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Gone From NPR, Williams Begins Bigger Role On Fox

2010-10-23T11:00:00.000-07:00

by The Associated Press

WASHINGTON October 23, 2010, 07:28 am ET

As listeners and angry citizens complained to NPR and public radio stations across the country over the firing of Juan Williams, the news analyst kept up his own criticism of his former employer as he began a bigger role with Fox News Channel.

As the guest host Friday night of "The O'Reilly Factor," Williams, who was axed for saying he gets nervous on a plane when he sees Muslims, mentioned several remarks made by other NPR commentators that didn't result in firings.

"My comments about my feelings supposedly crossed this line, some line, somewhere. That crossed the line?" Williams said. "Let me tell you what you can say on National Public Radio without losing your job."

Williams went on to note that commentator Nina Totenberg said 15 years ago that if there is "retributive justice," former Republican North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms or one of his grandchildren will get AIDS from a transfusion.

An NPR spokeswoman said Totenberg has repeatedly apologized for her comments.

Meanwhile, a number of major stations said they were meeting or surpassing their fundraising goals in the wake of the furor over Williams' dismissal, despite it being pledge season.

"We find ourselves kind of caught between NPR and the audience," said Craig Curtis, program director at KPCC in Pasadena, Calif., which won't hold its pledge drive until next month. He said the station had received about 150 comments on the firing, mostly disapproving, and three people asked to cancel their memberships.

Conservative leaders including Sarah Palin called on Congress to cut off NPR's federal funding — an idea that was also raised in the 1990s and didn't get very far.

Williams was fired Wednesday over comments he made on "The O'Reilly Factor."

"When I get on a plane," he said, "I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

After his remarks, Fox announced it had re-signed Williams, who has been with the network since 1997, to a multiyear deal that will give him an expanded role.

NPR chief executive Vivian Schiller held a staff meeting Friday and said management was standing by its decision, spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm said. Schiller acknowledged that NPR didn't handle the firing perfectly and executives would review their process, Rehm said.

Veronica Richardson, 38, a paralegal from Raleigh, N.C., said the firing revealed that NPR had a "political agenda." She said she would stop listening and donating to her local station, WUNC-FM in Chapel Hill.

"I think it's unfair to fire someone for a comment that was innocuous to begin with. It's how many people feel," said Richardson, who describes herself as a libertarian.

Teresa Kopec, 42, of Spartanburg, S.C., backed the firing, saying, "I thought what he said was kind of offensive. I think it was probably the last straw. He had a pattern of saying things that were not appropriate." But she said his association with conservative Fox News may have been more troubling, because it damaged NPR's reputation for objectivity.

At KUNC, an NPR affiliate in Colorado, general manager Neil Best said that Thursday, the start of a pledge drive, was one of the station's best fundraising days ever. Best said some callers who criticized the firing seemed to be reading from a script since they used some of the same words, such as "totalitarian."

Rehm said several other stations also reported callers may be reading from a script. In other cases, it was clear the callers weren't listeners or supporters, she said.

"When people say, `I'm never going to watch you again,' that's an indicator," she said, because NPR isn't on TV.

Stations in some big cities such as New York, Washington and Philadelphia, all three of which have been holding pledge drives, said fundraising remained strong even as complaints rolled in. In Denver, Colorado Public Radio President Max Wycisk said the episode could boost fundraising. "It might actually help, because it reinforces how seriously public radio takes its integrity," Wycisk said.

At least one station wants to distance itself from the firing. In Miami, WLRN general manager John Labonia said he was hearing dozens of complaints from angry citizens and loyal donors. He said one called to cancel a $1,000 pledge. The station's fundraising drive had already ended when the furor erupted.

"We don't want that negative halo of NPR's decision to affect us, so we are making it perfectly clear that we were not part of this decision and we do not agree with it," Labonia said. "It was a short-sighted and irresponsible decision by NPR."

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said he will introduce legislation to end federal funding for public radio and television.

