Donle’s Daily Dispatches

Volume 1 Issue 136                 Today’s News and Views         Saturday, May 13, 2006

Donle's Daily Dispatches RSS News Feeds

Latest news and opinion headlines from NPR, BBC, NY Times, etc.

See the cost in your community

The Gross National Debt

Update of US Casualties in Iraq: 2436

Update of US Casualties in Afghanistan: 295

Figures provided by the Iraq Coalition Causality website

Listen to Air America Radio while reading today's news and views

Today's News and Views

TRIBUNE EDITORIAL

The NSA has your number

This sounds like a vast and unchecked intrusion on privacy

May 11, 2006

The National Security Agency has been amassing a vast, secret database with records of tens of millions of telephone calls made by Americans, USA Today reported on Thursday. Telephone companies started to turn over records of millions of their customers' phone calls not long after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The government has created the largest database ever assembled, according to an anonymous source quoted by the newspaper.

The government apparently has even bigger plans "to create a database of every call ever made within the nation's borders" to identify and track suspected terrorists.

Think about that. Every phone call ever made.

No, not so fast.

This sounds like a vast and unchecked intrusion on privacy. President Bush's assurance Thursday that the privacy of Americans was being "fiercely protected" was not at all convincing.

We need to know more about this. The government, though, didn't offer confirmation or elaboration on Thursday. Based on the newspaper's reporting, this effort appears to go far beyond any surveillance effort that would be targeted at terrorist operations.

At first blush this program carries troubling echoes of Total Information Awareness, a proposed Defense Department "data-mining" expedition into a mass of personal information on individuals' driver's licenses, passports, credit card purchases, car rentals, medical prescriptions, banking transactions and more. That was curbed by Congress after a public outcry. It seems the people who wanted to bring you TIA didn't get the message.

This program seems to be far broader than the NSA surveillance of communications between the U.S. and overseas, which prompted great concern when it was revealed last December. Though that program is more intrusive-it involves eavesdropping on conversations-it is at least focused on communications between people in the U.S. and people abroad who are suspected of being connected to terrorism.

That overseas surveillance effort, this page has argued, could be justified and extended if it included some modest judicial oversight.

But this vast mining of domestic phone records … this is something else.

Alarmed members of Congress demanded answers on Thursday. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he would summon the phone companies providing the information-AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth-for a hearing. ``We're really flying blind on the subject [of domestic surveillance] and that's not a good way to approach the Fourth Amendment and the constitutional issues involving privacy,'' Specter said.

Yes, we're flying blind.

Why would the government seek and store records of every telephone call to your doctor, your lawyer, your next door neighbor?

Tell us.

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

No wait, not six. To hell with that. Make it 10. Ten bucks a gallon, no matter what the going rate for a barrel of light sweet crude. That would so completely, violently, brilliantly do it. Revolutionize the country. Firebomb our pungent stasis. Change everything. Don't you agree?

Here's what we could do: Give gas discounts to cab drivers (at least initially) and metro transit systems and low-income folks, those who have to drive their busted-up '78 Honda Civics to their jobs scrubbing restaurant toilets and flipping burgers and vacuuming the residual cocaine from the seat cushions of numb SUV owners. Everyone else, 10 bucks a gallon, across the board. Eleven for premium.

It would take some finessing. Maybe also give a price break to some truckers and trucking companies (so vital to the overall economy), but not so much to global delivery companies (FedEx, DSL et al.), because not doing so would force them to raise shipping rates and force you (and me) to reconsider buying everything online and hence will encourage you to shop locally once again, thus reviving a stagnant local economy.

Voilá -- gas crisis, oil crisis, warmongering agenda, pollution issues, road rage, traffic congestion, urban decay, oil profiteering -- all completely almost totally somewhat solved. Or at the very least, dramatically, gloriously shifted toward ... I don't know what. Something better. Something more humane, less greedy, more sustainable. Could it work? How outraged and indignant would you be to have to pay that much for gas? How long would that feeling last?

Take it one logical step further. Set up a national system whereby if you want to buy a vehicle that gets less than 20 mpg in the city, you pay a $1,000 Global Warming Surcharge and that money goes straight to a local organic farm, or school, or environmental think tank. And if it gets under 12 mpg, make it three grand, plus a slap to your face from a small, angry child. Got yourself a shiny new Hummer? You pay five grand extra, you can only buy gas once a month and all the truly beautiful women of the world will shun you like Charlie Sheen (oh wait, that already happens). See? Revolution is easy.

What, too far fetched? Too implausible? Not at all. Sure, 10 bucks a gallon would be extremely painful for a while. Citizens would wail. Commuters would scream and stomp and die. But then we would do what we always do. We would evolve. Adapt. Systems would quickly transform, habits would instantly shift. It would be easier to implement than the goddamn mess that is Medicare reform, far easier than Lots of Children Left Behind, more viable and livable than the toxic existence of Homeland Security and the disgusting Patriot Act.

But of course such an idea is also, right now, absolutely impossible. It will never happen -- not 10 bucks, not six, not even a buck more per gallon -- and not just because no politician anywhere on either side of the aisle has the nerve to come out and suggest that Americans might actually need to drive less and conserve and make a change in their gluttonous habits. This is, of course, absolute death for a politician. Tell Americans what to do? Dare to suggest that they're doing something wrong, or that their behaviors are dangerous and destructive and irresponsible? Are you insane? This is America! We're flawless!

No, the primary reason such reform won't happen is because, simply put, we are the most entitled nation in the world, perhaps in the entire galaxy. Americans are trained from birth to believe we deserve as much as we desire of every exploitable resource on the planet, be it water or natural gas or oil, coal or salmon or steaks, Big Macs or diapers or iPods or bizarre varieties of blue ketchup. It is, in a word, perilous. It is also, in another, slightly more devastating word, our downfall.

