Job Growth Where Bush Didn’t Want It

By FLOYD NORRIS

IT is not exactly a distinction that he had in mind, but seven years into his presidency, George W. Bush is in line to be the first president since World War II to preside over an economy in which federal government employment rose more rapidly than employment in the private sector.

That is not because federal government jobs have risen at an unusually rapid rate over the last seven years — although the increase did reverse a substantial decline under Mr. Bush’s most recent predecessor, Bill Clinton.

Congress passes stimulus package

WASHINGTON — Congress passed an economic stimulus bill Thursday that will give $600 to most individual taxpayers, $1,200 to couples and $300 to more than 20 million low-income seniors and disabled veterans.

President Bush said he'd sign the bill.

"This bill will help to stimulate consumer spending and accelerate needed business investment," Bush said. "This economic growth package is an example of bipartisan cooperation at a time when the American people most expect it."

Carbon burial buried

Energy department pulls the plug on FutureGen project.

Jeff Tollefson

The US Department of Energy has pulled out of a flagship project to build the first 'clean' coal-fired power plant in the United States, a move that will kill the project unless supporters can rouse Congress on its behalf.

The FutureGen project was intended to demonstrate technologies for capturing and burying carbon dioxide from coal-fuelled power plants; it was scheduled to begin operating in 2012. But its costs have nearly doubled to $1.8 billion in recent years, and last week the department pulled out of the deal after failing to reach a new funding agreement with its private partner, the FutureGen Industrial Alliance, which consists of more than a dozen energy companies. The energy department had been slated to pick up three-quarters of the bill for the 275-megawatt plant.

Paul Krugman: A Long Story

The economic news has been fairly dire this week. The credit crunch is getting worse, and a widely watched indicator of trends in the service sector — which is most of the economy — has fallen off a cliff. It’s still not a certainty that we’re headed into recession, but the odds are growing greater.

And if past experience is any guide, the troubles will persist for a long time — say, into the middle of 2010.

The problems now facing the U.S. economy look a lot like the problems that caused the last two recessions — but this time in combination.

Gene Lyons: U.S. can’t dominate world by force

Almost regardless of who wins the presidential nomination, there’s small likelihood of serious debate about the most crucial long-term foreign policy question facing the American people: Do we or do we not want to maintain a global empire by force of arms ? Or, to put it another way, what’s in it for us, as individual citizens, for the United States to maintain 800 military bases around the world ? Does the word “superpower” actually mean anything in today’s world ? Hardly anybody in the foreign policy establishment likes having it put that way. It strikes them as vulgar and reductive; hence, anybody who questions, for example, whether the United States really needs to spend almost twice as much on wars and weaponry as the rest of the world combined gets caricatured as a crackpot isolationist, the kind of person who, in the usual formulation, would have ignored Adolf Hitler’s military buildup in the 1930 s. Hence, too, a seemingly infinite procession of miniature “Hitlers” clanking along like targets in a carnival shooting gallery—Gadhafi, Noriega, Saddam, Ahmadinejad, etc. “Endless Enemies,” the late Jonathan Kwitny dubbed them in his 1984 book of that name. Subtitled “The Making of an Unfriendly World,” the onetime Wall Street Journal correspondent’s thesis was that the majority of America’s armed interventions in the Third World constituted a self-fulfilling prophecy guaranteeing more or less constant war.

Congress Votes for a Stimulus of $168 Billion

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON — Moving with uncommon speed, Congress gave final approval on Thursday to a $168 billion economic rescue package, including rebates for taxpayers and tax breaks for businesses, that lawmakers and President Bush hope will set off a rush of springtime spending and spark the slowing economy.

A day after the Senate seemed mired in a partisan feud over a more expensive stimulus plan favored by Democrats, lawmakers cast that quarrel aside and approved a plan nearly identical to one the House adopted last week.

Mukasey: No, I Will Not Enforce Citations for Contempt of Congress

By Paul Kiel - February 7, 2008, 6:24PM

Just to complete the theme of the day, Michael Mukasey said today that if Congress passed contempt citations against current and former White House officials based on their refusal to respond to subpoenas, the Justice Department would not enforce them, as federal law instructs.

Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) was the one who first popped the question. If Congress passed a citation against White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, who, along with former White House counsel Harriet Miers and Karl Rove, refused to show up when subpoenaed by Congress as part of the U.S. attorneys investigation -- would the DoJ enforce it?

How Deep Will the Recession Go?

