendations of President George W. Bush's tax advisory panel, where a consensus is building to eliminate or reduce taxes on investment income.

The panel holds its second-to-last meeting in Washington today to hone its final recommendations, due to be delivered to the Treasury Department by Nov. 1. Panel members said in interviews they have reached a broad agreement to make it easier and less costly for Americans to invest in financial markets.

``All of us would like to get taxes on investments to a reasonably low level, particularly dividend and capital-gains returns,'' said member Bill Frenzel, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota who is now a scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

AP: Frist Accumulated Stock Outside Trusts

By LARRY MARGASAK and JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press Writers 1 hour, 35 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - Outside the blind trusts he created to avoid a conflict of interest, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist earned tens of thousands of dollars from stock in a family-founded hospital chain largely controlled by his brother, documents show.

Documents Show Supreme Court Nominee's Close Ties to Bush

Is Harriet Miers Bush's "Gerald Ford" insurance policy?--Dictynna

By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
and SIMON ROMERO
Published: October 11, 2005

AUSTIN, Tex., Oct. 10 - "You are the best governor ever - deserving of great respect," Harriet E. Miers wrote to George W. Bush days after his 51st birthday in July 1997. She also found him "cool," said he and his wife, Laura, were "the greatest!" and told him: "Keep up the great work. Texas is blessed."

Ms. Miers, President Bush's personal lawyer and his selection for a Supreme Court seat, emerges as an unabashed fan in more than 2,000 pages of official correspondence and personal notes made public on Monday by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission in response to open-records requests.

Liberal Hopes Ebb in Post-Storm Poverty Debate

By JASON DePARLE
Published: October 11, 2005

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 - As Hurricane Katrina put the issue of poverty onto the national agenda, many liberal advocates wondered whether the floods offered a glimmer of opportunity. The issues they most cared about - health care, housing, jobs, race - were suddenly staples of the news, with President Bush pledged to "bold action."

But what looked like a chance to talk up new programs is fast becoming a scramble to save the old ones.

The Fall of a True Believer

News: How Jack Abramoff gained the whole world and lost just about everything.

By Barry Yeoman
Illustration: Roberto Parada

September/October 2005 Issue

ON THE FIRST MORNING of the Republican National Convention, the stocky former weightlifter waited nervously for his turn to speak. Just 25 years old, he was impeccably dressed in a dark gray suit and red tie. But he had slipped some contraband past security: a handful of note cards, hastily compiled the night before and now stashed in his sleeve. He mounted the podium, looked over the crowd, and noticed how few delegates were paying attention. "Fellow Republicans," he began predictably, "I come before you representing American students." Then, suddenly, he veered wildly from the approved text. He looked up and noted the teleprompter operator's panicked expression, with glee.

A Shot in the Arm

Commentary: The spread of nuclear weapons poses the greatest threat to U.S. and world security—and we'd better step up our efforts to address it.

By Carl Robichaud

October 10, 2005

Article created by The Century Foundation.

On Friday, after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Mohammad ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the award is a much needed "shot in the arm" for him and the agency. The boost couldn't come at a better time—the past year has been a disastrous one for the non-proliferation regime. The spread of nuclear weapons poses the greatest threat to U.S. and world security—and we'd better step up our efforts to address it.

Gasoline costs will wipe out raises, study says

Monday, October 10, 2005
By Patricia Sabatini, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Brace yourself -- this is going to hurt.

Workers can expect an average pay raise of about 3.7 percent his year, but because of sky-high gasoline prices, they'll pour all but a smidgen of that extra cash down the gas tank commuting to work according to an analysis by Salary.com.

Calculating the toll of higher gas prices in 88 cities nationwide, the Needham, Mass., compensation software and data firm found that workers making the average annual salary of just above $40,000 last month were spending 3.3 percent of their paychecks gassing up for work.

Medicare drug plan sales offensive begins

Insurers prepare pitches for complicated program

Tuesday, October 11, 2005
By Christopher Snowbeck and Joe Fahy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Whether it's TV ads featuring stars from bygone years or commission-hungry insurance agents camped out in pharmacy stores, the marketing of Medicare prescription drug plans this fall promises to be big business.