Look, I adore cars. I adore driving and I cherish open roads and smooth horsepower and a musical exhaust note and I fully believe most German automotive engineers should be sent gifts of candy and Peet's coffee and porn. I would, like most everyone else, be absolutely loathe to give much of it up.

But you know what? Big freaking deal. I could learn to live without so much. I like to think I would be able to step back and see the bigger picture, realize what is and isn't absolutely essential, what does and does not absolutely define my identity and my life, modify accordingly and laugh/shrug/sigh it off in the process. In other words, I could make it work. And so could you.

Ever been in a citywide blackout? One that lasted for more than a few hours and stretched on into the night? Ever see people suddenly shift gears and become astoundingly helpful and polite and sharing? Happens in a matter of moments. Disasters do it. Katrina did it, on a scale we haven't seen in years. Sept. 11 did it, emotionally speaking, before BushCo whored that tragedy and turned it into the most vile political poker chip in American history. Shocking change brings people together. Brings out the best in humans. Or at least, makes you rethink what's truly important in your life.

Another example: You know what would happen if guns -- all guns, everywhere -- were banned outright tomorrow? Well, right off, nothing much. Criminals would still commit crimes. Lawsuits would skyrocket. The NRA would shoot itself in the face in screaming protest. Crime rates would dance all over the map. It would be a little ugly.

But then something remarkable would happen. Over a short blip of time -- say about 10 or 20 years, as gun manufacturing ceased and the culture of gun violence died down and our favorite death object was less visible in the news and in video games and on TV and in every aspect of modern life, well, guess what? Guns would begin to disappear. From the culture, from the drug dealers, from the streets, from public consciousness. They would turn into a sad relic, like eight-track tapes, like the bubonic plague, like the Miami Sound Machine. Think 20 years is too long? BS. It is but an eyeblink, a twitch, a faint toe spasm in the great long orgasm of time.

This is the unappreciated, under-reported magic of the human animal. We are infinitely adaptable. We can accommodate far more than politicians and pundits and the morally knotted Christian right would ever have you believe.

Ten bucks a gallon. Imagine the mad scramble by carmakers to invent new ultra-gas-sipping, enviro-friendly technologies. Imagine communities coming together for ride-sharing and mass transit. Bike sales would skyrocket. Walking shoes would be the new bling item. We would mourn the loss of cool car culture even as we celebrated the birth of, say, moped culture. Telecommuting would explode. Sure, the superrich would still tool around in their bloated Escalades, oblivious to the world around them, thinkin' the world is their dumb bitch.

So what? The rest of us can simply roll our eyes and laugh, evolve and sharpen and sigh, and wonder what great change we can embark upon next.

Thoughts for the author? E-mail him.

Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate and in the Datebook section of the SF Chronicle. To get on the e-mail list for this column, please click here and remove one article of clothing. Mark's column also has an RSS feed and an archive of past columns, which includes another tiny photo of Mark probably insufficient for you to recognize him in the street and give him gifts.

As if that weren't enough, Mark also contributes to the hot, spankin' SF Gate Culture Blog.

©2006 SF Gate

May 12, 2006

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

The nation has crossed over into DEFCON II for democracy.

We have a Stalinesque government breaking the law, violating the Constitution, invading our privacy -- and Capitol Hill acts as all that's called for is some investigations.

Oh yeah, there's something huffing and puffing by the likes of Snarlin' Arlen Specter. But, as we've pointed out before, he'll never do anything. The only reason the right wingers let him chair the judiciary committee is that he took an oath of Omerta to support the Busheviks to the end when it came to voting time. (All these moderate Republicans always vote with the Busheviks when their votes are needed. They are allowed to "take a walk" and appear moderate by occasionally voting "no" when their vote isn't needed anyway. Lincoln Chafee, Olympia Snowe, and Susan Collins are all great examples of this carnival trick.)

Besides Specter is reduced to calling telephone execs to testify to try and find out about Bush's illegal activities, because Bush's handlers -- as usual -- won't provide Congress with any information about the White House's secret, law-breaking, Constitution violating government. As usual, the hearings will be a farce.

If Specter is serious -- which he isn't -- subpoena Hayden, Gonzales, Negroponte and Goss. They have all committed perjury before the Senate, anyway. And the Democrats should boycott the hearings unless the top Bush officials are put under oath.

The White House has "fixed democracy" through controlling Bush's Boy Toy I, Kansas Senator Pat Roberts, that there will be no investigations of gross intelligence violations in the Senate -- and similarly in the House.

Bush's handlers had the NSA and Gonzales Justice Department collude to prevent an investigation of the NSA, under the pretense that Bush's own Justice Department -- which we remind you is OUR Justice Department -- couldn't be given security clearance to investigate whether the NSA is violating the law. Hey, we know they are violating the law: Bush has admitted to it!

Then he ignores the courts, by bypassing FISA, admits to ignoring more than 750 laws (according to the Boston Globe), and packs the rest of the courts with partisan hacks (see today's BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week in the second installment of this morning's headlines).

And then you have these pathetic headlines of "business as usual Bush faces some small obstacle headlines" in the "on bended knee" mainstream news as if this were just an inconvenient obstacle for Hayden's nomination. Excuse us, Hayden's nomination -- like Bush's -- presidency is a theat to our Constitution and our democracy. It is America that is risk, not Hayden's professional future as a liar and enabler of the shredding of the rule of law.

Okay, so here's the great mystery.

Bush's poll numbers are in a free fall. He has fallen to 29% disapproval. By a landslide of 2-to-1, Americans disapprove of him as President. He is surrounded by failure after failure. He promotes only incompetents and the more incompetent the better. Success and disloyalty are the only reasons for dismissal from a Bush Administration.

Nearly 90% of Democrats disapprove of him.

Yes, the Republicans are part of the mob and control the entire governmental apparatus, but the Democrats still have a bully pulpit.

