Echidne: Agents Provocateurs?

French is the one language I don't speak, but you get the gist of the headline, I hope. The New York City police officers have been playing a little game with protesters:

Undercover New York City police officers have conducted covert surveillance in the last 16 months of people protesting the Iraq war, bicycle riders taking part in mass rallies and even mourners at a street vigil for a cyclist killed in an accident, a series of videotapes show.

In glimpses and in glaring detail, the videotape images reveal the robust presence of disguised officers or others working with them at seven public gatherings since August 2004.

Juan Cole - 12/24/05

20,000 Protest Election Fraud in Iraq
Leading Sunnis Scorned as Baathists

The question of whether the December 15 elections might contribute to social peace in Iraq (always a chancy proposition) began to clarify on Friday.

The guerrilla war raged with full fury, as two GIs were killed in Baghdad by a roadside bomb. A suicide bomber on a bicycle killed 10 persons and wounded others at a Shiite mosque in Baladruz northeast of Baghdad. The death toll from an attack on an Iraqi army base in the north rose to 10. A bomber targeted a British convoy in Basra, but missed.

Kashmir Earthquake Victims

Tens of thousands of earthquake victims in Pakistani Kashmir are facing winter with inadequate shelter, medicine and food.

John Walbridge of Indiana University writes:

You might want to inform your readers about how to best support earthquake relief. Apart from the obvious major organizations like the Red Cross, your readers might wish to consider the Edhi Foundation. Abd al-Sattar Edhi is a Pakistani counterpart of Mother Theresa who runs a universally respected and trusted network of charities throughout Pakistan, including most of the country's ambulance services.

Iraqi Elections: Post-Election Coalition Possibilities

An informed reader writes:

' “Moreover, a group of Sadrists, the Messengers, ran separately from the UIA in the south and are getting 3% of the seats.”

There is no such group in the IECI release in English. [Some have suggested that it might be the "Progressive" party listed by IECI, which seems to fit the description.]

On Opinion Page, a Lobby's Hand Is Often Unseen

By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, Dec. 22 - Susan Finston of the Institute for Policy Innovation, a conservative research group based in Texas, is just the sort of opinion maker coveted by the drug industry.

In an opinion article in The Financial Times on Oct. 25, she called for patent protection in poor countries for drugs and biotechnology products. In an article last month in the European edition of The Wall Street Journal, she called for efforts to block developing nations from violating patents on AIDS medicines and other drugs.

Both articles identified her as a "research associate" at the institute. Neither mentioned that, as recently as August, Ms. Finston was registered as a lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drug industry's trade group. Nor was there mention of her work this fall in creating the American Bioindustry Alliance, a group underwritten largely by drug companies.

Top 12 media myths and falsehoods on the Bush administration's spying scandal

Summary: Media Matters presents the top 12 myths and falsehoods promoted by the media on President Bush's spying scandal stemming from the recent revelation in The New York Times that he authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on domestic communications without the required approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court.

CNN trumpeted month-old news of Alito abortion memo; dragged feet in covering newly released memo suggesting Alito supports warrantless wiretaps

Summary: CNN reported the release of a 1985 memorandum in which Supreme Court nominee Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. advocated overturning Roe v. Wade; however, the document was the same as a June 3, 1985, memo released by the archives more than three weeks ago. While CNN covered this memo extensively during the first three hours after the story broke, it waited more than four and a half hours to cover a newly released 1984 document in which Alito defended the government's power to order warrantless domestic wiretaps.

4 Men Arrested in Stolen Explosives Case

Saturday December 24, 2005 11:32 AM

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN

Associated Press Writer

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Authorities arrested four men and were searching for one more person in connection with the theft of 400 pounds of explosives - enough to flatten a large building - from a storage depot.

All of the explosives and detonating materials were recovered, and there was no evidence to suggest the theft was connected to terrorism, said Wayne Dixie of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

NIH Medical Safety Officer Reinstated

Saturday December 24, 2005 10:47 AM

AP Photo WX103

By JOHN SOLOMON

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - A medical safety expert whose firing drew national attention to the lack of whistleblower protections in some areas of federal research is back on the government payroll.

The National Institutes of Health's reinstatement of Dr. Jonathan Fishbein settles a two-year battle that prompted investigations into allegations of scientific misconduct and sexual harassment in federal AIDS research.

Fishbein alleged he was fired for raising safety concerns in government experiments. NIH said he was fired for poor performance even though he had been recommended for a cash performance bonus just weeks before he was notified of his termination.

I'm no dictator, Bush insists

The disclosure of a top-secret US domestic spying programme has ignited a furious debate about presidential authority, civil liberties and whether President George Bush is acting above the law.

"Do I have the legal authority to do this? And the answer is, absolutely," Bush insisted on Monday. But plenty of people, who contend the spying operation ignores both US law and the Constitution itself, are disagreeing with his conclusion.

Alito Memo in '84 Favored Immunity for Top Officials

Is this why the Bush administration wants him on the Supreme Court?--Dictynna

By ADAM LIPTAK and DAVID E. ROSENBAUM

The attorney general should be immune from lawsuits for ordering wiretaps of Americans without permission from a court, Samuel A. Alito Jr., President Bush's Supreme Court nominee, wrote in a memorandum in 1984 as a government lawyer in the Reagan administration.

The memorandum, released yesterday by the National Archives, made recommendations concerning a lawsuit against former Attorney General John N. Mitchell over a wiretap he had authorized without a court's permission in 1970. The government was investigating a plot to destroy underground utility tunnels in Washington and to kidnap Henry A. Kissinger, the national security adviser.

The Morality of 'Munich'

By Jordan Elgrably, AlterNet. Posted December 24, 2005.

Spielberg's startling new film, 'Munich,' is an incisive argument against the use of violence to resolve the Mideast conflict.

In 1972, Black September, a wing of Arafat's Al Fatah movement kidnapped and then killed 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team during the Munich games. This set in motion a series of reprisals by the Israelis, including targeted assassinations of Palestinians, and continuing acts of terrorism by militant groups against Israeli, European and American targets. Today we are no closer to an end to the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, nor to a lasting peace agreement that addresses equally the needs of both Israeli and Palestinian peoples.

Now comes "Munich," a Hollywood feature film, co-written by playwright Tony Kushner and screenwriter Eric Roth, and directed by Steven Spielberg. Even before the film's release, neo-conservative critics have attacked what they perceive as a liberal bias in the film's portrayal of Palestinian terrorists and their would-be Israeli assassins.

'They' Destroyed New Orleans

By Kenneth Cooper, AlterNet. Posted December 24, 2005.

When it comes to explaining why the levees broke, many otherwise reasonable New Orleanians are quick to believe in conspiracy theories.

My little cousin, Kenneth, sits across from me smoking a cigarette in the driver's seat of his car. Like everyone else in my family, he lost everything when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Now he sits in my driveway on a Saturday night in LaPlace trying to understand why.

"Them people blew them levees," he says, looking at me, puffing on his cigarette. "They wanted to save the white people Uptown, but they ain't know it was gonna be this bad."

Military School Sexual Harassment Persists

By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 45 minutes ago

Sexual assaults and harassment are still significant problems at the nation's military academies, polls of students at the schools show, despite recent scandals that triggered intensive training to prevent the behavior.

Up to 6 percent of the women at the Army, Navy and Air Force academies said they experienced sexual assault during the 2004-2005 school year, and about half or more said they were sexually harassed, according to a survey released Friday by the Pentagon.

The survey comes more than two years after a sex abuse scandal rocked the Air Force Academy, leading to a purge in its leadership and a new, intensive focus on training to prevent abuse and sexual harassment.

The Pentagon's new emphasis on training and awareness, however, has not seemed to resonate on the campuses. While nearly all the students said they had received training in sexual assault and harassment prevention, half to two-thirds said it was either slightly or not at all effective in preventing the incidents.

NYT: NSA Spying Broader Than Bush Admitted

The National Security Agency has conducted much broader surveillance of e-mails and phone calls — without court orders — than the Bush administration has acknowledged, The New York Times reported on its Web site.

The NSA, with help from American telecommunications companies, obtained access to streams of domestic and international communications, said the Times in the report late Friday, citing unidentified current and former government officials.