By John Miller, Dollars and Sense
Posted on February 8, 2008, Printed on February 8, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/76235/

It's not only radical economists and cyberspace Cassandras uttering the "r"-word nowadays. Just what are we to make of it when Harvard economists, The Economist magazine, and Morgan Stanley followed by Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch say the economy is headed toward, or already in, a recession?

You can bet the house, whatever its current value, that hard times are on the way -- more layoffs, fewer new jobs, lower wages, tighter family budgets, more debt, and higher poverty levels. This year will see rising economic hardship even if the U.S. economy scrapes by without sinking into an official recession, usually defined as two straight quarters of declining output.

FBI Deputizes Private Contractors With Extraordinary Powers, Including 'Shoot to Kill'

By Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive
Posted on February 8, 2008, Printed on February 8, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/76388/

Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does -- and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to "shoot to kill" in the event of martial law. InfraGard is "a child of the FBI," says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm.

Senate GOP Will Not Move on FISA Until Agreement on Stimulus Procedures

By Tim Starks, CQ Staff

Legislation to overhaul the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act remained stalled in the Senate Tuesday, held hostage by a partisan clash over procedures for consideration of an unrelated economic stimulus package.

A frustrated Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., complained that Republicans were blocking his efforts to schedule votes on proposed amendments to the bill (S 2248). He questioned Minority Leader Mitch McConnell ’s commitment to the legislation, saying Republicans have declined to allow FISA to move forward.

After the Non-Defeats of Super Tuesday, A Long Slog for the Democrats

CHICAGO, IL — By the time that Super Tuesday finally arrived, the mystery was long gone. The day that had loomed for so long had lost its melodramatic make-or-break status for the Democrats. Hours before the vote-counting began, the top strategists for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were pitching the same line: the results would not be decisive and whoever ended up the winner would walk away with merely a small edge in delegates. And as the vote tallies started to come in, both campaigns declared non-defeat. That is, they each claimed to have done well. "Encouraging results," Mark Penn, Clinton's chief strategist said. "We're having a very strong night," said David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager. Both were right.

The two campaigns had plenty of data to spin as the results materialized. Clinton triumphed in California (by an overwhelming margin), Massachusetts (where a big turnout in women negated that Kennedy magic), Arizona, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Obama won in Alabama, Alaska, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Delaware, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Utah, Idaho, and Missouri. Last-minute deciders, Penn said, went for Clinton. "Momentum is turning," he insisted. Plouffe noted that Obama was competitive in regions across the nation, that he won the caucus states (showing the campaign's organizational talent), and that he captured states that did not permit independents to vote (Delaware and Connecticut). Clinton was the Queen of California. Obama was the Master of Missouri.

Democracy Now! looks at the real John McCain

Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman speaks to author Matt Welch on the subject of his book, McCain: The Myth of a Maverick. What is so striking is how this myth of being a maverick has continued long into his congressional career and is exhibited in the votes he’s receiving from the anti-war crowd despite being more pro-war than any other GOP candidate.

It’s really interesting that in the primaries so far, if you look at the exit polls, among people who voted in the GOP primaries who consider themselves antiwar, anti-the-Iraq-war, and among voters who consider themselves angry at George Bush—and that’s a quote—and among independents, McCain is beating his opponents by two-to-one. If you actually look at people who describe themselves as just Republicans, McCain has not yet won a single primary. So he is basically winning the GOP primaries on the back of the antiwar vote, when in fact he would be the most explicitly interventionist president since Teddy Roosevelt, and he certainly makes George Bush look gun-shy by comparison.

AP Confirms Secret Camp Inside Gitmo

Wednesday February 6, 2008 10:01 PM

By ANDREW O. SELSKY

Associated Press Writer

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded - a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret.

For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7. In an interview with The Associated Press, Rear Adm. Mark Buzby also provided a few details about the maximum-security lockup.

G.O.P. Senators Block Democrats’ Stimulus Plan

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

WASHINGTON — Republicans managed Wednesday evening to block a relatively expansive and expensive economic stimulus package championed by Senate Democrats, who could not muster the 60 votes needed to advance their plan to a final vote.

The Senate vote was 58 to 41 on a motion to curtail debate on the package of tax rebates and business incentives, which would cost $204 billion over two years.

The program that stalled Wednesday evening was some $40 billion more than a program approved overwhelmingly by the House a week ago after President Bush, House Republicans and Speaker Nancy Pelosi reached quick agreement.