The Republican echo chamber has gotten the message point blaring that if the Democrats act too contrarian and hold Bush accountable, they will lose the mid-terms, because the Bush base will turn out to ensure a Republican Congress so that Bush won't be investigated.

Excuse us. With a 29% approval rating and nothing but more trouble down the road (except for the possible nuking of Iran, which may become impossible for Bush to pull off, hopefully, due to intelligence and military whistle-blowing happening right and left), why are the Democrats not denouncing the White House as the rogue, illegal, unConstitutional, encroaching dictatorship that it is? And we mean not just making some noise here and there, but breaking through the media barrier and conducting a campaign to save democracy.

Pollsters say that people are split on the NSA spying issue. We don't know the wording of the questions -- and that was before the latest revelations. But they sure would disapprove if the Democrats turned it into -- as it is -- an invasion of privacy, domestic spying, anti-Constitutional issue, which it is. For the most part, Americans don't understand the implications of the NSA illegalities and lying.

Bush keeps repeating it is tied to Al-Qaeda, and in the absence of strong counter-messing (AKA, the truth), many Americans will believe him. As Bush once actually said, "My job is to keep repeating a message...to catapult the propaganda." (He did actually said that.)

This is something that will drive the independents and libertarians -- even some of the gun guys and the last of the "moderate Republicans" --into the Democratic camp like bees to honey. It just needs leadership and a clear, succinct "frame." Americans are anti Big-Brother. The Democrats should be jumping on this with sustained and unrelenting outrage and ads across America.

If the Democrats don't start seizing the day and protecting democracy, their own party may stay home during the mid-terms out of disgust for the permanent ruling elite class in D.C. that doesn't seem to understand that Americans are way ahead of the D.C. insiders in understanding what the Busheviks are up to -- and having stole an election in 2000 (and possibly in 2004), they are in the process of stealing our cherished Constitutional form of government.

In fact, amidst the implosion of the second Bush to serve in office, Poppy and Junior are touting Jeb as the man to continue their White House dynasty of disaster and deceit. The Bushes are like an inbred WASP bloodline, like one of those legendary Appalachian families out in the "hollers," only the Bushes think that they are royalty, when they are just genetically defective. They exemplify evolution traveling high speed in reverse gear.

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

© BuzzFlash.

Bonding With the Babe

[posted online on May 8, 2006]

In a March column titled "Time for Selig to Bury Bonds," New York Daily News sports pasha Mike Lupica wrote, "They will cheer [Bonds] in San Francisco when he passes Babe Ruth, and we will hear again that his most vituperative critics hate him, the arrogant black star, for passing the portly white guy who has been one of the famous names in American sports since the '20s. As if Bonds is breaking some kind of record by passing Ruth. As if we care about that anymore."

But as Bonds, now with 713 home runs, staggers on buckling knees toward Ruth's epic 714 total, Lupica has been proved painfully wrong. Even though the actual home run record is Hank Aaron's 755, the baseball world is on edge as Bonds approaches the Great Bambino.

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, whose gray, shadowed countenance looks like a map of Mordor, announced that there would be no ceremony when Bonds passes Ruth. "Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth's record," Selig said. "We don't celebrate anybody the second or third time in."

But as Selig well knows, the church of baseball puts its faith in a catechism of sacred numerology. The most historically important arguably is 714. As Josh DuBow of the Associated Press writes, "More than three decades have passed since 714 represented baseball's career home run record. Yet there is still something magical about Babe Ruth's old record. 'The average person probably knows 714 more than 755...but 755 is the record,' Cubs manager Dusty Baker said." It doesn't take Kreskin to divine the message Selig is sending by ignoring Bonds's run on history. In a Chicago Tribune piece called "This Snub's for You," Phil Rogers seethes, "Babe Ruth, celebrated as the grandest character in baseball lore, is being chased by an anti-hero whose act has grown tired and, at times, pretty much pathetic."

Even though Bonds has never been convicted of any crime, has never tested positive for a banned substance and has played the game at a higher level than any player of his chemically enhanced generation, he is the game's pariah, the media-appointed "symbol of the steroid era." Now that the owners have mined their billions from the 1990s home run binge, and everyone has a Congressional hangover, Bonds is persona non grata.

The thought of Bonds passing Ruth clearly makes Selig's pallor turn an even murkier shade of gray. Babe Ruth, Lupica's assurances aside, remains the most treasured and important figure in baseball history. Home runs are still called "Ruthian." Yankee Stadium is still the House That Ruth Built. Ruth is the man with the fifty-four-ounce bat, someone so portly the famed Yankee pinstripes were first stitched on just to make him appear less rotund.

Yet Ruth is also someone treasured through a vapor of nostalgia so thick that he has become myth to the disservice of all except those who use his dewy memory to bash present-day players for their moral failings. The truth is far more complicated. The description of a mercurial, complicated, egomaniacal star whose personal behavior might skirt legality is one that matches not only Bonds but Ruth as well.

Ruth's 714 home run record lacks the spit-shined purity his backers trumpet. The Sultan of Swat made his bones playing against only a select segment of the population because of the ban on players whose skin color ran brown to black. Ruth never had to hit against Negro League greats Satchel Paige or Lefty Mathis to amass the magic 714. Yet no asterisk for institutionalized racism mars the Babe's marks. Ruth also was a habitual user of a banned substance that was deemed unambiguously illegal by the federal government--a drug Ruth believed enhanced his performance: alcohol. Ruth was a star during the roaring prohibition 1920s, and as teammate Joe Dugan said, "Babe would go day and night, broads and booze."

