Flexible Reality
Saturday, June 26, 2004
Mr. Bush: "Can You Hear The Footsteps ??"
Kerry's Campaign Has Soared From Poorhouse to PenthouseBy GLEN JUSTICE
NY Times
Published: June 27, 2004
WASHINGTON, June 26 - John Kerry may be only a candidate for president, but he and his entourage travel like kings. A month ago, his campaign began chartering a gleaming 757, packed with first-class seats, fine food, sleeping accommodations - even a stand-up bar. They hardly shy away from fancy hotels, like the Four Seasons in Palm Beach and the St. Regis in Los Angeles.
Late last year, Mr. Kerry's campaign was so broke that the senator had to mortgage his own home to keep the presidential effort in motion. Now its finances are soaring, the result of a surge of more than $100 million in contributions after the Super Tuesday primaries in March. That has given Mr. Kerry the distinction of being the best-financed challenger in presidential campaign history.
The swelled coffers, spurred by money raised over the Internet, has allowed Mr. Kerry to pour money into the race at a pace that rivals spending by President Bush's campaign. In fact, he spent more than the president in both April and May.
``At our Monday morning meetings, our fund-raising people give their reports and there is a lot of cheering,'' Mary Beth Cahill, Mr. Kerry's campaign manager, said Friday.
Mr. Kerry's financial success has significant implications for how he mounts his campaign. Aides say they no longer worry so much about having the money to compete against President Bush's vast political fortune, which has grown to a record $213 million. However, the president still held a 2-to-1 advantage in money in the bank last month.
More than anything else, the money has allowed the Kerry campaign to sharply increase its television advertising. The campaign has spent $43 million on commercials since May, aides said. That is less than the $85 million Mr. Bush has spent since March but enough to reduce the Kerry campaign's dependence on advocacy groups that provided television support for the campaign in leaner days.
The campaign has also been able to expand the size of its paid staff, adding on-the-ground organizers in swing states. Ms. Cahill said the infusion of money has helped her recruit talent like J. Terry Edmonds, who directed Bill Clinton's speechwriters at the White House. The campaign's travel budget has also vastly increased.
There were also smaller expenditures. In May alone, the campaign spent $10,500 for photographers at its events; more than $200,000 to dispense Kerry hats and T-shirts and other promotional material, and at least $6,500 for parking.
``We are narrowing the gap,'' said Peter Maroney, a longtime Kerry fund-raiser now working at the Democratic National Committee. ``They are hearing our footsteps.''
Presidential campaigns are inherently expensive, costing millions to move the candidate around the country, advertise on television and otherwise get the message out.
Yet lavish spending does not always guarantee success. In 1980, John B. Connally famously spent $12 million to capture one delegate to the 1980 Republican convention. In the Democratic race earlier this year, Howard Dean set fund-raising records over the Internet, only to exhaust roughly $50 million on a spending spree that helped him win only his home state of Vermont.
``Any campaign has to worry about financial discipline,'' said David Magleby, an authority on campaign finance at Brigham Young University.
It is only natural that Mr. Kerry would raise - and spend - far more now that he is the expected nominee. But the transformation in his spending patterns is striking.
President Bush spent almost $50 million in March, primarily on a barrage of advertisements designed to attack Mr. Kerry as he emerged from the primaries; Mr. Kerry spent $14.6 million. But by April, the competition was more even: President Bush spent about $31 million and Mr. Kerry about $35 million. By May, Mr. Kerry was far surpassing President Bush in spending, $32 million to $22 million, as the president cut back.
Mr. Kerry is benefiting not simply from his operation's fund-raising prowess but from the outpouring that would flow to any Democrat who emerged as the party's nominee. Fund-raisers nationwide point to the powerful anti-Bush sentiment running through the party that is manifesting itself through money.
``The money is not just money,'' said Representative Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat who is raising money for Mr. Kerry. ``It's a proxy for enthusiasm.''
Economic Growth Estimates Revised
First-Quarter Figures Show That Recovery Lost Some Momentum
By Nell Henderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 26, 2004; Page E01
The U.S. economy's growth slowed slightly in the first three months of this year, the government reported yesterday, reversing earlier estimates that the recovery had gained momentum during that period.
The economy grew at a 3.9 percent seasonally adjusted annual rate in the first quarter, a slowdown from the 4.1 percent pace of the previous quarter, the Commerce Department said.
That contrasted with the department's earlier estimates that the nation's output of goods and services, or gross domestic product, had jumped in the first quarter. Commerce initially said in April that first-quarter GDP had increased at a 4.2 percent annual rate, and then in May raised the estimate to 4.4 percent.
Those rosier numbers had earlier led economists and investors to believe that economic growth had picked up speed, in part because tax cuts and low interest rates gave consumers more cash to spend.
Instead, the new numbers show that the economy lost a little momentum as it began the year. This was primarily because more of that additional cash was used to pay for imports, rather than American-provided goods and services, than was earlier thought. So while overall demand was still relatively high, it translated into less business for U.S. companies.
Friday, June 25, 2004
US -Islamic World Forum Closing Address by Former President Clinton, Dohar, Quatar, January 12, 2004
Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" Speech, Aug. 23rd, 1963
I Have a Dream.Martin Luther King, Jr.
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.
August 28, 1963
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves, who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro still languishes in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.
So we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense, we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men--yes, black men as well as white men--would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we've come to cash this check--a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of "now." This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixth-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquillity in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But that is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream!
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your crest--quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former salve owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers....I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day...this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning. "My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrims' pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring," and if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
So let freedom ring! From the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire, let freedom ring. From the mighty mountains of New York, let freedom ring, from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California! But not only that.
Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain in Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and mole hill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring, and when this happens...when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Gallup vs Fox Polling Data: June 2004
The new Gallup poll is chock full of interesting data.Perhaps the most interesting finding is this: For the first time in this poll, a majority of Americans,(54 percent to 44 percent) now say that US made a mistake sending troops to Iraq. Less than three weeks ago, the public was still saying, by 58-41, that sending troops was not a mistake.
Note that these data were collected before the wave of violence that was unleashed Thursday in Iraq.
Another turnaround is on whether the war with Iraq has made the US safer from terrorism. Just 37 percent now say the war has made us safer, compared to 55 percent who say it has not; when Gallup last asked this question in mid-December it was 56-33 the other way.
The poll also finds a majority (51-46) saying it was not worth going to war with Iraq, pretty much where this measure has been since late May.
Bush's overall approval rating, compared to Gallup's last measurement three weeks ago, is down a point to 48 percent. His rating on Iraq is up a point to 42 percent, while his rating on terrorism is down 2 points to 54 percent.
By far the biggest change is his rating on the economy: up 6 points to 47 percent with 50 percent disapproval. This is close to his mid-April rating in this poll (46/52), though still substantially below his 54/43 rating in early January.
Note that the latest Washington Post poll, conducted right before the Gallup poll, registered only a slight improvement in Bush's economic approval rating (just 2 points) and had his disapproval rating dropping only a point, compared to Gallup, which has his disapproval rating declining by 8 points.