Injecting 'Terror' into Campaign 2008

By Robert Parry
February 6, 2008

As Campaign 2008 reaches a critical point, George W. Bush’s top intelligence officials are raising new alarms about a revitalized al-Qaeda recruiting Westerners, possibly including Americans, to carry out terror attacks inside the United States.

At a Feb. 5 hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bush’s Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said al-Qaeda was refining “the last key aspect of its ability to attack the U.S.” by training Western recruits, who could blend in with American society and carry out attacks on U.S. targets.

In a later interview with the New York Times, an unnamed “senior intelligence official” added that these Westerners – “most likely including American citizens” – were undergoing training at al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan, though the official added there was no evidence that the operatives had yet reached the United States. [NYT, Feb. 6, 2008]

C.I.A. Destroyed Tapes as Judge Sought Interrogation Data

By MARK MAZZETTI and SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON — At the time that the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed videotapes of the interrogations of operatives of Al Qaeda, a federal judge was still seeking information from Bush administration lawyers about the interrogation of one of those operatives, Abu Zubaydah, according to court documents made public on Wednesday.

The court documents, filed in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, appear to contradict a statement last December by Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the C.I.A. director, that when the tapes were destroyed in November 2005 they had no relevance to any court proceeding, including Mr. Moussaoui’s criminal trial.

Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg: Bush Likely to Attack Iran, Impeachment a Must

By Sari Gelzer, TruthOut.org
Posted on February 7, 2008, Printed on February 7, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/76241/

Daniel Ellsberg, perhaps the country's most famous whistleblower, fears that before the Bush administration leaves office, it will try to attack Iran.

Indeed, Ellsberg's argument gained merit as George W. Bush increased his rhetoric against Iran when he delivered his final State of the Union Address. Bush accused Iran of training militia extremists in Iraq and emphasized the United States will confront its enemies.

Immigrants Come Here Because Globalization Took Their Jobs Back There

By Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown
Posted on February 7, 2008, Printed on February 7, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/76076/

The wailing in our country about the "invasion of immigrants" has been long and loud. As one complainant put it, "Few of their children in the country learn English ...The signs in our streets have inscriptions in both languages ... Unless the stream of the importation could be turned they will soon so outnumber us that all the advantages we have will not be able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious."

That's not some diatribe from one of today's Republican presidential candidates. It's the anxious cry of none other than Ben Franklin, deploring the wave of Germans pouring into the colony of Pennsylvania in the 1750s. Thus, anti-immigrant eruptions are older than the United States itself, and they've flared up periodically throughout our history, targeting the Irish, French, Italians, Chinese, and others. Even George W's current project to wall off our border is not a new bit of nuttiness -- around the time of the nation's founding, John Jay, who later became the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, proposed "a wall of brass around the country for the exclusion of Catholics."

Pending Home Sales Fall in December

Thursday February 7, 10:00 am ET
By Alan Zibel, AP Business Writer U.S. Pending Home Sales Fall in December to Second-Worst Number on Record, Industry Data Show WASHINGTON (AP) -- Industry data released Thursday show pending U.S. home sales fell 1.5 percent in December to the second-lowest reading on record, another indication that the housing market is worsening.

The National Association of Realtors said its seasonally adjusted index of pending sales for existing homes fell to a reading of 85.9 from a downwardly revised November index of 87.2. The reading was just short of the record low of 85.5 it hit in August, at the peak of the worldwide credit squeeze.

Digby: Savvy Political Behavior

Here's an interesting analysis from reader Joe:

While the networks focus on demographic explanations (white-black, man-woman), I think there is a case to made now that the regional draw of these two candidates is more deeply rooted in the recent political culture and history of each state. Obama's post-partisan, one America appeal resonates best in the states that have been dominated by Republicans and republican lite candidates (Iowa, SC, GA, AL, DE, CN). Obama is really cutting across the red states.

Evidence mounts that economy is in recession

Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers

last updated: February 05, 2008 07:48:49 PM

WASHINGTON — Stocks fell sharply Tuesday amid new economic data that left Wall Street ever more convinced that the U.S. economy might already be in recession.

The three major stock indices all closed down by about 3 percent, after an Institute of Supply Management report showed a much-weaker-than-expected reading of the all-important services sector.

The report also showed that prices for items that the nonmanufacturing sector uses are rising briskly. This combination of a contraction in business activity and rising prices unsettled investors.

Is political orientation transmitted genetically?

Rice political science professor says your genes play a part in your politics

As reported in this week's issue of "New Scientist" magazine, research by Rice University professor of political science John Alford indicates that what is on one's mind about politics may be influenced by how people are wired genetically.