But Ruth didn't just stop at the watering hole to find an edge. According to The Baseball Hall of Shame's Warped Record Book, by Bruce Nash, Allan Zullo and Bob Smith, the Bambino fell ill one year attempting to inject himself with extract from a sheep's testes. This effort by more than a few athletes of his era to seek the healing and strengthening properties of testosterone prefigured the craze for steroids. When Ruth fell ill from his attempted enhancement, the media was told that Ruth merely had "a bellyache." This was believable since Ruth was a glutton, famed for eating eighteen-egg omelets. The Sultan of Swat was also a glutton for women and violence, and he could be roused to fisticuffs if it was suggested, as it often was, that he was part black. The Babe's famous trade-out of Boston in 1920 was justified by Sox owner Harry Frazee by saying that Ruth was "one of the most selfish and inconsiderate athletes I have ever seen."

Of course in Ruth's day, without twenty-four-hour sports yipping and with sportswriting reduced to sonnets of heroism for a country weary after World War I, his flaws were essentially invisible to an adoring public. But Bonds's flaws are picked over, his every strikeout met with cheers by a herd of likeminded writers who who act more like the White House press corps than independent journalists.

It's a shame, because this could be an opportunity to reacquaint a new generation of fans with the singular Ruth. It could be an opportunity to explain that all heroes are flawed and no era is pristine. Instead, the media is smothering Bonds, and the rest of us, under the weight of a bowdlerized Babe.

Copyright © 2006 The Nation

The government is looking into the connection between Lewis and his longtime friend Bill Lowery, the sources said. Lowery, a lobbyist, is a former congressman from San Diego.

As chairman of the Appropriations panel, Lewis has earmarked hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts for many of Lowery's clients, one of the sources said.

Lewis said he knew Lowery well, having spent 12 years in Congress with him, but denied favoring earmarks for Lowery's clients.

"Absolutely not," Lewis said. He said all the earmarks he authorized benefited "my constituents and my people." He said he was particularly proud of helping fund programs such as the cancer treatment center at Loma Linda University, a client of Lowery's. "That would never have been accomplished without an earmark," he said.

The Lewis investigation is in the early stages and has not been presented to a grand jury, the sources said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were either involved in the probe or were not authorized to speak about ongoing investigations.

Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the office of U.S. Atty. Debra Wong Yang, said that as a matter of policy he could not confirm or deny any investigation it might be conducting.

The probe focuses on what one source said was an unusually close relationship between Lewis and Lowery, who served on the House Appropriations Committee together from 1985 to 1993.

Shortly after leaving Congress, Lowery founded Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White, a Washington lobbying firm whose clients include Brent R. Wilkes, a defense contractor who is the focus of a separate probe in San Diego.

Wilkes has been identified by his lawyer as the unindicted "co-conspirator No. 1" in the Cunningham corruption case.

In that case, Cunningham was sentenced to eight years and four months in prison for accepting $2.4 million in bribes and favors from "co-conspirator No. 1" and his business associate, Mitchell Wade, who pleaded guilty to bribing Cunningham. Cunningham and Wade are cooperating with federal investigators.

Wilkes and his companies have given Lewis at least $60,000 in campaign contributions over the years, making them among the lawmaker's largest contributors.

At the same time, Wilkes has paid Lowery's firm more than $160,000 in lobbying fees.

According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan research organization, Lewis has earmarked at least $70 million in federal funds for a mapping software company in Redlands. The company, Environmental Systems Research Institute Inc., is one of Lowery's largest clients and has paid more than $320,000 in lobbying fees, according to the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity.

Investigators are said to be particularly interested in the intermingling of Lewis' and Lowery's staffs and whether it led to favorable treatment for Lowery's clients in securing government contracts.

Jeff Shockey, a key Lewis staffer, went to work for Lowery as a lobbyist in 1999 and then returned to Lewis' staff last year. According to a source familiar with the investigation, Shockey received $600,000 in severance payments from Lowery's firm before returning to Lewis to become the deputy staff director for the House Appropriations Committee — with an annual salary of $170,000.

"He is now the gatekeeper for more than $850 billion," said Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense, referring to the Appropriations Committee's role in disbursing government funds.

Shockey could not be reached for comment.

John Scofield, communications director for the House Appropriations Committee, said Shockey and the committee had had "no contact with any entity of any kind," referring to investigators.

"This is all based on anonymous sources and hearsay. It's borderline slanderous," Scofield said.

In 2003, another key Lewis aide, Letitia White, became a lobbyist for Lowery.

"It's the wicked revolving door," said Naomi Seligman Steiner, investigator for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government watchdog backed by liberal groups that has questioned the relationship between Lewis and Lowery.

Lewis was among several members of Congress who came under scrutiny after the Cunningham corruption case erupted last summer. Cunningham, also a longtime Lewis friend, admitted to earmarking funds to Wilkes in return for cash and favors.

Cunningham challenged Lowery, the incumbent, in the 1992 Republican primary. But Lowery dropped out of the race after he was identified as one of the worst offenders of "Rubbergate," in which several members of Congress were discovered to have written numerous bad checks on the House bank. Lowery acknowledged writing 300 bad checks.

Cunningham's campaign slogan was: "A congressman we can be proud of."

Lewis is one of the senior members of Congress, with 27 years on Capitol Hill. At one time, he was head of California's GOP delegation, and became a "cardinal" — as the chairs of Appropriations subcommittees are known — serving most recently as chairman of the Appropriations defense subcommittee and managing the biggest spending bill in the federal budget.

Last year, Lewis became chairman of the full committee, historically one of the most powerful jobs in Washington.

Copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times

Unconscionable torture tactics

Will the next CIA director have the courage to swear off waterboarding?

Steve Chapman

May 11, 2006

Senators will have a lot of questions for Gen. Michael Hayden before they decide how to vote on his nomination. But they should not confirm him or anyone else as CIA director unless, at minimum, he is willing to utter two simple words: No waterboarding.