Despite Bush's improved economy rating in the Gallup poll, voters still favor Kerry over Bush (53-40) on which candidate can better handle the economy. That Kerry advantage is essentially unchanged since early May.
On the situation in Iraq, Kerry and Bush are nearly tied (47-46 in Bush's favor), a slightly improvement for Kerry over his 3 point deficit in early May. This tie is notable, of course, because sentiment is now so strikingly negative about the Iraq war. Perhaps Kerry's failure to gain an advantage reflects the public's view, captured in other polls, that Kerry does not have a clear plan himself for dealing with the Iraq situation.
Another interesting finding is that, while Bush has a modest lead (51-43) over Kerry in terms of who the public trusts more to handle the responsibilities of commander-in-chief, the public expresses an identical degree of confidence in the ability of Bush and Kerry to handle the responsibilities of commander-in-chief (61 percent in each case).
In terms of favorability ratings, it seems significant that Kerry's net favorability rating (favorable minus unfavorable) is now substantially higher than Bush's. Kerry is +23 on this measure (58 percent favorable/35 percent unfavorable), up from +17 in Gallup's last measurement in April. In contrast, Bush is just +8 (53/45), down from +14 in April. These data are consistent with the recent New York Times story that suggested the GOP's frontal assault on Kerry has not had much success creating an unfavorable image of him.
Turning to the horse race, as ever we must, Kerry leads Bush by 4 points (49-45) among registered voters (RVs). That approximates Gallup's early June result when Kerry led 49-44.
Of course, there's bound to be confusion about this, since Gallup and its clients tend to highlight the likely voter (LV) rather than RV results, which, in this case, actually show Bush ahead by a point (49-48) . And then some media outlets tend to report the Kerry-Bush-Nader results, rather than the Kerry-Bush results, which further clouds the issue.
Let me reproduce, as a public service, my thinking about why you are well-advised, at this stage of the race, to pay more attention to RV than LV results, especially when both are reported. As for why it is preferable to look at Kerry-Bush matchup results, rather than Kerry-Bush-Nader results, I will refer you to a recent analysis I did on the issue.
There's been considerable confusion about which trial heat results to pay the most attention to at this point in the race. Here's my take, which should help clarify why I choose to focus on certain results over others.
One issue is likely voters (LVs) vs. registered voters (RVs). At this point, most polls are surveying only RVs and I believe that's appropriate and, in fact, preferable. It is way too early to put much faith in likely voter screens/models as representing very accurately the voters who will actually show up on election day. There is reasonable evidence that careful likely voter methodologies work well close to the election and do fairly accurately capture that pool of voters. But there is no such evidence for LV samples drawn this far out.
Indeed, my understanding is that Gallup does LVs this early not so much because they believe they are capturing election day voters this early, but more so that they can avoid having to explain sudden shifts in the horse race question as LV data replaces RV data in the fall (the traditional time to switch from RVs to LVs). There have apparently been some problems with this in the past, so reporting both from the very beginning of the campaign eliminates any potential embarrassments along these lines. But that doesn't mean the LV data is any better at this point in time--it merely means they're providing it.
In fact, since the sample size for LVs is smaller and since the composition of the LV sample will shift depending on how political developments are affecting interest and intensity levels among different groups of voters, additional volatility is built into the LV samples that is not there with the RV samples.
And then there are the comparability problems. LV samples are difficult even to compare to one another, since methodologies differ, and clearly can't be compared very well to RV samples, which are the bulk of polls at this time. That's another strike against paying much attention to LV results this early.
So, RVs and Kerry-Bush it is! Looking further at this match-up, Gallup shows Bush ahead by 8 points in the solid red states (won by Bush by 5 points or more in 2000), but Kerry ahead by 14 in the solid blue states (won by Gore by more than 5 points) and ahead by 9 in the purple states (decided by less than 5 points in 2000). And Kerry is carrying independents nationwide by 10 points and moderates by 24 points.
Pretty good news for Mr. Kerry. Some of you may have heard, though, that the latest Fox News poll has wildly different results from the ones just summarized. A bit later in the day I'll offer some comments on the Fox News "findings".
Another Virus for you to worry about
Web site virus attack bluntedLast modified: June 25, 2004, 12:58 PM PDT
By Robert Lemos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Web surfers are no longer playing Russian roulette each time they visit a Web site, security researchers say, now that a far-reaching Internet attack has been disarmed.
The attack, which had turned some Web sites into points of digital infection, was nipped in the bud Friday, when Internet engineers managed to shut down a Russian server that had been the source of malicious code. Compromised Web sites are still attempting to infect Web surfers' PCs by referring them to the server in Russia, but that computer can no longer be reached.
Still, Web surfers should take precautions, as the Internet underground is increasingly using this type of attack as a way to get by network defenses and infect officer workers' and home users' computers.
"This stops the problem for the short term," said Alfred Huger, senior director of engineering for security company Symantec. "However, it just takes a new culprit to come along and do the same thing all over again."
The attack worked by infecting some Web sites so that when Net surfers visited those sites, they were redirected to the Russian server, which downloaded software onto surfers' PCs. That software could be used by a remote attacker to control those computers. It's unclear what the attackers' motivation may have been. Some have speculated that the purpose could have been spam distribution.
"It is a tremendously powerful way to get into a corporation," Huger said of this sort of attack. "It is significantly easier to lure a number of employees to a compromised Web site than to get through a company's perimeter, which they may have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure."
The tactic is not new. Earlier this month, an independent security researcher found an aggressive piece of advertising software, known as adware, that had installed itself on victims' computers. A large financial client called in Symantec in late April after an employee used Internet Explorer to browse an infected Web site and his system became infected. Additionally, last fall, a similar attack may have been facilitated through a mass intrusion at Interland, sources familiar with that case said.
The Internet Explorer flaws that enabled the Russian attack, however, affect every user of the Web browser, because Microsoft has not yet released a patch. Microsoft advised users to set their browsers' security to the highest settings, even though doing so could break some Web functionality. The company also promised a patch for the flaws soon.
"We are not seeing that this threat is widespread, but we believe the threat to be real," said Stephen Toulouse, security program manager for Microsoft's security response center.
Researchers believe that attackers seed the Web sites with malicious code by breaking into unsecured servers or by using a previously unknown vulnerability in Microsoft's Web software, Internet Information Server, or IIS.
After that code redirected them to one of two sites, most often to the server in Russia, that server used the pair of Microsoft Internet Explorer vulnerabilities to upload and execute a remote access Trojan horse, also simply called a RAT, to the victim's PC. The software records the victim's keystrokes and opens a back door in the system's security, in that way allowing the attacker to access the computer.
It's unknown how many Web sites were compromised by attackers and whether any high-traffic sites were affected. But it's believed that the number of infected sites is relatively small, given the total number of sites that exist.
Still, the network of compromised sites used in the attack is far larger than any before, said Johannes Ullrich, chief technology officer of the Internet Storm Center, a Net threat-monitoring site.
"This is the first time that this many Web sites got hit," he said. "The only other widespread use of this attack was Nimda, and that didn't work very well, because the exploit wasn't as effective."