"Once again, we find the only free speech liberals support is the speech with which they agree," he said in a statement. "With record debt and unemployment, there's simply no reason to force taxpayers to subsidize a liberal programming they disagree with."

In June, Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., introduced similar legislation in the House. He said the Williams firing will help his bill.

NPR radio stations are independently owned and operated and, like the nation's public TV stations, receive government funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which got about $420 million this year from Washington.

As for NPR's headquarters operation, federal grants account for less than 2 percent — or $3.3 million — of its $166 million annual budget. It is funded primarily by its affiliates, corporate sponsors and major donors.

This isn't the first time public broadcasting has been in the crosshairs of conservative politicians. In 1994, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for an end to all federal funding for public broadcasters.

NPR's Rehm warned that if Congress cut off funding, "stations across the country would be hurt by that and would have to make up that balance elsewhere. In many places that would be difficult to do."

———

Associated Press Writers Dan Elliott in Denver, Jeff Wilson in Los Angeles, Ben Nuckols in Baltimore, Suzette Laboy in Miami, Kendal Weaver in Birmingham, Ala., Ula Ilnytzky in New York City and JoAnn Loviglio in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

In quotes: Koran-burning threat

2010-09-11T04:00:00.000-07:00

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A small US church's plan to burn copies of the Koran has caused global outrage. Although Pastor Terry Jones has put his plan on hold, the anger has not yet subsided.

Afghan President HAMID KARZAI

By burning the Koran, they cannot harm it. The Koran is in the hearts and minds of 1.5 billion people. Humiliation of the holy book represents the humiliation of people. I hope that this decision will be stopped... so that the world can live in peace and stability and respect of each other.

US President BARACK OBAMA

This is a recruitment bonanza for al-Qaeda. You could have serious violence in places like Pakistan or Afghanistan. This could increase the recruitment of individuals who would be willing to blow themselves up in American cities or European cities.

Nato Secretary General ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN

I am happy to see that he has put this terrible act on hold at least. It is a very disrespectful act. I urge all people to demonstrate clear respect for other people's faith.

UK Foreign Secretary WILLIAM HAGUE

The burning of the Koran would be offensive not just to Muslims but to all supporters of religious freedom and tolerance worldwide. Eid is a time of celebration, charitable giving and family gathering. To seek to mar it in this calculated way would be selfish and provocative in the extreme. We hope that the individuals involved will reconsider and refrain from carrying out this act.

Indonesian President SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO

We stand here collectively as the world is facing a great threat and danger. What is being planned by Reverend Terry Jones and his followers... not only wounds the feelings of the Islamic Ummah [community], but I am also certain the feeling of the followers of other faiths; and indeed can threaten international peace and security.

Indian Home Minister PALANIAPPAN CHIDAMBARAM

We hope that the US authorities will take strong action to prevent such an outrage being committed. While we await the action of the US authorities, we would appeal to the media in India - both print and visual media - to refrain from telecasting visuals or publishing photographs of the deplorable act.

Nigerian President GOODLUCK JONATHAN

This action cannot be justified at anytime and certainly is doubly unjustified coming at the holy month of Ramadan. To my Muslim brothers and sisters, I urge you to show restraint while we deal with this issue as we continue to build and strengthen our fortress for religious tolerance and continuing peaceful coexistence.

US commander in Afghanistan GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS

It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort. It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world, we are engaged with the Islamic community.

German Chancellor ANGELA MERKEL

If a fundamentalist, evangelical pastor in America wants to burn the Koran on 11 September, then I find this simply disrespectful, even abhorrent and simply wrong. Europe... is a place where freedom of belief, of religion, where respect for beliefs and religions, are valuable commodities.

Danish cartoonist KURT WESTERGAARD

Satire is provocation. Provocation should lead to reflection, to enlightenment, to knowledge. In this case, this is really not the case.

Iranian President MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD

[The proposed burning is a] Zionist plot that is against the teachings of all divine prophets. Zionists and their supporters are on their way to collapse and dissolution and such last-ditch actions will not save them, but multiply the pace of their fall and annihilation.