Alford, who has researched this topic for a number of years, and his team analyzed data from political opinions of more than 12,000 twins in the United States and supplemented it with findings from twins in Australia. Alford found that identical twins were more likely to agree on political issues than were fraternal twins. On the issue of property taxes, for example, an astounding four-fifths of identical twins shared the same opinion, while only two-thirds of fraternal twins agreed.

Iraq’s Tragic Future

Posted on Feb 5, 2008

By Scott Ritter

Any analysis of the current state of the ongoing U.S. occupation of Iraq that relied solely on the U.S. government, the major candidates for president or the major media outlets in the United States for information would be hard pressed to find any bad news. In a State of the Union address which had everything except a “Mission Accomplished” banner flying in the background, President Bush all but declared victory over the insurgency in Iraq. His recertification of the success of the so-called surge has prompted the Republican candidates to assume a cocky swagger when discussing Iraq. They embrace the occupation and speak, without shame or apparent fear of retribution, of an ongoing presence in that war-torn nation. Their Democratic counterparts have been less than enthusiastic in their criticism of the escalation. And the media, for the most part, continue their macabre role as cheerleaders of death, hiding the reality of Iraq deep inside stories that build upon approving headlines derived from nothing more than political rhetoric. The war in Iraq, we’re told, is virtually over. We only need “stay the course” for 10 more years.

FBI probing figure linked to 2004 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth; Accused of forging campaign audit

02/06/2008 @ 10:30 am
Filed by Michael Roston

The Politico revealed on Wednesday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had initiated a probe of a former treasurer of the National Republican Congressional Committee over the forging of a 2006 election audit. But it left out an important detail: the official in question served as a partner at a firm that was retained by the Swift Boat Veterans and Prioners of War for Truth in 2004 to perform legal compliance work.

Freedom's Watch may spend up to $250 million in 2008 election

Group founded to support Bush's surge in Iraq and encourage military action against Iran gearing up for November

President Bush has been to Las Vegas nine times since he was first inaugurated, but last Wednesday was the first time he ever stayed overnight in Sin City. He and his aides (and the traveling press corps) did so in luxury, staying at the Venetian, the palatial casino resort run by Sheldon Adelson, the chairman of Las Vegas Sands Corp. and a big force in GOP and philanthropic circles. (He is part of the money behind Freedom's Watch, the conservative foreign policy group formed as a kind of counterpoint to liberal groups like MoveOn.org.) Adelson and his wife, Miriam, were in the loading dock at the Venetian Thursday to greet Bush and jumped into his limousine to ride with him to his speech sponsored by a conservative think tank.

What's Really in the U.S. Military Budget?

Much more than the oft-cited $515.4 billion.

By Fred Kaplan
Posted Monday, Feb. 4, 2008, at 6:51 PM ET

It's time for our annual game: How much is really in the U.S. military budget?

As usual, it's about $200 billion more than most news stories are reporting. For the proposed fiscal year 2009 budget, which President Bush released today, the real size is not, as many news stories have reported, $515.4 billion—itself a staggering sum—but, rather, $713.1 billion.

10 Myths About Canadian Health Care, Busted

By Sara Robinson, TomPaine.com
Posted on February 5, 2008, Printed on February 6, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/76032/

2008 is shaping up to be the election year that we finally get to have the Great American Healthcare Debate again. Harry and Louise are back with a vengeance. Conservatives are rumbling around the talk show circuit bellowing about the socialist threat to the (literal) American body politic. And, as usual, Canada is once again getting dragged into the fracas, shoved around by both sides as either an exemplar or a warning -- and, along the way, getting coated with the obfuscating dust of so many willful misconceptions that the actual facts about How Canada Does It are completely lost in the melee.

I'm both a health-care-card-carrying Canadian resident and an uninsured American citizen who regularly sees doctors on both sides of the border. As such, I'm in a unique position to address the pros and cons of both systems first-hand. If we're going to have this conversation, it would be great if we could start out (for once) with actual facts, instead of ideological posturing, wishful thinking, hearsay, and random guessing about how things get done up here.

Bush's Last Budget May Be the Next Administration's Agenda

By Robert L. Borosage, Huffington Post
Posted on February 6, 2008, Printed on February 6, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/76097/

Tossed out between the Superbowl and Super Tuesday, dead on arrival in a Democratic Congress, President Bush's last budget will sink without a ripple. But since John McCain and his rivals for the Republican nomination all pledge allegiance to Bush's policies, it is worth taking a short look at the implications.