Most antivirus companies issued updates overnight to allow their programs to detect the program when it is uploaded from the Internet to a victim's PC, so computer users should update their virus definitions as soon as possible, Ullrich said.
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Powys, John Cowper: The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996
QUOTATION:
Of the three forms of pride, that is to say pride proper, vanity, and conceit, vanity is by far the most harmless, and conceit by far the most dangerous. The meaning of vanity is to think too much of our bodily advantages, whether real or unreal, over others; while the meaning of conceit is to believe we are cleverer, wiser, grander, and more important than we really are.
ATTRIBUTION:John Cowper Powys (1872�1963), British novelist, poet. �In Spite of Pride,� In Spite Of, Philosophical Library (1953)."
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Mahatma Gandhi's Seven Deadly Sins: "Gandhi's Seven Deadly Sins
Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi, one of the most influential figures in modern social and political activism, considered these traits to be the most spiritually perilous to humanity.
Fahrenheit 9/11: Call and Response
Analyzing Fahrenheit 9/11From Center for American Progress Report: 25 June 2004
Today is the nationwide premiere of Michael Moore's new movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" – an analysis of how the president misled the country to war in Iraq and how the Bush-Saudi relationship has compromised America's national security. Even before the movie was public, the White House and its right-wing allies sought to smear both the film and Moore personally.
Last month, White House communications director Dan Bartlett said the movie "was so outrageously false it's not even worth comment," even though he had not yet seen the film. Meanwhile, the Hollywood Reporter discovered that "big-time conservative donors" are funding a slew of anti-Moore activities. Following the White House's tactic of attacking critics' patriotism, the right-wing is also apparently bankrolling a movie called "Michael Moore Hates America." But despite conservatives' best efforts to discredit the film, the NY Times notes, "central assertions of fact in 'Fahrenheit 9/11' are supported by the public record." When the movie was aired at the Cannes Film Festival, it won top prize from a panel made up of mostly American and British judges.
ACCURATE – NEW REPORT SAYS SAUDI FLIGHTS OCCURRED ON 9/13: Critics have accused Moore of wrongly claiming a group of Saudis were allowed to fly out of the United States on September 13, when much of American airspace was still closed. In fact, the movie accurately reports that 142 Saudis, including 24 members of the bin Laden family, were allowed to leave after September 13 – a fact well documented by the 9/11 Commission. Additionally, new reports prove that Saudi flights did occur on 9/13, despite three years of Bush administration denials. As the St. Petersburg Times reports, on September 13,"with most of the nation's air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left" for Lexington, KY. The Saudis "then took another flight out of the country." Because the information is so new, it was not in the 9/11 Commission's preliminary report. Subsequently, however, the commission has asked the Tampa airport "for any information about 'a chartered flight with six people, including a Saudi prince, that flew from Tampa, Florida on or about Sept. 13, 2001.'"
ACCURATE – BUSH WAS NOT FOCUSED ON TERRORISM: In the movie, Moore charges that President Bush did not pay enough attention to pre-9/11 warnings that al Qaeda was about to attack. Instead of focusing on terrorism, charges the movie, the president spent 42 percent of his first eight months in office on vacation. That figure "came not from a conspiracy-hungry Web site but from a calculation by The Washington Post." Read American Progress's report "Truth & Consequences: The Bush Administration and 9/11" for a comprehensive history of how the White House underfunded counter-terrorism and downgraded terrorism as a priority before 9/11. See American Progress's new "Complete Saudi Primer" - a guide to everything you always wanted to know about the Bush-Saudi connection but were afraid to ask.
DISNEY'S EFFORT TO CENSOR MICHAEL MOORE: At the direction of CEO Michael Eisner (who is a Bush campaign contributor), the Walt Disney Company prohibited its Miramax division from distributing "Fahrenheit 911." The company enjoys a cozy relationship with President Bush's brother, Jeb. As governor of Florida, Jeb Bush serves as a trustee for the state employees' pension fund. That fund owns approximately 7.3 million shares of Disney stock. Eisner told reporters he was refusing to distribute the film because Disney is "such a nonpartisan company, do not look for us to take sides."
RIGHT-WING EFFORTS TO CENSOR MICHAEL MOORE: The campaign to silence Moore was taken up by the right-wing group with the ironic name Move America Forward. The group is headed by right-winger Howard Kaloogian, who also spearheaded the partisan campaign to quash a miniseries about Ronald Reagan and led the partisan fight to recall California Gov. Gray Davis. Kaloogian also "credits himself with helping elect President Bush because he was No. 4 of 25 elected officials who signed a letter asking him to run in January 1999." The group, without having seen the film, "launched a preemptive attack against" the movie "by requesting movie theaters across the country not to show the film."
DAVID BOSSIE'S HYPOCRISY: The conservative front group "Citizens United," which is headed by Clinton attacker David Bossie, is trying to get the Federal Election Commission to intervene and censor advertising for "Fahrenheit 9/11". Just two years ago, however, it was Bossie who led the charge against FEC interventions. On 6/12/02, The Hill newspaper reported him saying his group feels "FEC rules and regulations are abhorrent…they restrict the American people's ability to have an influence in politics."
RATED R FOR REALITY: The Motion Picture Association of America saddled the movie with an R rating. Tom Ortenberg, president of the company releasing the film, "argued that 15- and 16-year-olds, who might end up fighting in the war on terrorism," should be able to see the film, which shows the true cost of war - gravely wounded Iraqi citizens and U.S. troops.
Much of that cost has been hidden by the Bush administration, which has banned photos of flag-draped coffins coming home (even though the Bush campaign uses flag draped corpses at Ground Zero in its political commercials). President Bush has also refused to attend funerals of the fallen in Iraq. Moore argues that the movie needs to be seen by the widest possible audience to give the public a glimpse of the reality of war. All told, between the start of war on March 19, 2003 and June 16, 2004, 952 coalition forces were killed, including 836 U.S. military. For more on the hidden cost of war, read this summary by the Institute for Policy Studies.
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Clinton's Sexcapade is like Bush's Iraqi War? Dowd Says They Are The Same
Because They CouldBy MAUREEN DOWD
NY Times Op-Ed
Published: June 20, 2004
WASHINGTON
In his "60 Minutes" interview, Bill Clinton calls his intern idyll "a terrible moral error," illuminating "the darkest part of his inner life." Not to mention the hardest part on his back since, astonishingly, he says he spent months sleeping on the couch. (Was the Lincoln bedroom always occupied by donors?)
"I did something for the worst possible reason," he told Dan Rather about his march of folly with Monica. "Just because I could. I think that's just about the most morally indefensible reason anybody could have for doing anything."
Just because he could. What a world of meaning is packed into that simple phrase. His "could" reflects a selfish "Who's gonna stop me?" power move, stemming from a droit du seigneur attitude, as opposed to "should," signifying obligation, or "must," indicating compulsion. The former president engaged in a relationship of choice, not necessity.