The story did not name the companies.

Since the Times disclosed the domestic spying program last week, President Bush has stressed that his executive order allowing the eavesdropping was limited to people with known links to al-Qaida.

But the Times said that NSA technicians have combed through large volumes of phone and Internet traffic in search of patterns that might lead to terrorists.

Digby: Down Boy

Commenter francesangeles spotted this article by Richard Morin, the angry WaPo pollster, from just the other day:

Finally, an explanation for why bar bets sometimes escalate into bar fights: Levels of a "high-octane" form of testosterone soar when men think others don't trust them.

When I saw the picture attached to the article, I realized that I had seen Richard Morin interviewed by Fox's Bill Hemmer yesterday about the president's exciting new poll numbers.

Digby: Protect Us

For a connect-the-Bush-atrocities, with heavy linkage, check out this post at HuffPo by Joshua Bearman. It makes a nice Christmas e-mail for your Republican relatives:

It would be one thing if we were safer. But our modern day Sun King cloaks his seizure of power in so much poll-tested national security language despite that he is not, in fact, protecting us at all. The residents of the three cities Bush cited voted overwhelmingly against him because they rightly sensed that Bush's reckless foreign adventures and lack of a real domestic security policy MAKES US ALL LESS SAFE. It doesn't take much critical analysis to figure out why. Here is a guy who, after September 11, failed to increase funding for nuclear non-proliferation, which the non-partisan commission the President himself appointed called the single greatest threat to our safety. Collecting the world's loose nukes was the first thing on my mind on September 12th, 2001, so I'm a little confused as why it's taken the President four years to catch on.

Digby: Repentant Republicans

Last night I wrote post called "Adults Wanted" and a reader sent me a link to this essay called "Confessions of a Repentant Republican" which is an extremely cogent, precise and lucid critique of the current administration's policies from the perspective of someone who understands the enlightenment principles that undergird our system. He speaks in terms that transcend politics and go far beyond our current partisan obsessions.

Here's an excerpt:

Americans, with broad bipartisan support, have not only embedded our unambiguous rejection of torture into American law (establishing legal constraints which the Bush administration is now determined to dismantle), but have for generations been in the forefront of establishing such standards worldwide through treaties including the Geneva Conventions.

Digby: Public Scorn

Following up the post below about the White house polling operation, Paul Lukasiak in the comments notices another dimension to this problem that I missed and it's very interesting:

The Post had no problem asking this question as far back as March 2005

17. (IF DECREASED, Q16) Should all U.S. forces in Iraq be withdrawn
immediately, or should they be decreased, but not all withdrawn immediately?

Now, at that time (and to this day) NO Democratic Congressional Leader or Serious Presidential Candidate was advocating "immediate withdrawal" --- this was just the Bush "cut and run" straw man representation of the Democratic position.

Digby: Madder Still

Jane reports on Richard Morion pollster for the Washington Post actually had the temerity to write this drivel yesterday in an online chat:

Naperville, Ill.: Why haven't you polled on public support for the impeachment of George W. Bush?

Richard Morin: This question makes me mad...

Seattle, Wash.: How come ABC News/Post poll has not yet polled on impeachment?

Richard Morin: Getting madder...

Bottle of Blog: It Ain't Vietnam--Vietnam Was Cheap

WASHINGTON - The House cleared the way Thursday for a $453 billion defense spending bill that funnels $29 billion in hurricane aid to the Gulf Coast and $50 billion more for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan…

The $50 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is to carry the Pentagon until Congress acts on another emergency war supplemental next year, which lawmakers expect to be from $80 billion to $100 billion…

It is estimated that the Pentagon is spending about $6 billion a month on the Iraq war effort.

That's great. I'm super happy that Congress is fully funding our military. Though, I'm just wondering when someone is going to finally ask:

Why the fuck is our military so goddammed expensive?

The Curious Section 126 of the Patriot Act

Early Warning

What is it that the National Security Agency began doing after 9/11 that necessitated Presidential authorization for warantless surveillance?

We have all learned in the past week that the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act of 1978 contains provisions that allow the government to conduct quick reaction surveillance of an individual and go to the court afterwards for a warrant.

Leak probe not seen to end with Rove, lawyers say

Jason Leopold

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is not expected to shut down his investigation into the leak of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson when he finishes his inquiry of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove's role in the leak, lawyers close to the probe said.

These sources indicated that if a grand jury returns an indictment against Rove it will include -- at the very least -- a charge that he made false statements to Justice Department and FBI investigators when he was first interviewed about his role in the case in October 2003.

The tumultuous and tawdry travels of Neil Bush

Bill Berkowitz
December 23, 2005

These days, while President George W. Bush is all about convincing the American public that he has a "Plan for Victory" in Iraq, his younger brother, Neil, is all about taking advantage of the family name. While in a series of speeches the president has been trumpeting a 35-page National Security Council document titled, "Our National Strategy for Victory in Iraq," brother Neil has been globetrotting with high-powered comrades and touting his company's prospectus.

Over the past six months, Neil Bush, the son of former President George Herbert Walker Bush and Barbara Bush and the younger brother of the president, has been shepherded around several former Soviet republics by a man wanted for fraud by Russian authorities, and has showed up in the Philippines and Taiwan at the side of a self-styled messiah.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 12/23/05

Quoting experts who cite the National Security Agency's capacity to 'sift all overseas contacts,' the Boston Globe reports that secret monitoring of international phone calls and e-mails is not limited to Americans suspected of links to terrorism.

In mid-80s memos released by the National Archives, Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito urged that Roe v. Wade should be overturned and that the attorney general should have immunity from lawsuits when authorizing wiretaps.

Norman Solomon foresees "a new salvo of bright spinning lies about the Iraq war," in which "the Bush administration will strive to put any real or imagined reduction of U.S. occupation troop levels in the media spotlight. Meanwhile, the Pentagon will use massive air power in Iraq."

'Of Course It Hurts; You are Being Screwed by an Elephant'

Posted by Don Hazen on December 22, 2005 at 10:13 PM.

Someone once said roughly, "if you are going to get an idea across to Americans, it has to fit on a bumper sticker."

Well, it turns out a lot of funny and dark stuff can fit on a bumper sticker as Olivia Greer and Aaron Rudenstine* show in their clever, funny, and subversive Actions Speak Louder Than Bumper Stickers. In this sharply designed little masterpiece of a book, you will find not only 96 of the best smart ass statements, but facotids that will make you sound smart, backed up by sources and research. Imagine... all in a bumper sticker book.

Daschle: Congress Denied Bush War Powers in U.S.

By Barton Gellman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 23, 2005; Page A04

The Bush administration requested, and Congress rejected, war-making authority "in the United States" in negotiations over the joint resolution passed days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to an opinion article by former Senate majority leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) in today's Washington Post.

Daschle's disclosure challenges a central legal argument offered by the White House in defense of the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. It suggests that Congress refused explicitly to grant authority that the Bush administration now asserts is implicit in the resolution.

Double rebuke for Bush as judges attack terror moves

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Friday December 23, 2005
The Guardian

President George Bush faced a rare challenge from the judiciary yesterday when two courts questioned the legality of his expansion of presidential powers in the war on terror.

In a startling rebuke, a federal appeals court refused to allow the transfer of a terror suspect, Jose Padilla, from military to civilian custody and strongly suggested that the Bush administration was trying to manipulate the judicial system.

First-Ever National Private School Voucher Program Sent to President’s Desk

Legislation diverts money from public schools, allows for religious discrimination in hiring, and fails to keep federal funds from being used for religious indoctrination
WASHINGTON—On the same day the Senate passed legislation that cuts public education funding for the first time in a decade, it also voted to establish the first-ever national private school voucher program, as part of the final appropriations measure for the Department of Defense. With final approval in the House today, Congress has signed off on this dangerous measure, under the guise of one-time relief for students affected by this year’s hurricanes.

People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas voiced strong opposition to the voucher program, which, in addition to diverting funds from public schools, allows federally funded private schools to discriminate on the basis of religion while hiring teachers, and fails to protect against the use of federal funds for the religious indoctrination of students.

Fox News South Carolina affiliate quietly promotes white supremacist website; Site says Fox is a member

John Byrne

A South Carolina Fox affiliate ran a story appearing to cheer a white supremacist website -- and the leader of the group says that Fox news staff are members of his white supremacy forum, RAW STORY can reveal.