A budget, after all, is a statement of values. Where your purse is so there is your heart, we are taught. The budget provides a snapshot of what the president considers to be national priorities. In his $3.1 trillion annual budget for FY 2009, with a deficit of $400 billion borrowed from the future, Bush tells us what is important.

The World's Dump: Ocean Garbage from Hawaii to Japan

By Kathy Marks and Daniel Howden, The Independent UK
Posted on February 6, 2008, Printed on February 6, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/76056/

A "plastic soup" of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said.

The vast expanse of debris -- in effect the world's largest rubbish dump -- is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting "soup" stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.

Ron Paul and the IRS

Monday, February 04, 2008
-- by Dave

The facts about Ron Paul's predilection for far-right conspiracy theories are nothing new to regular readers here, as well as for anyone who's >taken a look at his old newsletters. They are among the reasons, as we've explained, that Paul attracts far-right adherents, and they manifest themselves in the form of classic far-right scams like "Ron Paul dollars".

Now comes the news that Paul has hired as his "economic adviser" a fellow named Peter Schiff. He who runs securities brokerage and has authored a book on the forthcoming economic doomsday (ahem) -- and he also has a history of promoting the claim that the Internal Revenue Service is an illegitimate federal agency that taxpayers have a legal right to ignore, which is a classic "Patriot" movement theory:

Digby: Ronnie's Playbook

I don't know if your gorge rose like mine did as you watched the Republicans deify Ronald Reagan the other night, but this piece by Michael Kinsley today speaks to the absurdity of it all:

In the GOP debate at the Reagan Library on Wednesday, Sen. John McCain repeated his story about how he and other prisoners of war used to discuss this exciting new governor of California, using tap codes through the walls of a North Vietnamese prison. Like many of the great man's own treasured anecdotes, it might be true. Unlike Reagan, McCain is a genuine war hero, so if he has over-polished this story a bit (it is almost word for word each time), he is honoring the great man by imitation if nothing else. In the debate, McCain repeatedly called himself a "foot soldier in the Reagan revolution." He declared that Republicans have "betrayed Ronald Reagan's principles about tax cuts and restraint of spending."

Digby: The Lovers And The Fighters

I have often thought that the two parties could be described as two fundamental archetypes: The Lovers vs The Fighters. I don't mean that pejoratively in either sense, but rather that temperamentally, we seem to be motivated by different impulses, both of which are part of all human beings, but which I can loosely characterize with these two terms. This has even been borne out by psychological studies:

As I watch the primary unfold, and see what looks increasingly like a deep desire among the Democratic rank and file to assert Obama's positive, uplifting vision of politics, it looks like Americans may have the starkest choice between a Lover and a Fighter in my lifetime. The man the Republicans appear to be about to nominate is so combative that even his own party fears he's going to knock their heads together as much as the other guy's:

ISM Services Index Fell More Than Forecast in January

By Shobhana Chandra

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. service industries unexpectedly shrank in January at the fastest pace since the last recession as the housing slump deepened and consumer spending cooled.

The Institute for Supply Management's non-manufacturing index, which reflects almost 90 percent of the economy, fell to 41.9, the lowest since October 2001, from 54.4 the prior month, the Tempe, Arizona-based ISM said. A reading of 50 is the dividing line between growth and contraction.

``This is a stunning fall,'' said Michael Moran, chief economist at Daiwa Securities America Inc. in New York. ``If accurate, it's dire news on the economy.''

John McCain Has An Exit Strategy

Not from Iraq, sad to say. But from the public financing system for his presidential campaign.

Last week I noted a Politico story contending that for McCain "it could be tougher getting out than it was getting in" to the voluntary system of public financing for his primary campaign. While most of the major candidates other than John Edwards opted out of the system this year, because accepting public financing would have meant agreeing to a $50 million spending limit in the primaries, a desperate McCain last fall decided to take the public money, and $5.5 million has been certified in his name, but he hasn't seen the cash yet. Now that he's the front-runner, he would be infinitely better off refusing the public money, in order to ignore the spending limits, which he is approaching or has already hit.

Carnegie mellon visiting scholar identifes vulnerable areas

climate tipping points unveiled

PITTSBURGH— A new international study released today warns that ecosystems and societies are at risk from the ongoing warming of our planet.