Alleged Rove secret riles senators

BY TOM BRUNE
WASHINGTON BUREAU

October 10, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Senators yesterday demanded disclosure of the secret that top Bush aide Karl Rove told a conservative activist last week to reassure him about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, but the White House insisted there is no secret to divulge.

Many politicians and activists reacted with surprise last week when conservative Focus on the Family founder James Dobson announced his support for Miers and said on his radio show Wednesday that Rove told him things about Miers "I probably shouldn't know."

Air Force Withdraws Paper for Chaplains

Document Permitted Proselytizing

By Alan Cooperman

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 11, 2005; Page A03

The Air Force, facing a lawsuit over alleged proselytizing, has withdrawn a document that permitted chaplains to evangelize military personnel who were not affiliated with any faith, Pentagon officials said yesterday.

The document was circulated at the Air Force Chaplain School until eight weeks ago. It was a "code of ethics" for chaplains that included the statement "I will not proselytize from other religious bodies, but I retain the right to evangelize those who are not affiliated."

King of Zembla: The Ur-Question

Physicist Norman Dombey, who has written extensively on Iran's nuclear capability, offers a pleasing meditation on the interconnectedness of all things:

President Bush's principal adviser Karl Rove is to be questioned again over the improper naming of a CIA official. Mohamed ElBaradei, accused by the American right of being insufficiently aggressive, wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his stalwart work at the helm of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Pentagon official Larry Franklin pleads guilty to passing on classified information to Israel. Just a normal week in politics. But there is a thread linking these events and it is Iraq.

Politicians tell us they acted in good faith on the road to war, and maybe they did, but that leaves a prickly question: who was so keen to prove that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat that they forged documents purporting to show that he was trying to buy 500 tons of uranium from Niger to develop nuclear weapons? The forgery was revealed to the Security Council by ElBaradei. That was not an intelligence error. It was a straightforward lie, an invention intended to mislead public opinion and help start a war.

Tristero for Digby: The Third Way And The Highway

There is a much discussed report by The Third Way Middle Class Project called "The Politics of Polarization" that purports to analyze the plight of the Democrats and suggests concrete measures to focus the party. Based on a reading of the executive summary, the conclusions, and some skimming through the report, those of us who are liberals will find at least some food for thought. But it has several major flaws in its reasoning which led the authors to conclude, wrongly, that the Democratic Party should advocate "centrist," actually center-right, positions.

Two of the flaws are uwarranted assumptions on the part of the authors. First, they deride "the myth of mobilization;" it is a mistake, they say, to assume that by energizing liberals and getting them to the polls in record numbers, Democrats can win. They argue that since conservatives outnumber liberals 3 to 2, "Democrats cannot win the game of “base” ball, except in those rare circumstances in which conservatives are discouraged and demobilized."

Digby: As Ye Sow So Shall Ye Reap, Muthafuckah

From ThinkProgress

Towards the end of the segment, Kristol got started, saying, “I hate the criminalization of politics.”

I'll bet he does. Perhaps he should have thought of that before he and his little friends used the Independent Counsel Statute and majority status in the congress ato normalize character assassination, bogus lawsuits, election stealing and partisan impeachments.

The Daily Howler - 10/10/05

TELL US A STORY! Ezra Klein types a Disneyfied version of what Gene Robinson said: // link // print // previous // next //

MONDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2005

SLOWLY WE TURN: As we shift the focus of TDH, we’re working on last week’s two-hour PBS special, Making Schools Work, about public schools which have success while serving low-income minority kids. According to moderator Hedrick Smith, one such school is Charlotte’s Spaugh Middle School. But uh-oh! This past spring, only 57.7 percent of Spaugh’s black eighth graders passed North Carolina’s end-of-grade reading test; statewide, 80.5 percent of black eighth graders passed! Nor were things better on the seventh grade level. At Spaugh, 58.2 percent of black seventh graders passed, compared to 76.2 percent of black kids statewide. Statewide, 92.3 of white seventh graders passed (94.3 percent of white eighth graders). Needless to say, these facts weren’t mentioned in Making Schools Work. To check data using the official North Carolina state report, you know what to do—just click here.