The story was picked up by Jesus' General Dec. 18. Fox apparently aired a video news segment which was also pulled; RAW STORY has not seen the video. The station is owned by Meredith Corporation.

Joe Wilson Rips the Bush-Cheney Administration During Lecture in Baltimore

by William Hughes

Only a stone’s throw from fabled Penn Station in this historic port city stands the University of Baltimore. It is best known nationally for its School of Law. On Nov. 14, 2005, ex-U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson spoke in the Lansdale Library there, at a “citizenship forum.” His lecture was cosponsored by the school’s public affairs department and the Randolph B. Rosencrantz Memorial Fund. Wilson was in top form and held little back in his remarks. He was also enthusiastic in his praise of the Iraqi war-related exposé--“The Downing Street Memos.”

Media Matters: Former fellows at conservative think tanks issued flawed UCLA-led study on media's "liberal bias"

Summary: News outlets including CNN cited a study of several major media outlets by a UCLA political scientist and a University of Missouri-Columbia economist purporting to "show a strong liberal bias." But the study employed a measure of "bias" so problematic that its findings are next to useless, and the authors -- both former fellows at conservative think tanks cited in the study to illustrate liberal bias -- seem unaware of the substantial scholarly work that exists on the topic.

Pain Ray Headed to Iraq?

Horrible. I wonder how long it will take until this weapon becomes a tool of law enforcement.--Dictynna

It's been talked about for years. But the Pentagon's microwave-like pain ray may finally be headed to Iraq, Inside the Army reports.

Developed by the Air Force, the so-called "Active Denial System" (ADS) fires out milimeter waves -- a sort of cousin of microwaves, in the 95 GHz range. The invisible beams penetrate just a 64th of inch beneath the skin. But that's deep enough to heat up the water inside a person. Which is enough to cause excruciating pain.

Seconds later, people have to run away. And that causes mobs to break up in a hurry. It's no wonder, then, why less-lethal weapon guru Charles "Sid" Heal calls the ray the "Holy Grail of crowd control."

WarAndPiece: Where Are the Arrests?

Perhaps I'm a little slow, but there's something else that doesn't make sense about spygate. Since October 2001, Bush has authorized 30 times - every 45 days - warrantless NSA domestic surveillance of what I have heard estimated of approximately 1,000 US persons a year. That would be 4,000 persons over the past four years, if I understand the shifting numbers offered correctly. But whatever it is. The Administration insisted again today that the only US persons being authorized to be spied on by Bush -- that he somehow didn't think he could get FISA warrants on -- are directly linked to Al Qaeda suspects or a related terrorist group. As Assistant Attorney General William E. Moschella wrote in a public letter (.pdf linked) to Senate and House Intelligence committee leaders today, "As described by the President, the NSA intercepts certain international communications into and out of the United States of people linked to al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization."

This begs the question: how many people known to be "linked" to Al Qaeda has the administration let roam the streets of America since 9/11? I would guess the answer would be approaching zero.

All the President's Confessions

By G. Pascal Zachary, AlterNet. Posted December 23, 2005.

Bush's advocacy of lawlessness lies at the heart of the right-wing agenda to remake America.

Bush's statement last Saturday that he ordered domestic spying, knowing it was possibly against the law to do so, was an astonishing confession in the annals of American history -- and the defining moment of Bush's tortured presidency. Why, after all, would the president open himself to the possibility, however remote, of an impeachment proceeding?

If American presidents stand for anything, it is deniability. This is the prime directive of presidential authority. More than 50 years ago, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who invented the Imperial Presidency and presided over the country during World War II, avoided leaving a paper trail of his most sensitive decisions. Even his order to build an atomic weapon was vague. "O.K. - FDR" is the only surviving record of his ever having granted authority for what turned out to be the most expensive and secretive project in American history.

Paul Krugman: The Tax-Cut Zombies

If you want someone to play Scrooge just before Christmas, Dick Cheney is your man. On Wednesday Mr. Cheney, acting as president of the Senate, cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of legislation that increases the fees charged to Medicaid recipients, lets states cut Medicaid benefits, reduces enforcement funds for child support, and more.

For all its cruelty, however, the legislation will make only a tiny dent in the budget deficit: the cuts total about $8 billion a year, or one-third of 1 percent of total federal spending.ISo ended 2005, the year that killed any remaining rationale for continuing tax cuts. But the hunger for tax cuts refuses to die.

New research in Chesapeake Bay, Pamlico Sound shows hurricanes, runoff tax water quality management efforts

By DAVID WILLIAMSON
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- A scientific study that involved analyzing phytoplankton in both North Carolina’s Neuse River Estuary/Pamlico Sound and Maryland and Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay offers a new lesson in light of recent increased hurricane activity along the East Coast, researchers say.

“Water quality management efforts aimed at protecting and preserving water quality and fisheries resources and habitat must be highly adaptive, taking both human nutrient enrichment and changes in freshwater input into consideration,” said Dr. Hans Paerl, Kenan professor of marine and environmental sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Institute of Marine Sciences.

“Estuaries are among the most productive and resource-rich waters on earth,” Paerl said. “The recent hurricanes we have experienced have taught us that the growth and composition of phytoplankton are controlled and affected by both the freshwater inputs and nutrients contained in floodwaters accompanying hurricanes and other large storms.”

Studying the fate of drugs in wastewater

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have published an interesting study that sheds light on the fate of a familiar pharmaceutical as it enters the waste stream. In work initially described last year, NIST chemists investigated probable chemical reactions involving acetaminophen when the drug is subjected to typical wastewater processing. Acetaminophen is the most widely used pain reliever in the United States, and a study of 139 streams by the U.S. Geological Survey found that it was one of the most frequently detected man-made chemicals.

Digby: Countering The Threat

Glen Greenwald takes the time to rebut Hewitt's ridiculous argument that
United States v. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan et al gives the president the power to wiretap Americans at will, when the case actually does the exact opposite. Apparently, the right blogosphere is chattering about this absurd claim like a bunch of drunken magpies.

I have nothing to add except to point to my post yesterday, when I referenced the same case, to point out again the great irony in the fact that the author of that opinion was Lewis Powell, the man who inspired the Great Republican Political Machine.

Digby: Crying Wolf

Can someone please tell the Republicans that even if the NY Times had printed the NSA story next month instead of last week that there would not have been a great swelling of Bush love over the Iraqi elections last week?

The reason the story didn't capture the public's imagination is not because the other one stepped on it; it's because we've heard it all before. The public has lost count of how many of these "milestone elections" have taken place. Each time, we are supposed to have a big group hug and congratulate ourselves for our great generosity. And then each time shit starts blowing up again in Iraq almost immediately.

Digby: Adults Wanted

Kevin Drum has a whole bunch of good posts up today discussing the right wing reaction to the spying scandal. A more reprehensible group of moral and intellecutual cowards I have never seen.

There are the typical lies and obfuscations to which we've all become accustomed, of course, such as selectively citing passages of Supreme Court opinions that actually came to opposite conclusions and purposefully misconstruing Clinton and Carter's executive orders to imply that they had done the same thing. That's just par for the course.

Investigate perjury in Dover ID case

Judge Jones issued a broad, sensible ruling - finding that some board members lied.

Daily Record/Sunday News
York Daily Record/Sunday News

Dec 21, 2005 — They lied.

William Buckingham and Alan Bonsell wanted to bring God into high school biology class, and in the process, they lied.

They lied about their motives.

They lied about their actions.

They lied about what they did or didn't say at public meetings.

They even lied when they claimed newspaper reporters lied in stories about Dover school board meetings.

W.J. Oswald, 86, Algae Miracle Worker, Dies

By DOUGLAS MARTIN

William J. Oswald, a scientist who pioneered ways to use algae to address immense human problems - including treating sewage, increasing food supplies, generating energy and facilitating voyages into deep space - died on Dec. 8 at his home in Concord, Calif. He was 86.

The cause was pancreatic cancer, said the University of California, Berkeley, where Dr. Oswald was a professor emeritus in civil and environmental engineering.

Dr. Oswald promised miracles from the humblest of plants and proceeded to perform more than a few.