The study, to be published in the Feb. 4-8 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Online Early Edition, outlines the most vulnerable areas of earth at risk for abrupt climate change, according to Elmar Kriegler, a visiting research scholar in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University.

Kriegler, a researcher from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, was one of seven scientists who helped to compile the study, drawing on the insights from a climate change workshop sponsored by the British Embassy in Berlin in October 2005, and an opinion survey of 52 experts in the field.

Digby: Bipartisanship Misdirection

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the urgent need to stop the "partisan bickering" in Washington, with elder statesmen gathering in groups to demand bipartisan cabinets and pundits wringing their hankies about government not "getting anything done."

Glenn Greenwald wrote about the actual record of bipartisanship earlier this week and set forth a long list of recent legislative initiatives in which the Republicans voted as a bloc and Democrats crossed the aisle to pass legislation. It's quite impressive.

Tragicomic Tale of the 9/11 Report

By EVAN THOMAS

THE COMMISSION
The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Commission
By Philip Shenon
457 pp. Twelve. $27.

Journalists like to talk about the back story, the story behind the story. The back story can be nothing more than vaguely sourced gossip traded among pundits and politicos before they go on talk shows. But sometimes the back story is the real, whole truth, a tale of conniving or official blundering that the headlines can only hint at. Journalists often conceal the whole truth because they need to protect their sources.

Philip Shenon, a reporter in the Washington bureau of The New York Times, set out to get behind the scenes of the 9/11 Commission. The inside story of a government commission doesn’t sound very promising; most commission reports wind up unread on dusty shelves.

Torture Still Doesn't Work

By Robert Fisk, The Independent UK
Posted on February 4, 2008, Printed on February 5, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/75875/

"Torture works," an American special forces major -- now, needless to say, a colonel -- boasted to a colleague of mine a couple of years ago. It seems that the CIA and its hired thugs in Afghanistan and Iraq still believe this. There is no evidence that rendition and beatings and waterboarding and the insertion of metal pipes into men's anuses -- and, of course, the occasional torturing to death of detainees -- has ended. Why else would the CIA admit in January that it had destroyed videotapes of prisoners being almost drowned -- the "waterboarding" technique -- before they could be seen by US investigators?

Tom Friedman's Folly: The Lies Behind 'Free Trade'

By Chalmers Johnson, Truthdig
Posted on February 5, 2008, Printed on February 5, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/75645/

Ha-Joon Chang is a Cambridge economist who specializes in the abject poverty of the Third World and its people, groups, nations, and empires, and their doctrines that are responsible for this condition. He won the Gunnar Myrdal Prize for his book "Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective" (2002), and he shared the 2005 Wassily Leontief Prize for his contributions to "Rethinking Development in the 21st Century." The title of his 2002 book comes from the German political economist Friedrich List, who in 1841 criticized Britain for preaching free trade to other countries while having achieved its own economic supremacy through high tariffs and extensive subsidies. He accused the British of "kicking away the ladder" that they had climbed to reach the world's top economic position. Chang's other, more technical books include "The Political Economy of Industrial Policy" (1994) and "Reclaiming Development: An Economic Policy Handbook for Activists and Policymakers" (2004).

Federal deficits soaring higher, menacing the future

President Bush took office in 2001 with a budget surplus, but his final budget proposal envisions federal deficits of more than $400 billion a year for the next two years. As big as those numbers are, experts think that the administration is lowballing the deficits, and they put little stock in Bush's vow to balance the budget by 2012.

Sy Hersh confirms: Syrian facility bombed by Israel was not nuclear

02/03/2008 @ 12:49 pm

Filed by David Edwards and Muriel Kane

After Israel bombed a Syrian military facility last September, the United States and Israel both claimed the target had been a Syrian nuclear facility under construction.

RAW STORY's Larisa Alexandrovna was alone at the time in reporting that the actual target was a cache of North Korean No-Dong missiles, dating back to the 1990's, which Syria was converting for use as chemical warheads.

Glenn Greenwald: Is Michael Mukasey prioritizing the harassment and imprisonment of journalists?

Ever since the President's illegal warrantless eavesdropping program was revealed by the New York Times' Jim Risen and Eric Lichtblau back in December, 2005, there has been a faction of neoconservatives and other extremists on the Right calling for the NYT reporters and editors to be criminally prosecuted -- led by the likes of Bill Kristol (now of the NYT), Bill Bennett (of CNN), Commentary Magazine and many others. In May, 2006, Alberto Gonzales went on ABC News and revealed that the DOJ had commenced a criminal investigation into the leak, and then "raised the possibility [] that New York Times journalists could be prosecuted for publishing classified information."