Without criticizing the staff at Spaugh, why would a school with these results be singled out as a “school that works?” With a whole nation of schools to choose from, why on earth were we asked to ponder the great reforms which Spaugh hath wrought? We’re not sure, but the press has played schoolboy games for decades when it ponders the schools of minority kids. Smith’s report made viewers feel good—and that often seemed to be its chief purpose.

Juan Cole - 10/10/05

30,000 Dead in Pakistan
2.5 Million Homeless

The Pakistani government is now estimating 30,000 dead in the earthquake, and incidents of civil violence are being reported by AP. CNN is suggesting that 2.5 million are homeless, and perhaps as many as 5 million.

The magnitude of the disaster is only gradually becoming apparent. It will put enormous pressure on Pakistan's government to respond effectively. Its ability to do so is not clear.

Guest Editorial by Gilbert Achcar: The US and Shiite Politics in Iraq

Gilbert Achcar writes:

1) How US and British Forces help Iraqis recover their sovereignty

For any person believing in good faith that occupation troops in Iraq are helping the Iraqis build independent institutions in order to recover their sovereignty, recent events in Basra—the way British troops stormed police headquarters in that city—and their aftermath ought to be enough to prove the contrary.

Basra Bombing Targets Badr
Jaafari Rejects Conference of National Reconsiliation

Someone detonated a car bomb in Basra outside an office of the Badr Corps, the paramilitary of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. One child was killed and six were wounded in the explosion. It was not clear who was behind the blast, but Badr has lots of enemies, including Sunni Arabs in the South and rival Shiite militias (profiled Sunday by the NYT's Richard A. Oppel Jr.. The British narrative of problems with Shiite militias in Basra and the possible link to Iran, reported by Oppel, still makes no sense to me. I think it is very difficult (and perhaps embarrassing) for the US and Britain to admit to themselves that significant numbers of local Iraqis just don't want them there, so they keep seeking an explanation for anti-Coalition violence in foreign influence. If bombings targetting the British were done by a splinter Sadrist group around Shaikh Ahmad Fartusi, this is southern Shiite nativism at work, not foreign influence. The Sadr movement does not get along that well with the Iranians.

Billmon: Bullies

One thing I learned long ago is that the authentic bully unerringly choosest the weakest, most submissive person in the group to pick on (which is, of course, the exact opposite of the behavior found in sane pack animals, like dogs.) It's also fairly well known that bullies tend to be incredible crybabies whenever the tables are turned and they find themselves brought to account for their actions.

And so it was absolutely no surprise to see this story on CNN:

The investigation has taken a toll on White House aides, many of whom now fear that the special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, is intent on issuing indictments . . . "Fitzgerald's office, although very professional, has been very aggressive in pursuing people," the adviser said. "These guys are bullies, and they threaten you."

(via manyoso at Daily Kos)

Can I hear a chorus of: "Awwwwww, pooooor babies"?

David Corn: Rove Scandal: New Mysteries, New Props

I promised this blog would have something on the Rove scandal today. I posted below in my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com. if you've already seen it there, please scroll below and peruse other offerings.

The Plame/CIA leak case is getting what all good scandals need: props.

We now have the "missing notebook" and the "missing email." The "missing notebook," as several news reports noted at the end of last week, belongs to New York Times reporter Judith Miller and reportedly contains notes of a conversation regarding former Ambassador Joseph Wilson that she had with Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on June 25, 2003. The date is intriguing, for this is weeks before Wilson published his now famous New York Times op-ed piece (in which he revealed that after traveling to Niger for the CIA he had concluded that the allegation that Iraq had been uranium shopping there was dubious). And, of course, this was weeks before Robert Novak wrote a column outing Wilson's wife as an undercover CIA officer. So why were the two discussing Wilson at that point? Why did this notebook go missing within the paper's Washington bureau? Who found it? Miller or someone else? Why won't the Times explain to its readers how it came to be discovered? What do the notes in this notebook say?