The Clinton alpha instinct on Monica, fueled by a heady cocktail of testosterone and opportunism, was the same one that led W. into his march of folly with Iraq. After 9/11, the president, vice president and secretary of defense wanted to go to the Middle East and knock the stuffing out of somebody bad — because it would feel good, because it would put our enemies on notice, and because it would make the president look strong.
The folks at 1600 Pennsylvania didn't have Osama's address. They couldn't go after Iran or North Korea because those countries could defend themselves and retaliate, maybe with nukes. They couldn't invade Pakistan or Saudi Arabia because they're our "allies." But the Bush team knew that it wouldn't be hard to get rid of the second-rate dictator and romance novelist who posed no real threat.
They went after Saddam just because they could. Last week, the 9/11 commission debunked the White House attempt to suggest an axis of evil between Saddam and Osama.
Like Mr. Clinton, the president engaged in an enterprise of choice, not necessity. John Kerry's biggest applause line now is: "The United States should never go to war because we want to. We should only go to war because we have to."
Huffing and puffing Dick Cheney comes across as barking mad when he keeps lassoing Saddam and Al Qaeda. Tricky Dick may actually believe in his concocted connection, but he must also realize that the administration can't lose the terrorist-linkage argument for war, having already lost the W.M.D. argument.
If our leaders didn't lead us there, why did 69 percent of Americans, in a Washington Post poll last September, believe that Saddam was involved in the attacks? And a University of Maryland study last October showed that 80 percent of those who mostly watched Fox believed at least one of three misconceptions: that W.M.D. had been found; that Al Qaeda and Iraq were tied; or that the world had approved of U.S. intervention in Iraq.
Osama, suffering from what one C.I.A. shrink termed "a narcissistic explosion," also struck America because he could. It was a jihad of choice, not necessity.
Thursday's 9/11 commission report cited the dissent among Al Qaeda leaders who were worried about Pakistan's reaction or U.S. retaliation. Osama overruled the doubters, arguing that it would reap a bonanza in Al Qaeda fund-raising and recruiting.
So far, partly because of the Bush crowd's solipsistic fixation on Saddam, Osama has gotten away with his heinous power play — and reaped a bonanza in recruiting.
Mr. Clinton, though he was vilified by the right, tittered at by the world and dolled up in pink-and-black suede shoes as a toddler by his mom, is selling a zillion books.
As Republicans keep saying, with fingers crossed, W. has stayed even with John Kerry despite the litany on Iraq, terrorism and domestic affairs that has turned out quite differently than promised.
But one thing you can say for Bill Clinton: His "Who's gonna stop me?" Oval Office power surge produced a much lower body count.
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Note: Has Ms. Dowd completely lost any semblance of rational thought? Is she seriously saying Pres. Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinski, his "alpha instinct", (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean), is the same "alpha instinct" used by Pres. Bush in his march to War with Iraq?
Clinton engaged a willing partner in private sexual acts, and lied to prevent others from finding out about it; while Bush took a country to War with lies, engaged in overt manipulations of several government agencies, the expenditure of over half a trillion dollars thus far, and has dragged America into a morass that will take a generation to ameorate.
The two samples are not in any way comparable, let alone arise from the same "alpha instinct", and to state they are reveals a fundamental misunderstanding between the alpha male's orientation shown in "9 and 1/2 Weeks" compared with that in "All The President's Men".
Ms. Dowd obviously doesn't like philandering husbands; but to equate that character flaw to Pres. Bush's Iraqi actions is nonsense.
A Crowning at the Capital Creates a Stir
The Rev. Sun Myung Moon donned a crown in a Senate office building and declared himself the Messiah while members of Congress watched.
Note: What's with this character? and why is he such a favorite of the Christian Right? I mean besides the money he brings to their tables.
Illigitimi non carborundum...what's with the sudden resurgence of Latin phrases by political pundits? An attempt to project gravitas?Yuck!
More Idiocy from our Neighbors to the South...and you thought Georgia had the dumbest politicos. No, there's competition for that title.
Florida to Tax Home NetworksBy Michelle Delio | Wired News
02:00 AM Jun. 24, 2004 PT
Florida state officials are considering taxing home networks that have more than one computer, under a modified 1985 state law that was intended to tax the few businesses that used internal communication networks instead of the local telephone company.
Officials from Florida's Department of Revenue held a meeting on Tuesday to see whether the law would apply to wired households, and exactly who would be taxed. About 200 people attended, including community and business representatives. In 1985 the state passed a law to tax businesses using their own communications networks, because otherwise the state could not collect tax revenue on the businesses' local telephone service. In 2001, that law was expanded to make "any system that is used for voice or data that connects multiple users with the use of switching or routing technology" taxable up to 16 percent.
The law is so broad that it would apply to networked computers, wireless services, two-way radios and even fax machines -- or "substitute communications systems," as the state calls them. The tax would be applicable (PDF) to the costs of operating such a substitute communications system, not to the purchase of the system's components.
Failing to Draw Big Players, Computer Show is Cancelled
This year's Comdex, the fall computer event that was once the nation's largest trade show, was canceled as its owners cited the failure of the industry's largest companies to participate.
RIAA tries another track to close down P2P networks
Bill to Curb Online Piracy Is Challenged as Too BroadBy MATT RICHTEL and TOM ZELLER Jr.
NY Times
Published: June 24, 2004
A copyright bill introduced in the Senate this week is facing criticism from groups including representatives of the telecommunications and electronics industries, who contend it could make computer companies, Internet providers and other technology businesses liable for online piracy.
But supporters of the bill, including its bipartisan sponsors, say it would provide a powerful tool to curb illegal copying of music files and other media, and would protect children from the lure of a technology that is intended to help them break the law.
The legislation, introduced late Tuesday, is the so-called induce bill, which would make liable anyone who "intentionally aids, abets, induces or procures" a copyright violation. It is aimed primarily at the makers of file sharing software, which is used to trade copies of digital files over the Internet.
But critics say that the bill's language is overly broad, and that it amounts to a fundamental unraveling of a 1984 Supreme Court decision that has protected companies developing otherwise legal technologies that could be abused by users.
"It's a very powerful blunt instrument that can be used to threaten and intimidate industries that copyright owners disagree with," said Sarah Deutsch, associate general counsel for Verizon Communications.
Echoing the concerns of other critics, Ms. Deutsch added that the Senate Judiciary Committee appeared intent on passing along the bill to the full Senate without holding hearings first. "What's disturbing is that this is a dramatic sea change to copyright law, but there have been no discussions or hearings," Ms. Deutsch said.
Sponsors of the bill, however, insisted that such concerns were overblown. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, who is a co-sponsor of the bill with the committee's ranking Democrat, Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, said the law would simply cut off a revenue stream for companies that are knowingly providing the tools to commit crimes.
"These corporations know better than to break the law themselves, so they profit from infringement by inducing users of their software to do the dirty work of actually breaking the law," Mr. Hatch said in a statement.
Mr. Hatch also said the induce bill - the name is short for "inducement devolves into unlawful child exploitation" - was intended to defend children, who he said make up about half of the users of file sharing software. "This for-profit piracy scheme mostly endangers children, who are ill equipped to appreciate the illegality or risks of their acts," he said.