Waterboarding is an interrogation method that involves immersing a prisoner's head in water, or pouring water over his face, to create a terrifying sensation of drowning. It's about as cruel a technique as you can devise without leaving scars. Experts say it can cause lasting mental trauma. It's condemned by the U.S. State Department as a form of torture when it's employed by foreign governments, such as Tunisia and Kenya.

It has also been used by the CIA on suspected Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Numerous present and former officers have admitted as much in confidential interviews with the news media. In 2004, a CIA inspector general concluded that waterboarding and other methods approved by the agency after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks probably violated the international Convention Against Torture.

Outgoing Director Porter Goss has insisted that the CIA does not engage in torture and does obey the law. But this is an example of the administration's talent for deception through obfuscation. The Bush administration insists that only the most extreme forms of abuse qualify as torture, and that what the president authorizes in the war on terror cannot be illegal. That way, it can claim to refrain from torturing prisoners or breaking the law while doing both.

So does the CIA still subject prisoners to simulated drowning? When American officials testified this week before a United Nations committee on torture in Geneva, they refused to discuss the issue. But last year, Goss said waterboarding falls into "an area of what I would call professional interrogation techniques." It wouldn't be hard to say: "We do not engage in waterboarding." But Goss never did.

The administration's allies want you to think methods like this enjoy the support of everyone except a few liberal crybabies.

In truth, one of the leading critics of the administration is Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who successfully sponsored legislation outlawing the abuse of detainees. (That law is of doubtful value, though, since the president signed it with the proviso that he can waive it at his discretion.)

Conservatives conveniently forget that the torture convention was signed by President Ronald Reagan. It affords no help to those looking for loopholes: It bars not only torture but also any "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" that falls short of torture.

Reagan may not have foreseen the rise of Al Qaeda, but he rejected the view that extreme situations are an excuse for extreme measures. The treaty says explicitly, "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."

Waterboarding is not the only CIA instrument that violates basic standards on the treatment of captives. Others include sleep deprivation, forced nudity, exposure to cold, shackling in painful positions, and non-stop loud music--often inflicted for days on end. Some prisoners have been turned over to governments that routinely use torture. At least four prisoners have died after being mistreated while in CIA custody.

The next director ought to put a stop to such abuses. He also should phase out the secret prisons where some detainees are held. As John Sifton of Human Rights Watch explains, most of what CIA officials do in this realm "occurs entirely outside the rule of law. There are no safeguards if they get the wrong man, as they have. There is no oversight, no way to know about mistreatment, and no redress." These "black sites" are an invitation to abuse.

Many people defend brutal methods as essential to get crucial information from terrorists. But even if that's true--something many CIA veterans dispute--it's an argument that proves too much. If waterboarding is a good way to get people to talk, pulling out their fingernails or roasting them over an open fire would be even better. If one form of torture is tolerable, why not others?

The challenge for a civilized society during wartime is to reject unconscionable tactics even though they might be useful. Whether the next CIA director is willing to swear off waterboarding--and whether senators will insist on it--will tell a lot about what kind of society we are.

Steve Chapman is a member of the Tribune's editorial board. E-mail: schapman@tribune.com

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

Fiscal Insanity: Paying for Tax Cuts With More Tax Cuts

Last year, in a supposed effort to impose some fiscal discipline, Congress limited itself to $70 billion in tax cuts over 10 years in the tax package currently under consideration in Congress. But the bill put together by conservatives includes far more than $70 billion in tax cuts over ten years, mostly for the wealthy, and they figured out an inventive way to get around the limit: more tax cuts.

Here’s how it works. Traditionally, very wealthy people are not eligible for an extremely tax-favorable kind of retirement account called a Roth IRA. As a revenue raising gimmick, Congress decided to remove the income restrictions on Roth IRAs for one year (2010). In the short term, these wealthy people will switch from their current retirement accounts to the Roth IRA, providing a quick influx of $6.9 billion to the treasury during the 10 year window. (The money is taxed when it is transferred.)

But over the long term, this shift will swell the federal debt even more. Once the money is transferred to Roth IRAs, it is never taxed again. Overall, the treasury “would lose $37 billion in revenue from the Roth IRA provision from 2013 to 2049.”

The measure passed the House yesterday and is expected to clear the Senate today. Of course, whatever problems this kind of policy creates in the future, we can always solve them with more tax cuts.

Filed under: Taxes

Posted by Judd May 11, 2006 10:55 am

© 2005-2006 Center for American Progress Action Fund

FOX News Doesn't Like The Fourth Amendment

Reported by Ellen - May 12, 2006

It was pretty clear last night (5/11/06) that when CEO Roger Ailes claims that what distinguishes FOX News is “we like America,” he doesn’t mean the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. First, FOX News buried a discussion about the uproar over the NSA’s secret collection of phone call records of tens of millions of Americans into the second half-hour of Hannity & Colmes (after a double segment about the Duke rape case). Then it provided conservative Republican Newt Gingrich as the only guest, with no civil liberties expert as balance. So when Gingrich, who also happens to be a FOX News employee, dismissed search warrants as legal technicalities – well, one began to get the message. And that’s not counting the false, misleading information given by Sean Hannity.

Gingrich started by agreeing with Alan Colmes that the Bush Administration has not leveled with the American people over what kind of domestic spying is going on. But, Gingrich quickly added, “I’m prepared to defend a very aggressive anti-terrorist campaign. And I’m prepared to defend the idea that the government ought to know who’s making the calls as long as that information is only used against terrorists and as long as the congress knows that it’s underway.” As he later elaborated, respecting the Fourth Amendment was optional.

Sean Hannity defended the Bush administration by attacking and misrepresenting those who care about American civil liberties. First, he put up the straw man argument that liberals keep calling the program wiretapping when there’s no wiretapping. “All we’re looking at is patterns to find the enemy. We’re not looking at the content, we’re not listening to people’s calls.”