UN Secretary General BAN KI-MOON

Such actions cannot be condoned by any religion. They contradict efforts of the United Nations and many people around the world to promote tolerance, inter-cultural understanding and mutual respect between cultures and religions.

THE VATICAN PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE

Each religion, with its respective sacred books, places of worship and symbols, has the right to respect and protection.

Report: Blackwater Created Shell Companies

2010-09-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

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WASHINGTON -- The security company Blackwater Worldwide formed a network of 30 shell companies and subsidiaries to try to get millions of dollars in government business after the company faced strong criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, The New York Times reported Friday.

The newspaper said that it was unclear how many of the created companies got American contracts but that at least three of them obtained work with the U.S. military and the CIA.

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has asked the Justice Department to see whether Blackwater misled the government when using the subsidiaries to gain government contracts, according to the Times.

It said Levin's committee found that North Carolina-based Blackwater, which now is known as Xe Services, went to great lengths to find ways to get lucrative government work despite criminal charges and criticism stemming from a 2007 incident in which Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians. A committee chart outlines the web of Blackwater subsidiaries.

Messages left late Friday with spokespeople for the Michigan Democrat and Xe were not immediately answered.

The 2007 incident and other reports of abuses by Blackwater employees in Iraq led to criminal investigations and congressional hearings, and resulted in the company losing a lucrative contract with the State Department to provide security in Iraq.

But recently the company was awarded a $100 million contract to provide security for the agency in Afghanistan, prompting criticism from some in Congress. CIA Director Leon Panetta said that the CIA had no choice but to hire the company because it underbid others by $26 million and that a CIA review concluded that the contractor had cleaned up its act.

Last year, Panetta canceled a contract with Xe that allowed the company's operatives to load missiles on Predator drones in Pakistan, and shifted the work to government personnel.

However, the Times quoted former Blackwater officials as saying that at least two Blackwater-affiliated companies, XPG and Greystone, obtained secret contracts from the CIA to provide security to agency operatives.

The newspaper said the network of subsidiaries, including several located in offshore tax havens, were uncovered as part of the Armed Services Committee's examination of government contracting and not an investigation solely into Blackwater. But Levin questioned why Blackwater would need to create so many companies with various names to seek out government business, according to the Times.

The report quoted unidentified government officials and former Blackwater employees as saying that the network of companies allowed Blackwater to obscure its involvement in government work from contracting officials and the public, and to ensure a low profile for its classified activities.

Glenn Beck's 8/28 rally: An instant guide

2010-08-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

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Is the Fox News host's event a bold attempt to restore honor to America, a Tea Party-inspired anti-tax event, or merely an orgy of self-promotion?
posted on August 26, 2010, at 6:30 AM
Beck will speak at the rally, as will Sarah Palin.

Beck will speak at the rally, as will Sarah Palin.

Fox News' reliably provocative Glenn Beck is mounting what many consider his boldest move yet: This Saturday's "Restoring Honor" rally in Washington, D.C., which is expected to draw up to 300,000 conservatives. Not only has Beck courted controversy by scheduling this ostensibly "non-political" rally on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 "I Have A Dream" speech, he's booked the same location: The Lincoln Memorial. Here's a concise guide to the goings-on:

Why is Beck holding a rally?
According to Beck's website, Restoring Honor is a "non-political event" conceived to pay tribute to our nation's "heroes, our heritage and our future." Attendees will be invited to "pledge to restore honor" to America at the steps of the memorial. Critics have labeled the event "Beckapalooza" and accused the Fox host of trying to pass off a mere self-promotional stunt as a headier endeavor.

Who is speaking?
Sarah Palin is the keynote speaker. Other orators include Beck himself and executives from the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, a charity that provides funds for the surviving children of Special Ops personnel killed in battle. Also featured: Choir performances and "literature distribution."