That was one of the more revealing steps ever taken by Bush's DOJ under Gonzales: the administration violated multiple federal laws for years in spying on Americans, blocked all efforts to investigate what they did or subject it to the rule of law, but then decided that the only real criminals were those who alerted the nation to their lawbreaking -- whistleblowers and journalists alike. Even Gonzales' public musing about criminal prosecutions could have had a devastating effect -- if you're a whistleblower or journalist who uncovers secret government lawbreaking, you're obviously going to think twice (at least) before bringing it to light, given the public threats by the Attorney General to criminally prosecute those who do.

Katha Pollitt: Why I'm Supporting Barack Obama

Hillary Clinton is smart, energetic, immensely knowledgeable, and, as she likes to say, hard-working. I've been appalled by the misogynous vitriol (and mean-girl snark) aimed against her. If she is the nominee I will work my heart out for her.

But right now, I'm supporting Barack Obama. On domestic politics, their differences are small-- I'm with her on health care mandates, and with him on driver's licences for undocumented immigrants; both would probably be equally good on women's rights, abortion rights and judicial appointments. But on foreign policy Obama seems more enlightened, as in less bellicose. Maybe Hillary Clinton's refusal to say her Iraq vote was wrong shows that she has neo-con sympathies; maybe she simply believes that any admission of error would tar her as weak. But we already have a warlike president who refuses to admit making mistakes, and look how that's turned out. The election of Barack Obama would send a signal to the world that the United States is taking a different tack.

Leaked E-Mails May Sink Arctic Offshore Lease Sales

Officials Scramble to Suppress Scientific Dissent over Bush Arctic Oil Initiative

Washington, DC — The Interior Department is scrambling to stanch the flow of internal e-mails from its own scientists that undermine the legality of its aggressive offshore oil and gas lease sales in federal Arctic waters, according to correspondence released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The e-mails belie Bush administration claims that environmental risks were adequately considered prior to offering tracts in the Chukchi, Beaufort and Bering Seas for drilling.

Americablog: Did AP steal a story from a blogger and ABC News?

by John Aravosis (DC) · 2/04/2008 08:46:00 AM ET · Link

Most Americans would read this AP story and think, wow, that's a hell of a scoop. They'd read how AP bought the audio tape of a new book BEFORE it was available to the public (sneaky AP), and how AP scooped the rest of the media in uncovering that the executive director of the 9/11 Commission may have been corrupt.

Of course, what you wouldn't know is that the AP story comes 5 days after a blogger already broke this story (HE got the audio tape), and 5 days after ABC News already broke the story about the blogger breaking the story, and they confirmed it.

9/11 Commissioner: 'We had to go through Karl Rove'

Filed by Nick Langewis and David Edwards

Two recent segments delve into a new book that accuses the head of the ostensibly independent 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, of being beholden to the Bush Administration during his tenure.

The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, by New York Times reporter Philip Shenon, indicts Zelikow on his ties with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and his frequent contact with senior political adviser Karl Rove, during what was touted as an independent investigation into the events surrounding the 2001 World Trade Center attack. This seeming conflict of interest, the book says, led Commission staffers not to trust Zelikow.

Paul Krugman: Clinton, Obama, Insurance

The principal policy division between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama involves health care. It’s a division that can seem technical and obscure — and I’ve read many assertions that only the most wonkish care about the fine print of their proposals.

But as I’ve tried to explain in previous columns, there really is a big difference between the candidates’ approaches. And new research, just released, confirms what I’ve been saying: the difference between the plans could well be the difference between achieving universal health coverage — a key progressive goal — and falling far short.

Salmon Crisis: "Unprecedented Collapse"

author: Columbiana

Yesterday, an internal memo leaked out of the offices of the Pacific Fishery Management Council and into the hands of the press. The story outlined in that memo is horrific: The Chinook salmon of California's central valley, and indeed the salmon populations all up and down the west coast, are crashing. They are in "precipitous decline."