Maybe not in the most recently revealed program, but in the program revealed on December 16, 2005 by the New York Times, “President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States.”

Next, Hannity falsely characterized the Echelon program under President Clinton. “Under the Echelon program, our government had the ability to monitor both the substance and the content of phone calls, emails and faxes… before 9/11. Under this program, the NSA is not collecting substance, they’re not listening to the content of anybody’s call, it’s far less intrusive than anything under the Echelon program and I think that this is being made into a political program by people that supported a far more intrusive program.”

But Hannity neglected to mention that under the Echelon program, warrants were obtained from a FISA court before eavesdropping on conversations in the United States. As Think Progress reported, George Tenet, then-director of the CIA, testified in 2000, “We do not collect against U.S. persons unless they are agents of a foreign power as that term is defined in the law. We do not target their conversations for collection in the United States unless a FISA warrant has been obtained from the FISA court by the Justice Department.”

Therefore, Hannity was either lying or speaking ignorantly as he continued, “I am really bothered that there’s a false impression out there that George Bush – his government – is now listening to the phone conversations and looking in and monitoring what the American people are doing at home… People need to understand that what happened in the 90’s were far more intrusive.” Hannity also made the dubious statement, “The Supreme Court has ruled extensively on the issue.”

Alan Colmes was the lone member of the group giving any consideration to the Fourth Amendment. “The FISA law says the exclusive means by which they can do electronic surveillance is the FISA law. It doesn’t say eavesdropping. It says electronic surveillance.” Colmes added that Michael Hayden, Bush’s nominee to head the CIA and who, as head of the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005 would have overseen both forms of domestic surveillance, said he didn’t go to the FISA court because he didn’t think he’d get permission. “So they know they’re on slippery territory here.”

Gingrich replied, “I believe the administration would be better off to go to the American people and change the law.”

“Wouldn’t they also have to change the Constitution? The Fourth Amendment – probable cause – you need a warrant.”

Gingrich then overtly admitted that in his view, the Fourth Amendment is expendable. “Look, Abraham Lincoln fought a civil war in which at one point he suspended habeas corpus because it was the price of sustaining the union. In the Second World War, we did the things we had to do to win and a US Supreme Court Justice said the constitution is not a suicide pact.”

Colmes persisted. “The Fourth Amendment says you have to have probable cause and you need a warrant. And there has to be probable cause. Now, I don’t know how you get around that unless you change the Fourth Amendment.”

Finally, Gingrich revealed that to him, the Fourth Amendment was little more than a legal technicality. “I suspect you can clearly define an ability to look which then leads to probable cause that gets you a warrant in real time if you think through how to do it. But there’s no requirement that says the United States has to lose a city to a nuclear attack or lose 5 million people to a biological attack because we can’t get the lawyers to talk to each other. And I think most Americans would agree that there’s a practical issue of national security that transcends the lawyers.”

• Local CODEPINK groups are encouraged to showcase their Mother's Day actions around the country. Click here to upload your photos and media coverage links!

• Coming soon! You will be able to view Mother's Day actions around the country in this section very soon!

• CODEPINK Mother's Day Actions around the country. Find a Mother's Day action in your area that you can be a part of.
  
   
• Didn't see an event happening in your town? Organize an awesome Mother's Day event in your community! Click here to register your event and we'll list it on our Mother's Day calendar and email you a special group of "Letter's to Laura" that you can read at your gathering.
  
   
• Organizing and action ideas for your local event.
  
   
• The Gift of Peace for Mother's Day written by Medea Benjamin for Mother's Day 2006.
  
   
• Click here to read Julia Ward Howe's Proclamation for Mother's Day.

• Honor the Mothers of the Fallen. This Mother's Day (May 14th), many mothers will mark this occasion with a heavy heart. Thousands of mothers – including Cindy Sheehan – who have lost their children to the war in Iraq, will be descending on Washington, D.C. for a 24-hour vigil at the White House to honor the war dead and protest the war. What can you do? Send a Mother's Day rose to Washington, D.C., and let the mothers of fallen soliders know you stand with them – and against the war. Organic roses will be presented to the mothers and then tied to the fence outside the White House as a memorial to the dead and a call for peace. Click here to send your rose now!

• Write a letter to Laura to ask her how she, as a mother, can continue to support a war that is leaving scores of American and Iraqi mothers bereft. Send your letters to laurabush@codepinkalert.org. We’ll deliver them en masse; we'll also take the most compelling letters and turn them into a book, “Letters to Laura.”
  
   
• For more info about this project or to see sample letters click here.

• Get your Mother a gift that fits your values and supports the work of CODEPINK. Check out the CODEPINK online store for ideas and special Mother's Day packages; for an even more special gift add your mom's name to the "My Mom Wants Peace" page.

    Friday 12 May 2006

    Within the last week, Karl Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources.

    Details of Rove's discussions with the president and Bolten have spread through the corridors of the White House where low-level staffers and senior officials were trying to determine how the indictment would impact an administration that has been mired in a number of high-profile political scandals for nearly a year, said a half-dozen White House aides and two senior officials who work at the Republican National Committee.

    Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources confirmed Rove's indictment is imminent. These individuals requested anonymity saying they were not authorized to speak publicly about Rove's situation. A spokesman in the White House press office said they would not comment on "wildly speculative rumors."

    Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, did not return a call for comment Friday.

    Rove's announcement to President Bush and Bolten comes more than a month after he alerted the new chief of staff to a meeting his attorney had with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in which Fitzgerald told Luskin that his case against Rove would soon be coming to a close and that he was leaning toward charging Rove with perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators, according to sources close to the investigation.

    A few weeks after he spoke with Fitzgerald, Luskin arranged for Rove to return to the grand jury for a fifth time to testify in hopes of fending off an indictment related to Rove's role in the CIA leak, sources said.