Court Refuses to Transfer Padilla to Civilian Custody

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- In a sharp rebuke, a federal appeals court denied Wednesday a Bush administration request to transfer terrorism suspect Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member, from military to civilian law enforcement custody.

The three-judge panel of the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also refused the administration's request to vacate a September ruling that gave President Bush wide authority to detain "enemy combatants" indefinitely without charges on U.S. soil.

The decision, written by Judge Michael Luttig, questioned why the administration used one set of facts before the court for 3 1/2 years to justify holding Padilla without charges but used another set to convince a grand jury in Florida to indict him last month.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 12/21/05

A federal 'Spy Court Judge' who reportedly resigned in protest is said to have "expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court's work."

Inside Job The New York Times reports that Bush's surveillance program spied on "purely domestic communications," despite the White House's own requirement "that one end of the intercepted conversations take place on foreign soil." Plus: 'Why Times ran wiretap story, defying Bush.'

William Arkin goes 'Inside NSA's World' to dispute Bush's claim that "the fact that we're discussing this program is helping the enemy," and ChangeLog rounds up information on 'The Tech Behind The Tap.'

The Village Voice's Sydney Schanberg takes "a reporter's walk" through the 'Wretch-Stained Ink' of "Bush's propaganda machine," wondering whether "a populace bone-tired of bad news is even interested in separating the honest journalism from the fake."

A Washington Post account of Rep. Tom Delay's donor-financed spending habits, at "places of luxury most Americans have never seen," reveals "a picture of an opulent lifestyle."

Bill Would Allow Arrests For No Reason In Public Place

Mon Dec 19, 7:31 PM ET

A bill on Gov. Bob Taft's desk right now is drawing a lot of criticism, NewsChannel5 reported.

One state representative said it resembles Gestapo-style tactics of government, and there could be changes coming on the streets of Ohio's small towns and big cities.

The Ohio Patriot Act has made it to the Taft's desk, and with the stroke of a pen, it would most likely become the toughest terrorism bill in the country. The lengthy piece of legislation would let police arrest people in public places who will not give their names, address and birth dates, even if they are not doing anything wrong.

WEWS reported it would also pave the way for everyone entering critical transportation sites such as, train stations, airports and bus stations to show ID.

"It brings us frighteningly close to a show me your papers society," said Carrie Davis of the ACLU, which opposes the Ohio Patriot Act.

Bush Caught on Tape: “A Wiretap Requires A Court Order. Nothing Has Changed.”

Bush, April 2004:

Transcript:

Secondly, there are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires — a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we’re talking about chasing down terrorists, we’re talking about getting a court order before we do so. It’s important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

NYT Editorial: The Fog of False Choices

Published: December 20, 2005

After five years, we're used to President Bush throwing up false choices to defend his policies. Americans were told, after all, that there was a choice between invading Iraq and risking a terrorist nuclear attack. So it was not a surprise that Mr. Bush's Oval Office speech Sunday night and his news conference yesterday were thick with Orwellian constructions: the policy debate on Iraq is between those who support Mr. Bush and those who want to pull out right now, today; fighting terrorists in Iraq means we're not fighting them here.

But none of these phony choices were as absurd as the one Mr. Bush posed to justify his secret program of spying on Americans: save lives or follow the law.

Lobbyist Is Said to Discuss Plea and Testimony

By ANNE E. KORNBLUT

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist under criminal investigation, has been discussing with prosecutors a deal that would grant him a reduced sentence in exchange for testimony against former political and business associates, people with detailed knowledge of the case say.

Mr. Abramoff is believed to have extensive knowledge of what prosecutors suspect is a wider pattern of corruption among lawmakers and Congressional staff members. One participant in the case who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations described him as a "unique resource."

Other people involved in the case or who have been officially briefed on it said the talks had reached a tense phase, with each side mindful of the date Jan. 9, when Mr. Abramoff is scheduled to stand trial in Miami in a separate prosecution.

Sir Elton Gets Equality

E.J. Graff
December 21, 2005

E.J. Graff, a Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center resident scholar, most recently collaborated on Evelyn Murphy’s book Getting Even: Why Women Still Don't Get Paid Like Men--And What To Do About It (Simon & Schuster, 2005). Her first book was What Is Marriage For? The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution (Beacon Press, 1999, 2004).

Today Elton John makes an honest man of his longtime love David Furnish. After a dozen years together, the happy couple will celebrate their commitment in two parts: first with a private civil ceremony in Windsor Guildhall, the venue used recently by the Prince of Wales, and then with a blowout party at his mansion nearby, complete with vintage pink champagne and a star-studded 700-person guest list.

Americans may still be making uneasy jokes about gay cowboys, but it’s same-sex wedding time in the UK. More than 1,200 couples are scheduled to plight their troth this week alone in Northern Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales. They can’t legally use the sacred M-word: Tony Blair’s Labor Party wasn’t willing to go quite as far as the wild and crazy nations of Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain, and South Africa, all of which have fully gender-neutral marriage laws (or, in South Africa’s case, soon will). But with the long-awaited implementation of its Civil Partnership Act , passed in 2004, Britain is finally catching up to the rest of the ex-Commonwealth and to its Western European neighbors. Australia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, New Zealand, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland all recognize same-sex pairs more or less comprehensively under some word other than “marriage.” Even Croatia, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic have recently moved forward on same-sex partnership laws, albeit with recognitions so minimal that local gay and lesbian groups are in a huff. And yet those disgruntled Slovenian same-sex couples still have fuller legal recognition than do their counterparts in the United States.

Bush's Bogus Analogy

In 1998, the Washington Times tipped off Osama. In 2005, the New York Times didn't.
By Daniel Benjamin
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2005, at 7:06 PM ET

In his press conference on Monday, President Bush tried to shut down discussion of his executive order to intercept the communications of Americans and foreigners resident in the United States without court approval by vilifying those who leaked the story. "We're at war, and we must protect America's secrets," he said. The leak was a "shameful act" that had undermined American security.

Bush presented an analogy to show just how much damage such a leak could cause. "Let me give you an example about my concerns about letting the enemy know what may or may not be happening," he said. "In the late 1990s, our government was following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone. And then the fact that we were following Osama bin Laden because he was using a certain type of telephone made it into the press as the result of a leak. And guess what happened? Saddam—Osama bin Laden changed his behavior. He began to change how he communicated." Never mind the confusion of Saddam and Bin Laden ("You can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," as Bush said in September 2002, and evidently, he doesn't), the story is meant to turn the tables on critics. Indeed, it was so important to Bush that he brought it up twice in his comments.

jurisprudence: The Secrets They Keep

How telling the president what he'd like to hear can be good for your career.
By Bruce Ackerman
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2005, at 1:41 PM ET

The most curious aspect of the burgeoning National Security Agency spying scandal is President Bush's outrage at our discovering it. But it is his secrecy, even more than his extreme claims for presidential power, that should generate our most serious concerns.

Suppose the president's legal position on the spying question were correct and that he actually had the unilateral powers his lawyers say he has. Then it would be especially important for him to exercise this authority publicly and tell us when he was creating a new spying operation. Under this scenario, the only power Americans would have left against presidential abuse is precisely the power to mobilize and insist that Congress rein the president in. By keeping his decisions a secret, the president insulates himself from the last check and balance against excess. This should have no place in a constitutional democracy.

Jurist Quits; Senators, Constitutional Experts Demand Inquiries

by susanhu
Tue Dec 20th, 2005 at 11:40:38 PM EST

A FISA jurist appointed by the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist has quit the court in protest. And, in a related story, the New York Times is reporting that the eavesdropping-without-warrants operations "has captured what are purely domestic communications." The WaPo story:

Spy Court Judge Quits In Protest
Jurist Concerned Bush Order Tainted Work of Secret Panel

By Carol D. Leonnig and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 21, 2005; Page A01

A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources.

Two Explosions Reported at Ohio Mosque

2 hours, 12 minutes ago

Two explosions caused minor exterior damage at a mosque complex about two hours after evening prayers, and federal agents joined the investigation.

No injuries were reported and police hadn't found any witnesses to the Tuesday night explosions at the Islamic Association of Cincinnati mosque, police Capt. Gene Hamann said.

The FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were involved in the case, joining Cincinnati and State Highway Patrol state investigators, FBI Special agent Mike Brooks said.

Brooks confirmed Wednesday morning there were two explosions, one at each of two adjoining buildings owned by the association.

Spying Program Snared U.S. Calls

By JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: December 21, 2005

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - A surveillance program approved by President Bush to conduct eavesdropping without warrants has captured what are purely domestic communications in some cases, despite a requirement by the White House that one end of the intercepted conversations take place on foreign soil, officials say.

The officials say the National Security Agency's interception of a small number of communications between people within the United States was apparently accidental, and was caused by technical glitches at the National Security Agency in determining whether a communication was in fact "international."

The American nightmare

The Bush administration's defence of unauthorised phone taps shows a chilling disregard for the rule of law, writes Philip James

Wednesday December 21, 2005

Is America becoming what it most fears: a big brother state ruled by diktat, where no one is protected from eavesdropping by the secret police, and everything is permitted in defence of the homeland, including torture?

Perhaps I'm naive, but I grew up believing that America was somehow different, that alongside the corporate greed, brash materialism and barely functioning social safety net, a unique society prospered. This America was a land of limitless opportunity, a magnet to those escaping oppression, offering prince and pauper alike the possibility to dream big.

Mortgage applications fall to 11-month low

By Julie Haviv 52 minutes ago

U.S. mortgage applications fell to an 11-month low last week on a drop in demand for loans to buy homes, suggesting a slowdown in the housing market, according to industry data on Wednesday.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity for the week to December 16 fell 4.0 percent to 594.6 from 619.3 the week before.

The group's seasonally adjusted index of applications for mortgages to buy homes fell 5.2 percent to 453.1 from the previous week's 477.9.

The index is considered a timely gauge of U.S. home sales.

Most of Arctic's Near-Surface Permafrost May Thaw by 2100

December 19, 2005

BOULDER—Global warming may decimate the top 10 feet (3 meters) or more of perennially frozen soil across the Northern Hemisphere, altering ecosystems as well as damaging buildings and roads across Canada, Alaska, and Russia. New simulations from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) show that over half of the area covered by this topmost layer of permafrost could thaw by 2050 and as much as 90 percent by 2100. Scientists expect the thawing to increase runoff to the Arctic Ocean and release vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

The study, using the NCAR-based Community Climate System Model (CCSM), is the first to examine the state of permafrost in a global model that includes interactions among the atmosphere, ocean, land, and sea ice as well as a soil model that depicts freezing and thawing. Results appear online in the December 17 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

Researchers show how air pollution can cause heart disease

New York, December 20, 2005--New York University School of Medicine researchers provide some of the most compelling evidence yet that long-term exposure to air pollution--even at levels within federal standards--causes heart disease. Previous studies have linked air pollution to cardiovascular disease but until now it was poorly understood how pollution damaged the body's blood vessels.

In a well-designed mouse study, where animals breathed air as polluted as the air in New York City, the researchers pinpointed specific mechanisms and showed that air pollution can be particularly damaging when coupled with a high-fat diet, according to new research published in the December 21 issue of JAMA.

Fear of death may factor into who we vote for

Authors of a study published in the latest issue of Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy believe that voting behavior should be the result of rational choice based on an informed understanding of the issues. But using research based on the 2004 presidential election, they found that people may vote with their hearts, rather than their heads. Their findings demonstrated that registered voters in a psychologically benign state of mind preferred Senator Kerry to President Bush, but Bush was more popular than Kerry after voters received a subtle reminder of death. Citing an Osama bin Laden tape that surfaced a few days before the election, among other factors, the authors state, "the present study adds convergent support to the idea that George W. Bush's victory in the 2004 presidential election was facilitated by Americans' nonconscious concerns about death…" The authors believe that people were scared into voting for Bush.

Think Progress: The Echelon Myth

Prominent right-wing bloggers – including Michelle Malkin, the Corner, Wizbang and Free Republic — are pushing the argument that President Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program isn’t news because the Clinton administration did the same thing.

The right-wing outlet NewsMax sums up the basic argument:

During the 1990’s under President Clinton, the National Security Agency monitored millions of private phone calls placed by U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries under a super secret program code-named Echelon…all of it done without a court order, let alone a catalyst like the 9/11 attacks.

That’s flatly false. The Clinton administration program, code-named Echelon, complied with FISA. Before any conversations of U.S. persons were targeted, a FISA warrant was obtained. CIA director George Tenet testified to this before Congress on 4/12/00:

I’m here today to discuss specific issues about and allegations regarding Signals Intelligence activities and the so-called Echelon Program of the National Security Agency…

US hopes of secular Iraqi state fade away

By Paul McGeough Chief Herald Correspondent in Baghdad
December 21, 2005
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CONSERVATIVE religious parties have surged to a runaway lead in the counting of votes to appoint a government to run Iraq for the next four years.

With more than 60 per cent of votes tallied, Washington's hopes that the former prime minister Iyad Allawi might pull enough support to build a secular administration have faded dramatically.

Instead, a religious alliance is in the box seat. These parties are already imposing a strict religious code on daily life across swathes of the country and are closely aligned with neighbouring Iran, one of George Bush's "axis of evil" enemies.

Venezuela gives Exxon ultimatum

By Greg Morsbach
BBC News, Caracas

Venezuela has given the world's biggest oil company, ExxonMobil, until the end of this year to enter a joint venture with the state.

Failure to do so will almost certainly result in Exxon losing its oil field concessions in the country.

Venezuela's socialist government has now signed new agreements with almost all foreign petroleum companies.

After months of pressure from left- wing leader Hugo Chavez most foreign oil firms working there have caved in.

US research 'endangered Amazon villagers'

Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro and Sarah Boseley
Tuesday December 20, 2005
The Guardian

Health officials in Brazil have launched an investigation after claims that at least 10 impoverished Brazilians from an Amazon village may have contracted malaria while being used as human "guinea pigs" during a study by an American university.

The $1m (£570,000) research project, funded by the National Institutes of Health and conducted by the University of Florida, was being carried out in three villages on the Matapi river in the northern state of Amapa. It intended to study feeding patterns among mosquitoes over a four-year period in order to help control malaria outbreaks.

Larry Beinhart: Deconstructing David Brooks

The Holy Capitalists" is the headline of a David Brooks column from December 15, 2005.

"Pointing to faith to explain success," is the subhead.

In it, David Brooks took on the history of Western Civilization and turned it inside out.

The good thing is that history sits a great deal more still than current events do.

We can grab hold of the bits and pieces of the story and see that neo-con punditry is more than a matter of opinions. It's a technique of using a handful of false facts that the reader or listener is unlikely to have a chance to look up while the story is being read or heard. It frequently conflates separate ideas that don't exactly belong together. Then it spins a theory that fits the false facts and the confusion of the mismatched concepts. They don't fit reality, but never mind, there's no one around to point out what reality is.

Talking Points Memo - (December 20, 2005 -- 01:04 AM EDT)

William Kristol and Gary Schmitt have a column in today's Washington Post that advances a simple premise: the president "uniquely swears an oath -- prescribed in the Constitution -- to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution." While Congress legislates for the 'in general', the president is the one who must face particular crises, ones whose dimensions, dangers and particularities legislators could not have foreseen. This mix of responsibility and authority gives the president the unique and awesome power to set aside Congress's laws in the over-riding interest of securing the nation.

Marty Kaplan: Read Rockefeller's Letter

Bush and Cheney are saying that the briefings that HIll leaders got on his domestic spying operation demostrate how respectful they are of oversight, checks and balances, advise & consent -- you know, the kind of freedom stuff we're fighting for in Iraq.

But take a look at this letter, just released by Senator Jay Rockefeller, the ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee (via Josh Marshall).

Arianna Huffington: Paper in a Bubble: Is the Times Even More Cut Off than George Bush?

More from French Polynesia. We are now in Moorea, a stunning little island 9 miles northwest of Tahiti. As a Greek, I probably should not be saying this, but this is the most beautiful island I've ever seen. It's easy to see why Marlon Brando fell in love with the area when he was here in 1960 scouting locations for "Mutiny on the Bounty" -- parts of which were shot in Moorea -- and eventually bought the small neighboring island of Tetiaroa.