The legislation is the latest development in the battle between copyright holders and the makers of computers and digital recording devices that can be used to violate intellectual property laws. The file sharing network Napster, which effectively shut down in 2002, was one of the first to be aggressively challenged in court.
More recently, the record industry began suing people, including children, who use file sharing networks to trade copyrighted files, and a suit brought by MGM against three peer-to-peer software products - Grokster, Morpheus and Kazaa - is pending in federal court.
One issue in the current debate is what effect the measure would have on the precedent set in 1984 by the Supreme Court in a suit originally brought by Universal Studios against the Sony Corporation and its fledgling videocassette recording technology.
In that ruling, often referred to as the Betamax decision, the court found that "one may search the copyright act in vain for any sign that the elected representatives of the millions of people who watch television every day have made it unlawful to copy a program for later viewing at home, or have enacted a flat prohibition against the sale of machines that make such copying possible."
Critics of the induce bill say that it amounts to just such a "flat prohibition" and that technological innovation will be stifled.
But Mitch Bainwol, chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, a recording industry lobbying group, said the legislation was meant to be narrowly tailored to address companies that build technology focused on illegal file sharing.
He said he did not envision the legislation's enabling lawsuits against "neutral" technologies, like computer makers.
"This is not about going after the device makers," Mr. Bainwol said, though he stopped short of guaranteeing that the recording industry would never use the measure to sue them.
Wolfowitz Offers Apology to Journalists Covering Iraq
By THOM SHANKER
NY Times
Published: June 25, 2004
WASHINGTON, June 24 — Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, issued an unusual apology on Thursday addressed "to journalists covering Iraq," in which he expressed "deep regret" for saying correspondents in Baghdad were afraid to travel and, therefore, published rumors.
"I know that many journalists continue to go out each day — in the most dangerous circumstances — to bring us coverage of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan," Mr. Wolfowitz wrote in the letter of apology, dated Thursday. "Since the beginning of hostilities in Iraq, 34 journalists have given their lives; many others have been injured while bringing us that story."
Mr. Wolfowitz expressed "sincerest thanks" to correspondents who report on these issues, and "admiration for their courage." "But, most of all, I want to extend an apology," Mr. Wolfowitz wrote.
During a House Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, Mr. Wolfowitz criticized what he described as a partial picture presented to America and the world on the mission to rebuild, stabilize and install new political institutions in Iraq, and he cast blame on the news media.
"Frankly, part of our problem is a lot of the press are afraid to travel very much, so they sit in Baghdad and they publish rumors," Mr. Wolfowitz said in his House testimony. "And rumors are plentiful."
In his letter, Mr. Wolfowitz retracted that part of his testimony, writing:
"Unfortunately, in meaning to convey my frustration about the erroneous coverage of one particular news story, the statement I made came out much differently than I intended. And while I know reporters understand better than most that sometimes the best of intentions and the most elaborate of preparations can't prevent error, that doesn't for a moment change the seriousness of my mistake or the deep regret I feel that I did not instantly correct the record."
After his testimony, Mr. Wolfowitz's comments were rejected by reporters who have covered Iraq, and he was the subject of critical media commentary, including that from Aaron Brown, a CNN anchor, and Maureen Dowd, a columnist for The New York Times.
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Michael Moore terrorizes the Bushies!
The right wing is going all out to stop "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- but it's not working.
Salon.com Online
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By John Gorenfeld
June 23, 2004 | They're back! OK, the "vast right-wing conspiracy" Hillary Clinton warned about never really went away. But they've found new purpose in the campaign to stop the distribution of "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore's latest documentary. And just as the energetic conservative elves succeeded in making Bill Clinton ever more popular with the American public, so do they seem to be driving up public interest in Moore's film, which is expected to have the biggest opening for a documentary film ever, in a scheduled 888 theaters.
The convergence between the anti-Clinton and anti-Moore movements is personified by the tireless David Bossie, whose Citizens United made headlines savaging the president in the late 1990s. It's been a big week for Bossie and Citizens United. First they were busy producing anti-Clinton ads to run during the former president's star turn Sunday night on "60 Minutes," while Bossie was scurrying to cable studios to denounce the memoir "My Life" and promote his new book, "Intelligence Failure: How Clinton's National Security Policy Set the Stage for 9/11." Then Bossie scheduled a Wednesday press event in front of the Federal Election Commission, where he will demand that the commission take some sort of unspecified action to regulate the screening of "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- presumably because of the anti-Bush documentary's power to influence the coming presidential election. "Documents will be hand delivered to several government agencies immediately following the media briefing," the group's press release soberly states.
Anyone still wondering whether "Fahrenheit 9/11" has the far right squirming about the documentary's possible effect on the November presidential election?
Over the past week, attacks on the film reached fever pitch. They involved right-wing-conspiracy veterans like Bossie, but also some relative newcomers. (And Moore felt obliged to hire a war room led by Democratic political consultants Chris Lehane and Mark Fabiani.) So far the campaign doesn't seem to have hurt Moore. The real question is whether "Fahrenheit 9/11" can be anywhere as entertaining as the sometimes surreal campaign to derail it.
The Moore bashers include former California assemblyman Howard Kaloogian, whose Move America Forward launched a letter-writing campaign last week against a select number of theaters that planned to show "Fahrenheit." Kaloogian was part of a cabal that takes credit for recalling Gov. Gray Davis. Now they've set their sights on Moore.
"We've sent out probably well over 200,000 e-mails," says Melanie Morgan, a talk radio host, of the MAF campaign. With no small dose of glee, Morgan says of the cinemas targeted by MAF's letter-writing campaign: "We've been causing them an enormous amount of aggravation."
Such aggravation is hard to measure. No theaters have canceled showings of "Fahrenheit" at this point. And the MAF group doesn't seem to have had the most useful intelligence in its campaign. A lowly theater payroll employee inexplicably listed on MAF's e-mail list of "leading movie executives" is confused about how he became a central front in the War on Moore (he did not wish to be identified). As he sat in his office Friday, messages pinged into his in box. Dryly, he read aloud his favorites: "'I will never see a movie again' ... 'I will not support a business that aids a piece of crap sub-human like Moore in spreading his anti-american bullshit ...'"
More important, though, after the grass-roots political group MoveOn launched a counteroffensive, letters of support for the film's release began outpacing negative letters (according to an unscientific survey of five theater owners) at roughly 3-to-1. Jennifer Caleshu of the Little Theatre, in Rochester, N.Y., says she's received on the order of 3,000 e-mails. For every letter accusing her of soothing terrorists by showing the film, she says, seven are encouraging. Caleshu says that to every negative e-mail she's received she replies by quoting the First Amendment. "I've gotten some real personal hate mail back about that," she says.
MAF vice-chair Morgan blames the deep pockets and international tentacles of financier George Soros for backing MoveOn to support the movie. (The group says it has secured pledges from 109,000 people to see the movie when it opens.) But MAF itself has been dogged by reporting on its ties to conservative power brokers. An investigation by the Web site Whatreallyhappened.com, which snooped around MAF's domain registration info, revealed that it is no ordinary citizen's movement.