May he rest in peace....

Theodore Roosevelt Heller, 88, loving father of Charles (Joann) Heller; dear brother of the late Sonya (the late Jack) Steinberg. Ted was discharged from the U.S. Army during WWII due to service related injuries, and then forced his way back into the Illinois National Guard insisting no one tells him when to serve his country. Graveside services Tuesday 11 a.m. at Waldheim Jewish Cemetery (Ziditshover section), 1700 S. Harlem Ave., Chicago. In lieu of flowers, please send acerbic letters to Republicans. Arrangements by Chicago Jewish Funerals, Douglas MacIsaac, funeral director 847-229-8822, www.cjfinfo.com.
Published in the Chicago Tribune on 10/10/2005.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 10/10/05

The Louisiana Katrina Reconstruction Act, whose price tag "exceeds the high end of estimated costs of the storm," reportedly includes "billions of dollars' worth of business" for clients of lobbyists who sat on an advisory panel as the Act was being crafted. And Paul Krugman wonders: 'Will Bush Deliver?'

A GOP pollster is quoted as saying that a "recruiting chill" among potential Republican contenders for House and Senate races can be attributed to the fact that the non-candidates "aren't stupid. They see the political landscape." Plus: 'GOP feels sting of candidates' rejection.'

Dowd refers to Robert Bork's Borking of Harriet Miers, whose nomination he called "a slap in the face to the conservatives who've been building up a conservative legal movement for the last 20 years," and Frank Rich predicts that Miers' nomination "will be remembered as the flashpoint when the faith-based Bush base finally started to lose faith in our propaganda president ..."

Columnist Trudy Rubin says that Bush delivered "an amazing speech" last Thursday in which "he left out almost everything you need to know." And Norman Solomon annotates the speech, characterized by another commentator as 'George Bush meets the phantom empire.'

In an excerpt from her book "Alleluia America!," Irish journalist Carole Coleman describes her interview with Bush and the subsequent dressing down from his handlers, quoting one as saying, "You were given an opportunity to interview the leader of the free world and you blew it."

Bush's Veil Over History

By KITTY KELLEY
Published: October 10, 2005

Washington

SECRECY has been perhaps the most consistent trait of the George W. Bush presidency. Whether it involves refusing to provide the names of oil executives who advised Vice President Dick Cheney on energy policy, prohibiting photographs of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq, or forbidding the release of files pertaining to Chief Justice John Roberts's tenure in the Justice Department, President Bush seems determined to control what the public is permitted to know. And he has been spectacularly effective, making Richard Nixon look almost transparent.

But perhaps the most egregious example occurred on Nov. 1, 2001, when President Bush signed Executive Order 13233, under which a former president's private papers can be released only with the approval of both that former president (or his heirs) and the current one.

US weighed military strikes in Syria

Sun Oct 9, 4:27 PM ET

The United States recently debated launching military strikes inside Syria against camps used by insurgents operating in neighboring Iraq, a US magazine reported.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice successfully opposed the idea at a meeting of senior American officials held on October 1, Newsweek reported, citing unnamed US government sources.

Rice reportedly argued that diplomatic isolation was a more effective approach, with a UN report pending that may blame Syria for the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri.

The United States has accused Damascus of allowing insurgents to move arms and fighters across the Syrian border into Iraq and of destabilizing the region.

For GOP, Election Anxiety Mounts

Candidates Need Convincing for '06

By Charles Babington and Chris Cillizza

Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 10, 2005; Page A01

Republican politicians in multiple states have recently decided not to run for Senate next year, stirring anxiety among Washington operatives about the effectiveness of the party's recruiting efforts and whether this signals a broader decline in GOP congressional prospects.

Prominent Republicans have passed up races in North Dakota and West Virginia, both GOP-leaning states with potentially vulnerable Democratic incumbents. Earlier, Republican recruiters on Capitol Hill and at the White House failed to lure their first choices to run in Florida, Michigan and Vermont.