[...]

But, thankfully I can access the Internet, so I've been able to watch online as the New York Times blows it once again.

Okay, set your watch: it's now officially time to be worried about the future of the erstwhile paper of record.

F.B.I. Watched Activist Groups, New Files Show

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 - Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show.

F.B.I. officials said Monday that their investigators had no interest in monitoring political or social activities and that any investigations that touched on advocacy groups were driven by evidence of criminal or violent activity at public protests and in other settings.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general, loosened restrictions on the F.B.I.'s investigative powers, giving the bureau greater ability to visit and monitor Web sites, mosques and other public entities in developing terrorism leads. The bureau has used that authority to investigate not only groups with suspected ties to foreign terrorists, but also protest groups suspected of having links to violent or disruptive activities.

Judge Rules Against Pa. Biology Curriculum

By MARTHA RAFFAELE, Associated Press Writer 17 minutes ago

"Intelligent design" cannot be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district, a federal judge said Tuesday, ruling in one of the biggest courtroom clashes on evolution since the 1925 Scopes trial.

Dover Area School Board members violated the Constitution when they ordered that its biology curriculum must include the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III said. Several members repeatedly lied to cover their motives even while professing religious beliefs, he said.

The school board policy, adopted in October 2004, was believed to have been the first of its kind in the nation.

"The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy," Jones wrote.

China Says Economy Much Bigger Than Thought

By JOE McDONALD, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 27 minutes ago

China said Tuesday its economy is much bigger and less dependent on exports than previously reported, issuing new data that analysts said make its roaring growth look easier to sustain and could encourage even more foreign investment.

A new survey of China's economy boosted its official output for 2004 by 16.8 percent by taking into account emerging service businesses, the government said. It said services' share of the economy rose sharply, while that of manufacturing fell.

The results show China's mainland replacing Italy as the world's 6th-largest economy, trailing Britain and France. China would jump to No. 4, behind only the United States, Japan and Germany, if it added in Hong Kong, which reports its economic figures separately.

The figures mean China's rates of exports and investment are smaller as a percentage of the total economy, possibly easing fears that they were unsustainably high, analysts said.

Digby: Passion Of The Cowboys

Will "Brokeback Mountain" play in Plano? In the movie's first weekend in the Dallas suburb where the 2004 Mel Gibson film "The Passion of the Christ" earned some of its biggest grosses, the answer appeared to be yes.

After setting a record for the per-theater average for a dramatic movie in limited openings in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, critically acclaimed "Brokeback Mountain" faced its next obstacle as Focus Features expanded the so-called gay cowboy movie to strategically selected smaller cities.

Digby: Efficiency Expert

Atrios and First-Draft have posts up highlighting one of the most egregious explanations for the NSA spying from this morning's briefing by Gonzales and NSA chief General Hayden: they didn't ask congress for permission because they were told by "certain" congressmen that they couldn't get it passed.

Gonzales:...We've had discussions with members of Congress, certain members of Congress, about whether or not we could get an amendment to FISA, and we were advised that that was not likely to be -- that was not something we could likely get, certainly not without jeopardizing the existence of the program, and therefore, killing the program. And that -- and so a decision was made that because we felt that the authorities were there, that we should continue moving forward with this program.

Digby: TIA

Check out the handwritten letter from 2003 that Jay Rockefeller just released which completely obliterates the ridiculous defense that members of congress "approved" this action.

He makes it clear that he has very serious reservations about this program and says that since he is not a technician or a lawyer, and is prohibited from speaking with staff, experts or colleagues, he cannot properly evaluate this program.

He evokes Poindexter's TIA.

Digby: The President's Program

Well now. Bush personally called the publisher and the editor of the NY Times in to the oval Office to get them not to publish the wire tapping story. Here's Jonathan Alter in Newsweek:

I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting, but one can only imagine the president’s desperation.

A Struggle for Peace in a Place Where Fighting Never Ends

By David Finkel

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 19, 2005; Page A01

SANAA, Yemen -- Word of the ambush of Sheik Rabea al-Okaimi came by cell phone. It was Rabea himself calling, late in the afternoon this past Sept. 11, from an isolated part of Yemen called Al Jawf. At the very time memorial services were underway in Washington and New York, an agitated man in Al Jawf was describing what happened a few hours before. He was in a car. He was cut off. There was a shootout. Two of the attackers were injured. He has to go, he said, he'll call back, and the telephone connection went dead.

The next day, he called again. Calmer, he said he was on his way to a meeting to help settle an escalating war between his tribe and a neighboring one when the attackers arrived in three cars. He and his guards dove into a ditch. The attackers bunkered themselves in another ditch. Both sides had Kalashnikov assault rifles. Bullets went back and forth for more than an hour. He thought the two men who were hit were severely wounded. "It's like American films," he said, "but it was real," and then the connection went dead again.

Bush Goes Back to Black and White

Sunday's speech showed glimmers of frankness, then reverted to caricature.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Monday, Dec. 19, 2005, at 5:11 PM ET

President George W. Bush came close to delivering a frank and forthright speech on Iraq Sunday night, but in the crunch, he reverted to form and the by-now-predictable mix of fact, distortion, and fantasy.

His tack these days—developed over the course of four earlier speeches carried by daytime cable and polished to a shine for his prime-time network address—is to admit past mistakes yet project absolute confidence in the course ahead; to acknowledge dissenting views yet denounce them as "defeatist"; to trumpet total victory as the only alternative to defeat yet fail to define the term in any realistic fashion.

Americablog: Did Bush domestic spy program eavesdrop on American journalists?

by John in DC - 12/19/2005 12:15:00 PM

I had an interesting discussion this morning with DC political consultant Marc Laitin. We both came to the conclusion that it sounds like Bush's super-secret illegal domestic spying program may be targeting US journalists and that may be why Bush never got it cleared by the court and is worried about it coming forward now.

Think about it.

1. Bush had the authority to go the court AFTER THE SURVEILLANCE and RETROACTIVELY get the warrant to do surveillance he'd already done. He didn't. The only reason I can come up with for why Bush would NOT go to the court after the fact is because he thought the court would slap him down. The court's greatest concern would likely be spying on US citizens, and an even greater concern would be spying on either members or Congress or the American media. If Bush were spying on American media, he might just lose this retroactive warrant.

ACLU says FBI misuses terror powers to track political groups

RAW STORY

The American Civil Liberties Union has accused the FBI of misusing terrorism investigators to monitor some domestic political organizations, despite apparently disparate views within the FBI whether some groups supported or committed violent acts, the Associated Press is set to reveal, RAW STORY has learned.

Citing hundreds of pages of heavily-censored documents it obtained from the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act, lawyers for the ACLU described this disputed use of terrorism resources as the latest illustration of intensified surveillance aimed toward Americans. "Using labels like domestic terrorists to describe peaceful protest activity can chill robust political debate in this country," ACLU lawyer Ben Wizner said in New York. The ACLU said it will publish the FBI reports it obtained on its Web site Tuesday.

Bush Administration mining fundamentalist recruits

The former Dean of Academic Affairs at the fundamentalist Christian Patrick Henry College is appointed to oversee USAID's democracy and governance programs

Paul Bonicelli, who most recently was the dean of academic affairs at Patrick Henry College, a small fundamentalist Christian college located in rural Virginia, has moved on to oversee USAID's democracy and governance programs. Given his apparent lack of experience in these areas, it appears that Bonicelli could be another Michael Brown-like appointment. Brown, called "Brownie" by President Bush before the administration rather unceremoniously dumped him, was the head of FEMA during the run-up to, and the aftermath of, Hurricane Katrina.

For sheer shock value, it is difficult to top recent headlines about the Pentagon paying Iraqi news outlets to print the "good news" about the U.S. occupation, or Bush threatening to bomb Al-Jazeera. Yet a recent headline, "Ex-FEMA chief to sell disaster advice," soared to the top of the charts of astonishing developments.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 12/19/05

President Bush used a live radio address on Saturday to confirm that he authorized domestic wiretaps without warrants, and in a Monday morning press conference he called the disclosure of the ongoing program "a shameful act" and provoked Reuters to ask, 'What's in a name?'