The webmasters were careless enough to leave the contact information for the Sacramento public relations firm Russo, Marsh and Rogers. That gave away the fact that the supposedly grass-roots Web site was the creation of one Douglas Lorenz. A Russo employee, Lorenz was the information-technology guy for Bill Simon, the candidate too conservative to beat ultra-unpopular then-Gov. Gray Davis in 2000. He's listed on the DefendReagan.org Web site (which rallied the fight against CBS's Reagan movie last year) as the "grassroots coordinator," apparently foreshadowing his role in creating the faux-grass-roots Move America Forward Web site. "Doug has been very active in developing volunteer political organizations," his bio says, "and utilizing advanced technologies to extend their reach." (Lorenz did not reply to Salon's request for an interview.) The P.R. firm's namesake, Sal Russo, was chief strategist of the Recall Gray Davis committee, and the firm itself has Republican ties that run far and deep.
For Kaloogian (who did not return calls from Salon for this story) the failure of Move America Forward represents a reversal. Seven months ago, Kaloogian spearheaded a nationwide campaign to have CBS's movie "The Reagans" yanked, calling for advertiser and audience boycotts. The movie was eventually ghettoized on the network's sister channel, Showtime (though CBS executives insisted, unconvincingly, they were unaffected by boycott threats). But other Kaloogian stunts have fizzled. His threatened recall of California's moderate attorney general over gay marriage went nowhere, and an accusation that Asian-American state assemblymen were violating their oaths of office for supporting Wen Ho Lee, the Los Alamos scientist falsely accused of being a spy, was widely dismissed. ("He's a mosquito on an elephant's back," says longtime California Democratic Party strategist Bob Mulholland of Kaloogian.)
It now seems that MAF is doing little more than providing free publicity for "Fahrenheit 9/11," whose tag line now smirks, "Controversy? What controversy?" But there have been a few bad breaks this week for "Fahrenheit." Moore wanted a PG-13 rating for the movie; the Motion Picture Association of America claims that certain "bad words" require it receive an R-rating. For one thing the word "motherfucker" is used more than once in the film, in the context of troops quoting the Bloodhound Gang radio single "The Roof Is on Fire." On Monday, writing on behalf of backers IFC Films and Bob and Harvey Weinstein's Fellowship Adventure Group, former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo released a letter questioning the MPAA's reasoning. Asked Cuomo: "[Why] should the film not be rated a PG-13 as was 'The Lord of the Rings,' a film that is saturated with slaughter, butchery and corpses -- human and extraterrestrial?" On Tuesday, the MPAA denied the appeal.
Then this week Newsweek published a report by reporter Michael Isikoff that accuses Moore, and author Craig Unger (author of "House of Bush, House of Saud," which was excerpted in Salon), of something close to "fanaticism" in a portion of the movie discussing how Osama bin Laden's family members were mysteriously spirited out of the country in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Unger, writes Isikoff, "appears, claiming that bin Laden family members were never interviewed by the FBI. Not true, according to a recent report from the 9/11 panel," and the Newsweek author points out that the FBI found "[n]one had any links to terrorism."
But Unger says the article missed the point. "As I made clear to Isikoff on the phone, and should be clear in the movie, and is clear in my book," Unger says, "what did not take place was a serious criminal investigation into the murder of 3,000 people ... if you have a criminal investigation, you talk to innocent people." And there's no evidence, he says, that the FBI checked its own terror watch list before letting the bin Ladens depart.
Still, the film's opponents haven't given up. Most recently the MAF is promoting a report reprinted in the Guardian that the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah has endorsed "Fahrenheit." Gianluca Chacra, the managing director of Front Row Entertainment, the movie's distributor in the United Arab Emirates, confirms that Lebanese student members of Hezbollah "have asked us if there's any way they could support the film." While Hezbollah is considered a legitimate political party in many parts of the world, the U.S. State Department classifies the group as a terrorist organization. Chacra was unfazed, even excited, about their offer. "Having the support of such an entity in Lebanon is quite significant for that market and not at all controversial. I think it's quite natural." (Lions Gate did not return calls asking for comment.) Adam Rubin, a spokesman for MoveOn, calls it "an utterly ridiculous distraction from the actual substance of the film."
Of course, you can always find an unpopular leader in the Middle East to fuel buzz about a movie someone doesn't want you to see. After all, Yasser Arafat loved Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," which was so popular with right-wing Arafat haters and so unpopular among many Jews (Arafat's blurb-ready review of Gibson's movie: "Moving"). In the end, Moore's movie will be judged by how many Americans turn out to see his film. And after the attacks and counterattacks of the last week, that number only grew.
Republic is formed from two Latin words res (thing) and publica (public); it literally means 'the public thing(s)'. In the Latin context, it means 'affairs affecting the state', 'the state' itself, or 'the constitution' of the state".(1) The Latin word republic is similiar in meaning to the Greek word politea.
Both words constitute the meaning of state; the state being one that is made up of different classes of people and all involved in the governing of the polity. Simply stated: a republic is a "mixed government". A republic, in the classical form, is a form of government that has mixed the best elements of the classes together.
It marks out the duties and responsibilities of the different bodies. It includes all citizens in government and excludes none. It provides checks and balances on all so that all live in harmony. This is not to be confused as a separation of powers; a republic is a co-operation of classes without anyone of them being dominant. A Republic is an harmony of the state under the rule of law.
It depends what the definition of relationship is
Iraq, Al Qaeda, and what constitutes a 'relationship'Christian Science Monitor Commentary
By Dante Chinni
WASHINGTON – For the past few days, the dialogue in this town has sounded more like "Sex and the City" than "The McLaughlin Group." Suddenly the question of what constitutes a relationship has come to the fore. We're not talking J. Lo here, we're talking about the Bush administration and whether its definition of "relationship" fits with everyone else's.
Last week, the 9/11 Commission released a report saying, among other things, that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Al Qaeda and Iraq. The press jumped on the story, saying the Bush administration has been proven wrong. The White House, however, quickly countered that it had never said that Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; it had simply argued that there was a connection.
"There was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda," President Bush said. "The evidence is overwhelming" that there was a relationship, Vice President Cheney said.
What kind of relationship? Well, that's not clear. The commission reported that, beyond the Sept. 11 attacks, there were indeed contacts between Al Qaeda and Iraq but that Iraq rebuffed Al Qaeda's entreaties. Late last week, however, the vice president hinted that might not be the whole story.
When asked if he knew things the panel didn't, Mr. Cheney said, "probably," leaving some to wonder whether the administration has shared all it knew with the panel. Just as quickly, however, a spokesman also said the administration "cooperated fully with the commission," and "the president wants the commission to have the information it needs to do its job."
It may still turn out that there is some bit of bombshell evidence showing a "collaborative relationship" between Al Qaeda and Iraq. It's not really clear though, why the White House would keep such information secret. This administration, like many others, has not been shy about leaking sensitive information that helps its cause.