Being Stalked by Intelligent Design

Scientists must stop ignoring "Intelligent Design"—religious prejudice disguised as intellectual freedom

Pat Shipman

I ignored the threat for a long time. I groaned at the letters to the editor in our local paper that dismissed evolution as "just a theory" and proclaimed the superiority of "Intelligent Design" (ID) to explain the world around us. When a particular emeritus professor pestered me with e-mails asking how I explained this or that aspect of the fossil record (How could a flying bird evolve from a non-flying species? Did I think feathered dinosaurs were real?), I answered him time and again—until I realized that he was reading neither my answers nor the references I suggested. When this same man stood up, yet again, after a lecture to read a "question" that was actually a prepared statement about ID, I rolled my eyes.

David Neiwert: Coddling extremists

The issue of immigration -- and particularly the activities of the so-called Minutemen and their cohorts -- continues to be an active ground for mainstream conservatives to commingle with genuine extremists, and thereby become more extremist themselves.

The latest example occurred recently in Arizona, during a visit by Republican legislators from Colorado to a ranch owned by a figure closely associated not just with the Minutemen, but also bona fide hate groups:

The tour was organized by Glenn Spencer, whose home is about 1,000 feet from the border. He recently organized a number of border-watching activities, including a few with the Minuteman group.

The Mahablog: Support the Troops

Here's a clip & save for you, via Sharon Jumper at Kos. The next time righties claim that you can't support the troops without supporting the "mission," shove this in their faces--a blog post by a soldier serving in Iraq:

There are battles which need to be fought and there are battles which serve no good purpose. Afghanistan and Bin Laden lay forgotten as if they were discarded toys left by a spoiled child.

Iraq is the new frontier of poor foreign policy and poor planning. Even the soldiers can see it. Why do you think nobody is re-enlisting? They don't want to keep leaving their families to go fight a loosing battle and to die for an empty promise. The promise that somehow staying in Iraq makes America safer.

Digby: Like He Cared

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told President Bush and others that he never engaged in an effort to disclose a CIA operative's identity to discredit her husband's criticism of the administration's Iraq policy, according to people with knowledge of Rove's account in the investigation.

[...]

They said Bush asked Rove to assure him he was not involved in an effort to divulge Plame's identity and punish Wilson, and the longtime confidant assured him so. He answered similarly when White House press secretary Scott McClellan asked a similar question.

Sure. Uh huh. Rove's just another White House employee and big boss Junior called him in and asked asked him for "reassurance" that he wasn't involved and Karl said "no sir." Yeah. That's believable.

Jane Hamsher for Digby: Judy, Pinch and a Boy Named Scooter

In a furious bout of post-prison housecleaning, Judy Miller just "happened" to find notes today from June 2003 when she spoke with Scooter Libby about Joe Wilson.

Of all the amazing discoveries. She's the fucking Indiana Jones of dust bunnies, that one.

I keep coming back to the September 15 letter (PDF) from Scooter Libby to Judy Miller, kind of like a scab you just can't help picking at.

Tristero for Digby: How To Win Friends And Influence People

The earthquake in Pakistan is yet one more unspeakably awful natural disaster in, what?, a year plus of horrific tragedies: the tsunami (which was about an order of magnitude more deadly than the Pakistan quake), Katrina, Rita, a horrific mudslide in Guatemala and numerous more that may have slipped from mind on a Sunday morning but are permanently engraved in the memories of the afflicted and their loved ones all over the world. We all know what to do: Find a relief organization we respect and once more open our wallets to aid the victims.

Our donations will surely be joined by others. Indeed, the people of northwest Pakistan can expect one man to be exceedingly generous with his financial aid and with the assistance of his numerous organizations. That man is Osama bin Laden. Remember him? He's the guy Bush "truly" isn't that concerned about. Alas, being a New Yorker, with a brand new terrorist threat to deal with, my family does not have that luxury.

Billmon: Powerball for the Lord, Part 2

I don't know much of this is true, or what it says about Church Lady's fitness for the highest court in the land, but you have to ask yourself: Is this really the kind of stuff George W. Bush wants to see hashed out at her Senate confirmation hearings?