Tomgram: William Astore, In the Military We Trust

Hardly a week passes in which we don't hear about what the fallout from two disastrous wars is doing to the overextended, overstrained U.S. military, not to speak of the problems the armed forces are facing in retaining and recruiting members. Recently, there have been reports on a startling rise in war-related suicides, figures that "could push the Army's overall suicide rate to its highest level since [it] began keeping such records in 1980"; on a possible link between the concussions one in six American combat troops suffer from roadside bombs in Iraq and a heightened risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder or a variety of other ailments; on another lowering of recruitment standards ("the percentage of new recruits entering the Army with a high school diploma dropped to a new low in 2007…"); on increasingly over-deployed, ill-equipped, ill-prepared Reserve and National Guard units that may be incapable of coping with future domestic crises ("Guard readiness has continued to slide since last March, when the panel found that 88 percent of Army National Guard units were rated 'not ready…'"); and on the ever more slippery slope downhill in the "forgotten war" in Afghanistan. This is certainly one aspect of the U.S. military equation -- the one readers at Tomdispatch are most likely to hear about.

Bankers Gone Bonkers: Global Financiers Should Make Insanity Plea

By Pam Martens, CounterPunch
Posted on February 4, 2008, Printed on February 4, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/75858/

With Wall Street capital disappearing as fast as foreclosures are climbing, one foreign head of state had an epiphany. French President Nicholas Sarkozy advanced the idea recently that the global financial system is "out of its mind."

To develop this theory further, I've reconstructed below some of the mileposts on our journey to this financial loony bin.

Daydream Believers

If Cold War presidents had thought and acted like George W. Bush, we'd all be speaking Russian.

By Fred Kaplan
Posted Sunday, Feb. 3, 2008, at 6:38 AM ET

From: Fred Kaplan
Subject: In the 21^st Century, the United States Has Been Led by Fantasists
Posted Sunday, Feb. 3, 2008, at 6:38 AM ET

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When Condoleezza Rice became secretary of state, she hung a portrait of Dean Acheson in her office. As she explained in a Washington Post op-ed piece, Acheson worked in that office at the start of the Cold War, "as America sought to create the world anew." His portrait was to serve as a reminder that we too "live in an extraordinary time," that "the terrain of international politics is shifting beneath our feet," and we must "transform volatile status quos that no longer serve our interests."

George W. Bush liked to invoke the same era of history. In the fall of 2006, after the Republicans lost both houses of Congress, mainly as a result of the war in Iraq, Bush was said to be reading biographies of Acheson's president, Harry Truman. At a meeting of Republican congressional leaders, he noted that Truman's policies were unpopular in their day but were vindicated by history. The implication was that history would vindicate Bush, too.

Government safety agency criticized for delayed consumer warnings

By PAUL WENSKE, The Kansas City Star

The federal agency charged with protecting U.S. consumers lacks the muscle and money to make companies quickly own up to life-threatening product defects, according to a new study.

Public Citizen, a leading consumer advocacy group, said Thursday that companies fined by the Consumer Product Safety Commission took an average of 2.7 years to report serious safety defects they knew about — even though they are supposed to “immediately” alert the agency of risks to the public.

Wall Street donates millions to top presidential candidates

Employees of Wall Street investment banks, whose role in the unregulated sub-prime mortgage market helped stall the U.S. economy, have donated more than $5 million to the top four Republican and Democratic presidential candidates. A McClatchy analysis found those employees made hefty contributions to candidates in both parties but seemed to be betting more on Democrats.

World loses trees at 'alarming' rate

By Edward Harris, Associated Press

ABO EBAM, Nigeria — In the gloomy shade deep in Africa's rain forest, the noontime silence was pierced by the whine of a far-off chain saw. It was the sound of destruction, echoed from wood to wood, continent to continent, in the tropical belt that circles the globe.

From Brazil to central Africa to once-lush islands in Asia's archipelagos, human encroachment is shrinking the world's rain forests.

Frank Rich: Ask Not What J.F.K. Can Do for Obama

BEFORE John F. Kennedy was a president, a legend, a myth and a poltergeist stalking America’s 2008 campaign, he was an upstart contender seen as a risky bet for the Democratic nomination in 1960.

Kennedy was judged “an ambitious but superficial playboy” by his liberal peers, according to his biographer Robert Dallek. “He never said a word of importance in the Senate, and he never did a thing,” in the authoritative estimation of the Senate’s master, Lyndon Johnson. Adlai Stevenson didn’t much like Kennedy, and neither did Harry Truman, who instead supported Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri.

J. F. K. had few policy prescriptions beyond Democratic boilerplate (a higher minimum wage, “comprehensive housing legislation”). As his speechwriter Richard Goodwin recalled in his riveting 1988 memoir “Remembering America,” Kennedy’s main task was to prove his political viability. He had to persuade his party that he was not a wealthy dilettante and not “too young, too inexperienced and, above all, too Catholic” to be president.