All of which means, what we probably have here is an issue of semantics. What exactly qualifies as a relationship in the early 21st century? Is it chatter that doesn't lead to anything, or something more? Where are Carrie Bradshaw and her friends when you need them?
These questions may be wonderful for conversation around the campfire. They may even enable you to say you dated the homecoming queen, but they aren't exactly on point. The point, as it so often is in politics, isn't what those in the administration actually said with all their link talk; it's what they implied.
Since it began talking about invading Iraq, this administration pushed two main lines of argument as justification. First, Iraq needed regime change because the government there was amassing or had amassed weapons of mass destruction. Second, Iraq was likely to use those weapons against the US or sell them to someone who would because it was part of the Al Qaeda-led jihad against the United States.
With the first argument largely discredited, the White House is holding on tenaciously to the second - tenaciously, but carefully. For the past year members of this administration have been dancing along the line of connecting, but not completely connecting, Al Qaeda and Iraq.
There are numerous examples, but one of the best is Cheney's comment on "Meet the Press" last September. "If we're successful in Iraq," he said, "we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."
Parse that carefully and you'll see he is 100 percent correct. If the US brings a stable democracy to Iraq, it will strike a blow at "the heart" of "the geographic base" of Islamic terrorism: the Middle East. But the wording, if you will, leads the reader or listener to more dramatic conclusions, particularly when the "9/11" is added in there. They are led toward the idea that Iraq and Al Qaeda are working together.
Of course, members of the administration are generally pretty careful not to cross that line. They're careful not to say it explicitly; they just let the public infer it.
That's not exactly unprecedented. Semantics and careful lawyerly phrasing are all too common here. But straightforward talking is supposed to be this administration's strong point. And for all the talk of restoring honor and integrity to the White House, here we are again arguing over how to define "relationship."
Wal-Mart Sex-Bias Suit Given Class-Action Status
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
and CONSTANCE L. HAYS
Published: June 23, 2004
A federal judge ruled yesterday that a lawsuit that accuses Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of discriminating against women can proceed as a class action covering about 1.6 million current and former employees, making it by far the largest workplace-bias lawsuit in United States history."
Unfortunately It's A Familiar Story
Tobacco Buyout Favors Big GrowersBy Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 22, 2004; Page A02
More than two-thirds of the $9.6 billion tobacco-grower buyout approved by the House would go to only 10 percent of the people and companies eligible for any compensation, according to a study by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group.
The buyout of tobacco growers and holders of government "quota" rights to market tobacco would give at least $1 million to 463 companies, individuals or estates, the report found, and would provide more than $8 million to one North Carolina company.
The study, based on information from the Department of Agriculture obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and scheduled to be released today, showed that the overwhelming majority of recipients -- 354,000 of the 437,000 eligible, (81%), -- would collect only $1,000 a year over five years.
"The House buyout plan is an incredible rip-off of the taxpayer, mostly to benefit a handful of large tobacco interests and tobacco companies," said Ken Cook, president of the research and advocacy group.
"I really didn't think the control of tobacco quotas would be so concentrated because I had heard and half-swallowed the rhetoric of this being about small farmers," he said. "But this is no different than with commodities like cotton and rice, where the big players control a huge part of the industry."
The sponsor of the House buyout bill, Rep. Ron Lewis (R-Ky.), said in a statement that the buyout is not a large-grower issue and would help the 8,000 tobacco growers in his district.
"Recipient payments are a simple case of economics: Those who have invested more also have had more to lose; those less, less," Lewis said. "Kentucky farmers have been very supportive of the buyout measure because they understand that any reform to the current program will allow them to be more competitive."
The tobacco buyout legislation, which was attached to a corporate tax relief bill by House Republican leaders last week, has been a central goal of growers and quota holders for several years. They argue that the quota system, established by the federal government in the 1930s to regulate tobacco prices, has over time reduced their ability to compete and, many say, has led them to near bankruptcy.
The buyout has become a hot political issue in tobacco states such as North Carolina and Kentucky, where candidates have debated who is most likely to deliver on the long-discussed relief. Democrats such as Erskine B. Bowles, a candidate for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina, have argued for a buyout bill that would be paid for by the tobacco companies and would be tied to a bill giving the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco. Bowles's opponent, Rep. Richard Burr (R), has argued instead for a taxpayer-funded bill that would not take up the FDA regulatory issue.
Cook said the Environmental Working Group released the information now about who would benefit from a quota buyout because the bill that passed the House was never debated, and will go into conference with a Senate bill that has no buyout provision. "This is a huge taxpayer-funded buyout, and so far it hasn't been debated," he said. "Before this goes any further, people need to know what the taxpayers will be paying for."
Tobacco is grown in 21 states, but the USDA information showed that holders of a quota to market tobacco -- which has been bought and sold for decades -- live in all 50 states. More than 700 quota holders were listed in the District, and they would receive almost $4 million over five years under the buyout.
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Waste and Fraud Besiege U.S. Program to Link Poor Schools to Internet
By SAM DILLON
NY Times
Published: June 17, 2004
WASHINGTON, June 16 - When the El Paso school system wanted to upgrade its Internet connections three years ago, it tapped into a federal program that offers assistance for such projects.
The program paid the International Business Machines Corporation $35 million to build a network powerful enough to serve a small city. But the network would be so sophisticated that the 90-school district could not run it without help.
Foreseeing the problem, I.B.M. charged the district an additional $27 million, paid by the federal program, to build a lavish maintenance call-in center to keep the network running. The center operated for nine months. Then, with no more money to support it, I.B.M. dismantled it and left town.
The federal effort to help poor schools connect to the Internet, the E-rate program, which collects a fee from all American phone users to distribute $2.25 billion a year to such schools and libraries, wasted enormous sums as El Paso built its extravagant network in the 2001-2 school year, according to documents and federal lawmakers.
But the problems have not been there alone. In Brevard County, Fla., school officials used E-rate money to install a $1 million network server, a powerful device more suited to the needs of a multinational corporation, in a 650-pupil elementary school. And just three weeks ago in San Francisco, a subsidiary of the computer giant NEC agreed to plead guilty to two federal felony counts related to the program.
Across the nation in recent months - in El Paso and in New York and Pennsylvania, in Puerto Rico and Atlanta, in Milwaukee and Chicago - investigations or audits of the program have turned up not only waste but also bid-rigging and other fraud, according to lawmakers and investigators. A report issued last week by the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the E-rate program, said 42 criminal investigations were under way.
On Thursday, Congress is to open hearings on all that has gone wrong. The hearings will be held by the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, whose chairman, Representative James C. Greenwood of Pennsylvania, says the F.C.C.'s supervision was weak.
Mr. Greenwood said that since schools often must pay only 10 percent of the cost of equipment and services while E-rate picks up the rest, "contractors have mastered the art of coming into these districts, recommending gold-plated architecture, and school officials, buying at 10 cents on the dollar, take everything they recommend.''
"You couldn't invent a way to throw money down the drain that would work any better than this," he added.
The Universal Service Administrative Company, a nonprofit government corporation overseen by the communications commission and known to school administrators as USAC (pronounced YOU- sack), is in charge of the E-rate program, which has many enthusiastic backers.