The man who succeeded Ms. Linares as director [of the Texas Lottery Commission], Lawrence Littwin, has said he was dismissed after a little over four months on the job when he tried to look into the GTech contract and the company's campaign contributions. He later voiced suspicions that GTech had exercised improper sway over the Lottery Commission because a highly paid company lobbyist held the secret to one of the fiercest controversies that had dogged Mr. Bush since his first campaign: whether he received favored treatment in the Vietnam War-era National Guard.

Billmon: Dramatic Tension

If this were an episode of Dragnet, at this point they'd play the signature theme: Bom, ba bom bom . . . Bom, ba bom bom, BAAH.

Or if it was Hawaii Five O, Jack Lord would spit out "Book him, Dano!"

But this is reality, so instead we just get this Reuters story:

A New York Times reporter has given investigators notes from a conversation she had with a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney weeks earlier than was previously known, suggesting White House involvement started well before the outing of a CIA operative, legal sources said.

Times reporter Judith Miller discovered the notes -- about a June 2003 conversation she had with Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby -- after her testimony before the grand jury last week, the sources said on Friday. She turned the notes over to federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and is expected to meet him again next Tuesday, the sources said.

Americablog: GannonGuckert interviewed Amb. Wilson BEFORE the WSJ article ran

by John in DC - 10/09/2005 09:25:00 AM

GG has been implying, but not directly saying, that he "may" have heard about the classified State Dept intelligence memo mentioning Valerie Plame from a Wall Street Journal article that mentioned it. Only problem, Gannon's interview with Wilson, in which he asked Wilson about the article, occured weeks BEFORE the WSJ article ran. Oops.

GM crop 'ruins fields for 15 years'

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor

Published: 09 October 2005

GM crops contaminate the countryside for up to 15 years after they have been harvested, startling new government research shows.

The findings cast a cloud over the prospects of growing the modified crops in Britain, suggesting that farmers who try them out for one season will find fields blighted for a decade and a half.

Financed by GM companies and Margaret Beckett's Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the report effectively torpedoes the Government's strategy for introducing GM oilseed rape to this country.

Ministers have stipulated that the crops should not be grown until rules are worked out to enable them to "co-exist" with conventional ones. But the research shows that this is effectively impossible.

The study, published by the Royal Society, examined five sites across England and Scotland where modified oilseed rape has been cultivated, and found significant amounts of GM plants growing even after the sites had been returned to ordinary crops. It concludes that the research reveals "a potentially serious problem associated with the temporal persistence of rape seeds in soil."

The researchers found that nine years after a single modified crop, an average of two GM rape plants would grow in every square metre of an affected field. After 15 years, this came down to one plant per square metre - still enough to break the EC limits on permissible GM contamination.

Last night Pete Riley, the director of GM Freeze, said; "It is becoming clearer and clearer that it is going to be impossible to grow GM crops in Britain."

GM crops contaminate the countryside for up to 15 years after they have been harvested, startling new government research shows.

The findings cast a cloud over the prospects of growing the modified crops in Britain, suggesting that farmers who try them out for one season will find fields blighted for a decade and a half.

Financed by GM companies and Margaret Beckett's Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the report effectively torpedoes the Government's strategy for introducing GM oilseed rape to this country.

TV evangelist renews Chavez attacks

From correspondents in Washington
October 10, 2005 PROMINENT US TV evangelist Pat Robertson has accused Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez of giving Osama bin Laden $US1.2 million after the September 11 attacks and of trying to obtain nuclear material from Iran.

Mr Robertson caused uproar in August when he called during his televised religious program for the US government to assassinate Chavez. He later was forced to apologise to the leftist leader.

But the conservative preacher issued a new denunciation of Chavez yesterday, local time, in an interview with CNN.

Specter to Ask Whether Rove Gave Private Assurances on Miers

Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said he wants to know whether presidential adviser Karl Rove privately assured a conservative activist of how Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers would rule on the court.

Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, said he will would look into a statement by James Dobson, president of the Colorado Springs, Colorado-based advocacy group Focus on the Family, that Dobson has had ``conversations'' with Rove about the woman nominated to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and knows things about Miers ``that I probably shouldn't know.''