    That meeting was followed almost immediately by an announcement by newly-appointed White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten of changes in the responsibilities of some White House officials, including Rove, who was stripped of his policy duties and would no longer hold the title of deputy White House chief of staff.

    The White House said Rove would focus on the November elections and his change in status in no way reflected his fifth appearance before the grand jury or the possibility of an indictment.

    But since Rove testified two weeks ago, the White House has been coordinating a response to what is sure to be the biggest political scandal it has faced thus far: the loss of a key political operative who has been instrumental in shaping White House policy on a wide range of domestic issues.

    Late Thursday afternoon and early Friday morning, several White House officials were bracing for the possibility that Fitzgerald would call a news conference and announce a Rove indictment today following the prosecutor's meeting with the grand jury this morning. However, sources close to the probe said that is unlikely to happen, despite the fact that Fitzgerald has already presented the grand jury with a list of charges against Rove. If an indictment is returned by the grand jury, it will be filed under seal.

    Rove is said to have told Bolten that he will be charged with perjury regarding when he was asked how and when he discovered that covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the agency, and whether he discussed her job with reporters.

    Rove testified that he first found out about Plame Wilson from reading a newspaper report in July 2003 and only after the story was published did he share damaging information about her CIA status with other reporters.

    However, evidence has surfaced during the course of the two-year-old investigation that shows Rove spoke with at least two reporters about Plame Wilson prior to the publication of the column.

    The explanation Rove provided to the grand jury - that he was dealing with more urgent White House matters and therefore forgot - has not convinced Fitzgerald that Rove has been entirely truthful in his testimony.

    Sources close to the case said there is a strong chance Rove will also face an additional charge of obstruction of justice, adding that Fitzgerald has been working meticulously over the past few months to build an obstruction case against Rove because it "carries more weight" in a jury trial and is considered a more serious crime.

    Some White House staffers said it's the uncertainty of Rove's status in the leak case that has made it difficult for the administration's domestic policy agenda and the announcement of an indictment and Rove's subsequent resignation, while serious, would allow the administration to move forward on a wide range of issues.

    "We need to start fresh and we can't do that with the uncertainty of Karl's case hanging over our heads," said one White House aide. "There's no doubt that it will be front page news if and when (an indictment) happens. But eventually it will become old news quickly. The key issue here is that the president or Mr. Bolten respond to the charges immediately, make a statement and then move on to other important policy issues and keep that as the main focus going forward."

© : t r u t h o u t 2006

Poll: 2004 Election Was Stolen; according to viewers of all news networks except Fox News

By Rob Kall

Who are these Fox viewers. OpEdNews gives you the details.

In the first poll of its kind, (using First choice of TV news network as a demographic variable)OpEdNews.com, in the second OpEdNews/Zogby People's poll has learned that except for viewers of right wing news show, Fox News, poll respondents believe that the 2004 presidential election was stolen.

Overall, the poll of Pennsylvania residents found that 39% said that the 2004 election was stolen. 54% said it was legitimate. Shortly after the election, the NY Times suggested that a few fringe extremists and bloggers were concerned about the theft of the election.

But let's look at the demographics on this question. Of the people who watch Fox news as their primary sourc of TV news, one half of one percent believe it was stolen and 99% believe it was legitimate. Among people who watched ANY other news source but FOX, more felt the election was stolen than legitimate. The numbers varied dramatically:


Here are the stats by network listed as first choice by respondent and whether the respondent thought the election was stolen or legitimate.
Network Stolen Legitimate
ABC 56% 32%
CBS 64% 31%
CNN 70% 24%
FOX .5% 99%
MSNBC 65% 24%
NBC 49% 43%
Other 56% 28%


The poll asked people which was their favorite source of TV newst. Among the 689 people in the poll who answered this question, 37% watched Fox news, more than any other single network. CNN came in second with 21% with MSNBC third, with 13%. It makes sense for these three 24/7 news networks to be the top in this category, since the others air news for limited parts of the day.

A lot more information on Fox News viewers :

After Fox news, the second choice for news network among Fox viewers is ABC 38% and MSNBC 37%, followed by CNN with 27%, NBC with 19% and CBS with 6%.

74% of it's viewers are married. 15% are single and 10% are divorced, widowed or separated. Whether they are fair and balanced, is up for debate. But they appear to be THE family channel, at least for Republicans. 64% have children. 85% of them come from non-union families. Among churchgoers, half go to church, temple or mosque rarely, never or just holidays. But for Fox News Viewers half go frequently. Among NBC viewers, 67% go most frequently. NBC has the most religious viewers. More born-agains watch NBC; 54% to 46%, and Born Agains are least likely to watch ABC: 95%/5%, MSNBC 78%/22%, CBS 76% to 24% and CNN 65%/35%. More Catholics, Protestants and Born-agains watch Fox news than any other news network.

82% of people who identify themselves as conservative and 80 of those who consider themselves very conservative watch Fox News. Zero liberal or progressives watch Fox News as their first choice, and 42% of moderates chose FOx news as their first choice. The first choice of progressives (very liberal) is Other, assumingly C-Span and the like. The first choice of Liberals is CNN.

Fox news is the favorite of suburban, small city and rural dwellers. CNN is the first choice of large city dwellers.


Among immigrants Fox news is the top favorite.

46% of men and 30% of women watch Fox news.

Less than 2% of Democrats favor Fox news, while it's the favorite for 75% of Republicans and 34% of independents. For Republicans and independents, Fox is the network that is first choice. CNN is viewed as first choice by Democrats, with 38% choosing it.

The OpEdNews.com/Zogby People's Poll, with 42 questions, also found that the PA US Senate Race, with Rick Santorum, is not at all like other polls have reported. While Casey Has a 47-37% lead. He has spent millions of dollars to get it. His opponents Chuck Pennacchio and Alan Sandals are both within similar range, with 45% and 43% with Pennacchio having spent under $100,000 and Sandals having spent under $500,000. Both the current and a previous OpEdNews/Zogby people's poll found, that after respondents were given position information on the candidates, that Casey's lead disappears and he pulls a smaller percentage than either Pennacchio or Sandals.