In response to Bush "hotly insisting that he was working within the Constitution and the law" the New York Times editorializes that "Mr. Bush's team cannot be trusted to find the boundaries of the law, much less respect them."

The Christian Science Monitor reports that 'Congress pushes back, hard, against Bush,' after being "blindsided by news of domestic spying," while the attorney general claims that Congress authorized it.

A "still growing" Pentagon counterterrorism agency is said to represent "the increasing militarization of our American streets," and to offer training in how to "use psychological research to create public policy."

A UCLA press release touting a study of media bias, said to have found that "the Drudge Report ... leans left," is called "one of the slickest pieces of right-wing propaganda to come down the pike in years" by Sid's Fishbowl, which looks at the study's authors and their right-wing funding.

NYT Editorial: The Long-Term Care Conundrum

A graying population and the fiscal woes of Medicaid are forcing the nation to reconsider how best to provide long-term health care for the aged and disabled. States are experimenting with ways to reshape their long-term care programs, the National Governors Association has proposed measures to restrain Medicaid spending for the needy and encourage greater use of private insurance, and Congress is moving to close loopholes that allow some well-off Americans to hide assets so as to qualify for Medicaid. The flurry of activity won't come close to solving the nation's long-term care problems, but it usefully highlights how far the country is from seriously confronting this issue - either through public programs or private insurance.

MEDICARE Long stays in nursing homes, where the average cost has reached $70,000 a year for private patients, are not covered by Medicare. In a more rational world, Medicare would cover long-term care much as it now covers short-term illnesses for older Americans. But with federal deficits looming for years to come and the government struggling to rein in existing entitlement programs, the political climate makes it impossible to even consider that now.

MEDICAID By default, Medicaid has become the primary payer for long-term care. It accounts for almost half of the nation's spending on long-term care and shells out more money to nursing homes than to hospitals or managed care companies. But Medicaid is a means-tested program that serves the poor and those in the middle class whose assets are quickly exhausted after a short stay in a nursing home. Given efforts in Congress and many states to restrain growth in Medicaid spending, people will find it harder to get help from this source in the future.

North Carolina City Confronts Its Past in Report on White Vigilantes

By JOHN DeSANTIS

WILMINGTON, N.C., Dec. 18 - Beneath canopies of moss-draped oaks, on sleepy streets graced by antebellum mansions, tour guides here spin stories of Cape Fear pirates and Civil War blockade-runners for eager tourists.

Only scant mention is made, however, of the bloody rioting more than a century ago during which black residents were killed and survivors banished by white supremacists, who seized control of the city government in what historians say is the only successful overthrow of a local government in United States history.

But last week, Wilmington revisited that painful history with the release of a draft of a 500-page report ordered by the state legislature that not only tells the story of the Nov. 10, 1898, upheaval, but also presents an analysis of its effects on black families that persist to this day.

Pentagon's Intelligence Authority Widens

Fact Sheet Details Secretive Agency's Growth From Focus on Policy to Counterterrorism

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 19, 2005; Page A10

The Pentagon's newest counterterrorism agency, charged with protecting military facilities and personnel wherever they are, is carrying out intelligence collection, analysis and operations within the United States and abroad, according to a Pentagon fact sheet on the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, provided to The Washington Post.

CIFA is a three-year-old agency whose size and budget remain secret. It has grown from an agency that coordinated policy and oversaw the counterintelligence activities of units within the military services and Pentagon agencies to an analytic and operational organization with nine directorates and ever-widening authority.

'Goodbye and good riddance'

The economics may be questionable but the decision by Argentina's president to pay off the IMF has broad public support, writes Oliver Balch

Monday December 19, 2005

Four years ago, crisis-hit Argentinians took to the streets shouting "out with them all". Now they have seen part of their wish come true. In a surprise statement late last week, the Argentinian president, Néstor Kirchner, announced that his government would settle its outstanding $9.8bn debt (£5.5bn) with the IMF by the end of the year.

Speaking in front of a packed hall of businessmen, political supporters and trade unionists, Mr Kirchner blamed the lender for "failed political regimes and monetary systems".

House GOP Drops Campaign Finance Measure

By LIZ SIDOTI
The Associated Press
Sunday, December 18, 2005; 10:10 PM

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans abandoned a last-minute attempt to limit individual political donations to independent organizations Sunday, setting up for passage a military measure that had been stalled by the effort.

GOP leaders had sought to attach the campaign finance legislation to a final defense bill, a move aimed at hampering Democratic-aligned groups such as MoveOn.org that were a powerful voice in 2004 and could threaten GOP candidates next year.

Plea Deal Is Accepted In Spy Case

By Linda Deutsch
Associated Press
Sunday, December 18, 2005; Page A06

LOS ANGELES -- The government ended its crippled case against a woman once accused of being a Chinese double agent, accepting her guilty pleas to lesser charges of making a false statement to the FBI and filing a false tax return.

Katrina Leung, 51, admitted Friday she lied to the FBI about her intimate relationship with her FBI handler, James J. Smith, and that she failed to include all her income on her tax returns for the year 2000.

Arianna Huffington: Heck of a Job, Viveca?

No Russert Watch from me today. I'm leaving that task in the very capable hands of Marty Kaplan and am heading out on a short vacation to Tahiti, where I will attempt to find out if it's possible to "go native" and blog at the same time. So far the jury is out because, despite my island destination, I'm still obsessing on the news.

Especially Bush's new nominee to the Federal Election Commission. And particularly his aisle-crossing appointment of Democrat Robert D. Lenhard -- a choice the Washington Post called "controversial."

You see, Lenhard was one of the lawyers who mounted a challenge to the constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. As a lawyer, Lenhard wasn't able to overturn McCain-Feingold before it took effect, but, as an FEC commissioner, he'll be able to do the next best thing and try to gut it.

Paul Krugmnan: Tankers on the Take

Not long ago Peter Ferrara, a senior policy adviser at the Institute for Policy Innovation, seemed on the verge of becoming a conservative icon. Before the Bush administration's sales pitch for Social Security privatization fell flat, admiring articles about the Bush plan's genesis often gave Mr. Ferrara credit for starting the privatization movement back in 1979.

Now Mr. Ferrara has become a different sort of icon. BusinessWeek Online reports that both Mr. Ferrara and Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, were paid by the ubiquitous Jack Abramoff to write "op-ed articles favorable to the positions of some of Abramoff's clients."

U.S. Ideals Meet Reality in Yemen

By David Finkel

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 18, 2005; Page A01

SANAA, Yemen

On the first day, which would turn out to be the best day, the one day of all 180 days when everything actually seemed possible, the president of Yemen hadn't yet dismissively referred to an American named Robin Madrid as an old woman.

The president's foreign minister had yet to insist that a program of Madrid's -- funded by the U.S. government to bring democracy to Yemen's most lawless corners -- had to end immediately.

Bush's Fumbles Spur New Talk of Oversight on Hill

By Dana Milbank

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 18, 2005; Page A07

After a series of embarrassing disclosures, Congress is reconsidering its relatively lenient oversight of the Bush administration.

Lawmakers have been caught by surprise by several recent reports, including the existence of secret U.S. prisons abroad, the CIA's detention overseas of innocent foreign nationals, and, last week, the discovery that the military has been engaged in domestic spying. After five years in which the GOP-controlled House and Senate undertook few investigations into the administration's activities, the legislative branch has begun to complain about being in the dark.

Gift-Wrapped Guilt?

My Adventure With Ethical Shopping

By Frances Stead Sellers

Sunday, December 18, 2005; Page B01

Earlier this month, there was a three-day sale of imported Oriental rugs at the Mennonite church near my house in Baltimore. "They are a little pricey," one of my neighbors warned me wryly, "because the workers are paid a living wage." What a concept! The last time I bought an Oriental rug -- years ago in Kashmir -- I haggled over the price with little thought for the well-being of the rugmakers. I was pretty sure most of the profit would go to the store owner, anyway. But now my already stressful shopping season -- garlanded with aspirations to find creative presents -- had been complicated by the intrusion of altruism: I was meant to worry about the workers.