"Every mammoth government program has problems," said Gregg Downey, editor of eSchool News, a paper that covers educational technology. "The sloth, the waste and the cases of outright fraud shouldn't be a reason to get rid of a program that's doing a lot of good. This is a program that helps schools serve students better through technology."
Michael Balmoris, a spokesman for the communications commission, said that E-rate was not "waste- and fraud-free" but that abuses were not "endemic."
Narda M. Jones, an acting chief in the F.C.C. division that oversees the program, said it was designed to give schools "maximum flexibility" to build technology systems that suited their needs.
"But as the system has grown, we've seen that that design has given people an opportunity to push at the margins of the program," Ms. Jones said.
In the last year, she said, the commission has adopted rules that "significantly tighten" the wiggle room for abuse. One such rule bars people found guilty of crimes from participation, she said.
But Thomas D. Bennett, an assistant inspector general at the commission, remains concerned about oversight. He pointed to evaluations of 122 E-rate beneficiaries carried out or overseen by F.C.C. and USAC auditors in the last year or so. The auditors characterized 62 beneficiaries as "compliant" with E-rate rules, 21 as "generally compliant," and 39 - nearly a third of the total - as "not compliant," Mr. Bennett said.
"That doesn't give us much comfort that beneficiaries are complying with our rules," he said.
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Monday, June 21, 2004
Divorce vs Homosexuality in nathannewman.org
And... "So Rush just dumped wife number three.
I honestly don't get how conservatives sit around talking about the sanctity of marriage under the Bible, while electing and listening to crass hypocrites like Reagan and Rush who engaged in what the Bible labels a sin and equivalent to adultery.
The bible discusses homosexuality in passing, and usually in ambiguous ways, with not a mention of the topic by Jesus himself, yet Jesus relentlessly condemned divorce. See all these examples of condemning divorce from the bible.
Conservatives don't have to stone Rush or Reagan for their biblical sins, but if they make heroes out of people who violate major biblical commandments, they can't expect us to take them seriously when they quote the bible on issues of more passing concern such as homosexuality."
Questioning Nearly Every Aspect of the Responses to Sept. 11
By DOUGLAS JEHL
NY Times
WASHINGTON, June 17 - For most of 2002, President Bush argued that a commission created to look into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks would only distract from the post-Sept. 11 war on terrorism.
Now, in 17 preliminary staff reports, that panel has called into question nearly every aspect of the administration's response to terror, including the idea that Iraq and Al Qaeda were somehow the same foe.
Far from a bolt from the blue, the commission has demonstrated over the last 19 months that the Sept. 11 attacks were foreseen, at least in general terms, and might well have been prevented, had it not been for misjudgments, mistakes and glitches, some within the White House.
In the face of those findings, Mr. Bush stood firm, disputing the particular finding in a staff report that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist organization. "There was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda," Mr. Bush declared.
Such assertions, attributed by the White House until now to "intelligence reports," may now be perceived by Americans as having less credibility than they did before the commission's staff began in January to rewrite the history of Sept. 11, in one extraordinarily detailed report after another.
With its historic access to government secrets, the panel was able to shed new light on old accountings, demonstrating, for example, that Mr. Bush himself, in the weeks before the attack, had received more detailed warnings about Al Qaeda's intentions than the White House had acknowledged.
For now, the panel is casting its work in tentative terms. Its final report is due next month, on the eve of the Democratic convention. In this election year, its contribution has already been to portray Sept. 11 not just as a starting point in the war on terrorism, but also as a point on a continuum, one preceded and followed by other treacheries and failures.
At a briefing, a senior White House official sought again to turn away attention from the past. "The real issue is how do we move forward," the official said. "We've made a lot of changes since Sept. 11, because this country was simply not on war footing at the time of the attacks."
In the studies, Mr. Bush in particular has come off as less certain and decisive than he has portrayed himself. The final report, issued on Wednesday, reminded Americans that Mr. Bush remained in a classroom in Florida for at least five minutes after the second jet struck the World Trade Center, in what he told the panel was an effort "to project calm" for a worried nation.
Initially it was Henry A. Kissinger, the pillar of Republican foreign policy, whom Mr. Bush selected as the panel chairman, with George J. Mitchell, a former Democratic leader in the Senate, as vice chairman.
But those two appointees quickly fell by the wayside, to be replaced by former Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey, a Republican, and Lee H. Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana , whose milder manners undoubtedly gave the panel a less partisan demeanor.
Notably, the two men joined forces successfully to persuade the White House to allow the panel access to crucial documents, including copies of the Presidential Daily Brief, and to pivotal figures, including Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, who testified under oath in March, and to Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who appeared jointly in a closed session.
Whether the two leaders and the other panel members, evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, can join forces in presenting final conclusions remains to be seen. Among the issues to be decided, and which the White House is closely watching, is the position on how and whether to reorganize United States intelligence agencies, in hopes of closing gaps that might have contributed to the Sept. 11 failures.
The Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation bore the particular brunt of the staff reports, for missteps in communication, intelligence gathering and analysis that contributed to failures in anticipating the attack and in intercepting the hijackers.
So too, the Justice Department and the Pentagon came under fire, the Justice Department for doing too little to speed information sharing among law enforcement and intelligence agencies and the Pentagon for being ill prepared to combat the peril posed by aircraft hijacked by suicide pilots.
The staff has been critical of the Clinton administration, too, pointing out missed opportunities in the late 1990's, when that White House shied from what might have been opportunities to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, leader of Al Qaeda.
But it was Mr. Bush and his top aides, particularly Mr. Cheney and Ms. Rice, who were most in the spotlight, particularly in this final week of the public hearings. On Thursday, it was Mr. Bush's self-image of being calm under fire that came under scrutiny, with a portrayal of a White House that was slow to respond as the attacks unfolded.
Starker still were preliminary staff conclusions on Wednesday that took aim at the assertions made by Mr. Cheney, in particular, of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda in connection to Sept. 11, including what the White House has repeatedly said might well have been a meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, the chief hijacker, and a senior Iraqi intelligence officer.
Much of the support for the American invasion of Iraq last year was based, polls have suggested, on a perception that Mr. Hussein and his government were behind the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Bush acknowledged last fall that there was no evidence of such ties, but it was a perception that the White House never actively sought to squelch.
With the commission staff's saying it did not believe that the Prague meeting had occurred and that there was no evidence of links between Al Qaeda and Iraq in connection with the attacks, Mr. Bush on Thursday sounded very much on the defensive.
"This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and Al Qaeda," he said.
The sole example he cited of "numerous contacts" between Mr. Hussein and Al Qaeda was a meeting between a senior Iraq intelligence agent and Mr. bin Laden in Sudan in 1994, one that the commission said appeared to have gone nowhere.
In 2002, Mr. Bush did finally sign off on the plan to form the commission, bowing to Congressional pressure. Until now, he has resisted other proposals being pushed by Congress, including a major overhaul of intelligence agencies.
A plan for such an overhaul is expected to be among the commission's final recommendations next month, presenting Mr. Bush and the White House with yet another challenge.
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