We are waiting on further crosstab analysis of the data. We believe that we will find that if you pull out Fox viewers, the rest of America has a far different view of America and the Bush Administration


This poll was run May 9th through 10th, in Pennsylvania, by the Zogby organization.

Methodology statement from Zogby:
Zogby International conducted interviews of 707 likely voters online. Panelists who have agreed to participate in Zogby polls online were invited to participate in the survey. The online poll ran from 5/9/06 through 5/10/06. The margin of error is +/- 3.8 percentage points. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups. Slight weights were added to party, age, race, religion, and gender to more accurately reflect the population.

More detailed Statistics from the poll will be posted later today.



Authors Bio: Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, and organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. He is a frequent Speaker on a wide range of subjects. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.

Copyright © OpEdNews, 2002-2006

May 12, 2006

The Most Treasonous Words in America

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Peter Michaelson

Please don't say, even to yourself, the most treasonous words in America. These vile words make a mockery of our country's ideals and proclaim our abandonment of democracy.

Any obscenity is preferred, any four-letter curse, to our emotional allegiance to this brusque and pathetic proclamation of only four words.

Sometimes we mutter the words in a nonchalant way, casually aware of doing so. Other times we commit this disloyalty in the recesses of our mind where we can deny our treachery. The words can be hidden behind a curtain of repression, the odious sentiments of our disconnection from ourselves and the higher values and pursuits of duty, honor, and glory.

We scurry about taking care of business, coping in this time of national crisis through the narcotic effect of these four words. But anxiety and fear break through our cover-up when more violations of the Constitution are headlined in the news. In desperation we repeat the words more fervently, like a slogan or a proverb, forcing ourselves to believe them because of their soothing effect.

But these words grant license to injustice, corruption, and evil, and we are very likely to pay a great penalty for abetting this tyranny. The law may overlook our passive complicity but our descendents won't.

Emotionally, the words cause us to revert to childhood and infancy. In a psychological sense, we are willing to be children again, at the mercy of dysfunctional parents, awaiting salvation in our dreams, rather than adults casting off the comforter of helplessness and ignorance. An old memory of non-being, of feeling secure by keeping quiet and pretending all is well, guides our retreat from the frontline of citizen involvement and responsibility.

These treasonous words -- my voice doesn't matter -- tumble like dead leaves in the hollow of our heart, and now they are written on our soul and blind our nation's vision. In such a state of non-being, why should it matter if we live or die?

Just when our allegiance is needed most, many of us revert to those words that deny the call of spirit and decline the adventure of heroism. We refuse to grow into our authority and our sovereignty. Our self-betrayal is hardly registered, like asphyxiation by carbon monoxide. Our epitaph will be written: Oblivious, they lost it all.

Do we really think anything or anyone is more valuable than each of us? If our voice doesn't matter, then what does? Democracy needs us. Let sovereignty awaken and self arise. We don't need to be told more than that.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Peter Michaelson is a psychotherapist and author in Santa Fe. Excerpts from his latest book, Democracy's Little Self-Help Book, can be read at www.petermichaelson.com.

© BuzzFlash.

Over and over, the protesters said they support legal immigration and oppose only the flouting of the nation's laws by millions of illegal residents. They carried signs reading "Sovereignty Is Not Racism" and "Invasion Is Not Immigration."

Loudly challenging them were a few dozen people gathered nearby, a mix of immigration advocates and other activists who tried to drown out the Minutemen with drums and bullhorns. "Bigots in your suits and ties, we don't want your racist lies!" they chanted. Police tape separated the groups, and when it was removed after the rally, the counter-protesters advanced on the Minutemen before officers on motorcycles intervened.

The counter-protesters mocked the size of the Minuteman rally, noting that it was dwarfed by the pro-immigrant marches. "They claim to have a million members, but this is their big national rally," said David Benzaquen, 22, an American University student.

Gilchrist said the turnout was modest because most critics of illegal immigration are "average Janes and Joes" too busy working to attend rallies. He said their voices would be heard in the 2006 and 2008 elections, predicting that anyone with an anti-amnesty platform could win 40 percent of the vote.

Mike Olcott, 47, who joined the caravan in Texas, said it numbered about 15 or 20 cars for most of that stretch and drew varied crowds along the way -- very few in Little Rock but about 300 in Atlanta, where supporters showered the group with cash for gas and motels (money that, in some road-trip humor, several caravan members told Gilchrist they blew on beer).

Yesterday's rally included supporters who traveled on their own from California, New Hampshire, North Carolina and elsewhere.

There were also some Washington area residents who said they were not affiliated with the group but attended to register their anger over what they saw as a wave of illegal immigrants overwhelming their communities. Several said they took heart in the recent town election in Herndon, in which the mayor and two council members who supported a town-sponsored site for day laborers were turned out of office.

Hedy Ross, an editorial assistant from Silver Spring, came to the rally with her 13-year-old daughter, saying she had grown "very upset" about immigrants overcrowding her daughter's classes.

Ross said she suspects that there are many who feel the same way she does but are wary of doing anything about it. "A lot of people have their head in the sand," she said.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald

About Me

Name:Glenn Greenwald

For the past 10 years, I was a litigator in NYC specializing in First Amendment challenges (including some of the highest-profile free speech cases over the past few years), civil rights cases, and corporate and security fraud matters.

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Investigations are so very rude and distasteful

(updated below)

There seems to be an emerging consensus among the coddled, effete Beltway media stars that it would be highly improper and uncouth for the Democrats -- should they take over one or both houses of Congress in Novem