So it was that I found myself watching another neighbor sort through piles of richly patterned, hand-knotted rugs, looking for just the right ruby tone to replace the threadbare floor covering in her dining room. She knew she probably wouldn't get a bargain that day, but she had been persuaded by the saleswoman's spiel that there was added ethical value to her purchase: Her investment would support Pakistani craftsmen and women (but no children, of course) who use looms donated by a charity, Jakciss, that is committed to building schools and promoting harmony between the country's Christian and Muslim populations.

In New Orleans, No Easy Work for Willing Latinos

Much Is to Be Done, but Pay, Conditions Are Grim

By Manuel Roig-Franzia

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 18, 2005; Page A03

NEW ORLEANS -- The come-on was irresistible: Hop in the truck. Go to New Orleans. Make a pile of cash.

Arturo jumped at it. Since that day when he left Houston, more than two months ago, he has slept on the floors of moldy houses, idled endlessly at day-laborer pickup stops and second-guessed himself nearly every minute.

For Arturo and countless Latinos, many of them also in the country illegally, flooded-out New Orleans has not turned out to be a modern-day El Dorado, where the streets are paved with gold. Instead, they have often been abandoned without transportation or shelter by the contractors who brought them to the city. They have struggled to find employment and been paid less than they were promised -- or not at all -- when they can find work.

Pushing the Limits Of Wartime Powers

By Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer

Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 18, 2005; Page A01

In his four-year campaign against al Qaeda, President Bush has turned the U.S. national security apparatus inward to secretly collect information on American citizens on a scale unmatched since the intelligence reforms of the 1970s.

The president's emphatic defense yesterday of warrantless eavesdropping on U.S. citizens and residents marked the third time in as many months that the White House has been obliged to defend a departure from previous restraints on domestic surveillance. In each case, the Bush administration concealed the program's dimensions or existence from the public and from most members of Congress.

Paper: Torture in U.K. - Run Post - WWII Camp

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: December 17, 2005

Filed at 8:26 p.m. ET

LONDON (AP) -- Prisoners were tortured and starved to death in a post-World War II interrogation camp run by Britain for former Nazis and others, a newspaper reported Saturday.

The Guardian's report cited documents recently released under the Freedom of Information Act that described the suffering of some of 372 men and 44 women detained at the camp in Bad Nenndorf, a spa town in northwest Germany occupied by the British after the war. The camp was closed in July 1947, the Guardian reported.

A State of Evil

Review by BRIAN LADD

Published: December 18, 2005

HISTORIANS of Nazi Germany know they will be measured against the remarkable success of William Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," a 1,200-page doorstop that has been selling briskly for four and a half decades. Shirer's tale of a titanic struggle between good and evil, peppered with sneering characterizations of Nazi bigwigs, has long been the bane of history professors. As a Berlin-based journalist in the 1930's, he watched the crowds cheer Hitler, and came away with a rather sour opinion of Germans in general. He presents Hitler as "but a logical continuation of German history," the culmination of an authoritarian tradition that encompassed Luther, Hegel and Nietzsche, among many others.

Most scholars have little patience with attempts to explain history through national character. According to Richard J. Evans, a professor of modern history at Cambridge University, the Nazis' use of German symbols and traditions should not distract us from the frighteningly modern character of their regime. Of course it was suited to Germany - it could not have functioned otherwise - but to say this does little to explain its horrors.

Elite French Schools Block the Poor's Path to Power

By CRAIG S. SMITH

Published: December 18, 2005

PARIS, Dec. 17 - Even as the fires smoldered in France's working-class suburbs and paramilitary police officers patrolled Paris to guard against attacks by angry minority youths last month, dozens of young men and women dressed in elaborate, old-fashioned parade uniforms marched down the Champs-Élysées to commemorate Armistice Day.

They were students of the grandes écoles, the premier institutions of higher education here, from which the upper echelons of French society draw new blood. Few minority students were among them.

Ghosts of a Shuttered College Follow Weld Back Into Politics

By SAM DILLON and PATRICK D. HEALY

Published: December 18, 2005

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Carlos Urquilla said he felt lucky when he was hired a year ago to be a dean at Decker College here. A former Army lieutenant straight out of law school, Mr. Urquilla liked the way the school sold itself as a place to help poor students learn a trade.

But in his first weeks at the for-profit school, Mr. Urquilla says, he found employees falsifying student attendance records, instructors helping students to cheat and recruiters arranging federal loans for students who could not read.

Health Care for All, Just a (Big) Step Away

By EDUARDO PORTER

Published: December 18, 2005

YOU may find it shameful that some 45 million Americans lack health insurance. Well, by reallocating money already devoted to health insurance, the government could go along way toward solving the problem. But you may not like the solution.

Next year, the federal government expects to provide about $130 billion for Americans to buy health insurance. The amount is substantial: it is equivalent to about 11 percent of all federal income tax revenue and more than a fifth of federal spending on Medicare and Medicaid. And it is growing fast: the bill is expected to surpass $180 billion in 2010.

Global trade riots rock Hong Kong

Police fight running battles with protesters and break up demos with tear gas as WTO negotiations reach climax

Tom Burgis and Jonathan Watts in Hong Kong
Sunday December 18, 2005
The Observer

Hong Kong was hit by its most violent street clashes in more than 30 years last night as riot police fought running battles with protesters on the penultimate day of World Trade Organisation talks.

While negotiators inside the conference hall struggled to agree to a watered-down compromise on the future of global commerce, demonstrators outside ratcheted up their attempt to derail a deal that they believe sells poor countries short.

Firedoglake: Cozy

Well well well. What do we have here?

George W. Bush has picked new nominees for the FEC. One is a Republican, Hans von Spakovsky, whom Ted Kennedy says "may be at the heart of the political interference that is undermining the [Justice] Department's enforcement of federal civil laws." And in an uncharacteristic moment of cheerful bipartisanship, Bush is also appointing a Democrat, Robert D. Lenhard, who was quite helpful to the 1600 Crew as part of the legal team that challenged the constitutionality of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

But there is perhaps another reason why Mr. Lenhard is being rewarded by BushCo. at just this moment. He's the husband of Viveca Novak, whose testimony now provides the foundation for Karl Rove's defense in the CIA leak case.

An Incredible Day in America

Today, for two separate reasons, has been an incredible day in America. First, the United States has legitimized torture and secondly, the President has admitted to an impeachable offense.

First, the media has been totally misled on the alleged Bush-McCain agreement on torture. McCain capitulated. It is not a defeat for Bush. It is a win for Cheney.

Torture is not banned or in any way impeded.

Under the compromise, anyone charged with torture can defend himself if a "reasonable" person could have concluded they were following a lawful order.

That defense "loophole" totally corrodes the ban. It is the CIA, or the torturing agency, who will decide what a "reasonable" person could have concluded. Can you imagine those agencies in the interrogation business torturing on their own in trying to decide what is reasonable or what is not? What is not "reasonable" if the interrogator (wrongfully or rightfully) believes he has a ticking-bomb situation? Will a CIA or military officer issue a narrow order if he knows his interrogator believes, in this case, torture will work?

WTO Draft Sets Deadline to End Subsidies

9 minutes ago

WTO negotiators reached a breakthrough on the most contentious issue of the six-day talks, agreeing that wealthy countries would eliminate farm export subsidies by 2013, paving the way for a broader agreement to cut trade barriers across various sectors, according to a copy of the final draft agreement obtained by journalists.

The breakthrough, coming after all-night negotiations, appeared to save the World Trade Organization meeting from an embarrassing collapse provided the final draft is approved by all 149 member nations and territories who are meeting later Sunday.

The 2013 date was a key demand of the European Union, which held out against intense pressure from Brazil and other developing nations to phase out a significant proportion of its farm export subsidies by 2010. Developing nations say the government farm payments to promote exports undercuts the competitive advantage of poor farmers.

AP: Frist AIDS Charity Paid Consultants

By JONATHAN M. KATZ and JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writers1 hour, 3 minutes ago

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's AIDS charity paid nearly a half-million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle, according to tax returns providing the first financial accounting of the presidential hopeful's nonprofit.

The returns for World of Hope Inc., obtained by The Associated Press, also show the charity raised the lion's share of its $4.4 million from just 18 sources. They gave between $97,950 and $267,735 each to help fund Frist's efforts to fight AIDS.

The tax forms, filed nine months after they were first due, do not identify the 18 major donors by name.