Wait, Sarah Palin is speaking? I thought this was non-political.
Palin's attendance, and the involvement of Tea Party groups, has prompted suspicions that the event is a conservative anti-tax rally in disguise. Beck insists, however, that the former vice presidential candidate will not be addressing political issues: "Sarah's Palin's role is introducing the heroes of the military, as a mother, not as a candidate." Attendees have been asked not to bring political signs or slogans.

How many people will be there?
Authorities in the capital say they're prepared for up to 300,000 people. Fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly has scoffed at such estimates, promising Beck he'll give up his own show if more than 100,000 people attend. (Some Tea Party groups have distributed a conservative-friendly guide to Washington D.C, warning people to avoid the Green and Yellow subway lines, which cover what the guide's authors suggest are sketchy parts of the city. Alas, says Mike Madden at the Washington City Paper, activists who follow this tip would miss the chance to visit the National Archives, where their "beloved Constitution now resides.")

Are people angry about Beck's choice of date and place?
Civil rights groups have expressed outrage. Marc Moria, president of the National Urban League, told CBS News it was "insulting" to King's legacy. Rev. Al Sharpton has also organized a Saturday march through Washington, D.C., to commemorate King's speech, an event supported by the NAACP, the National Urban League, and Martin Luther King III. Sharpton says he began planning his event in April, and that it is "not a countermarch to Beck."

How does Beck explain the choice of date?
He's shrugged it off as a coincidence, telling Bill O'Reilly that civil-rights critics have nothing to complain about: "Do white people own the legacy of Abraham Lincoln? I don't think they do, and I don't think black people own the legacy of Martin Luther King." Beck has said "divine providence" led him to select the date.

What do pundits make of it?
If this is "divine providence," says Alexander Zaitchik at AlterNet, then clearly God has a "very dark sense of humor." Beck is "the media's boldest manipulator of white racial anxieties, fears and prejudice." Were King alive today, Beck would likely excoriate him for being a "progressive cockroach." But the Fox News firebrand is right that black people don't own MLK's legacy, says Cynthia Tucker at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Dr. King "belongs to America" — and the Bill of Rights he so passionately believed in guarantees Beck the right to his rally, no matter how "odious" civil rights groups think it is.

Sources: GlennBeck.com, Fox News, Media Matters, Huffington Post, AlterNet, CBS News, Washington City Paper, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Dimmer view of Earth

2010-08-08T02:00:00.000-07:00

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By Suzanne Bohan
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 08/08/2010 12:00:00 AM PDT

When Stanford climate scientist Christopher Field looks at visual feeds from a satellite monitoring deforestation in the Amazon basin, he sees images streaked with white lines devoid of data.

The satellite, Lansat 7, is broken. And it's emblematic of the nation's battered satellite environmental monitoring program. The bad news: It's only going to get worse, unless the federal agencies criticized for their poor management of the satellite systems over the past decade stage a fast turnaround. Many, however, view that prospect as a long shot.

"I would say our ability to observe the Earth from space is at grave risk of dying from neglect," said Field, director of the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University.

Inez Fung, a noted climatologist at UC Berkeley, was shocked as she scanned a recent federal report warning of impending gaps in the country's ability to monitor Earth from space.

The federal document, released in May, listed cuts in climate-monitoring sensors from the next generation of Earth-observing satellites. The current satellites beam down many types of indispensable data about the planet, such as ocean currents, ozone levels and snow cover, as well as the pictures we see every day on TV weathercasts.

But key instruments on the new satellites have been eliminated: Gone is a sensor that would relay new data about the atmosphere and environmental conditions in the ocean
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and along coastal areas, including those in California. The movement of pollutants and greenhouse gases would have been under the instrument's mechanical gaze, as well.

Also absent is a critical sensor that monitors temperature changes over time on Earth.

"That's like if you have a sick patient, and then say, 'I have no more thermometers,'" Fung said.

In all, nine new climate instruments on the next generation of satellites were canceled or their capabilities scaled back in 2006, according to the Government Accountability Office report. The office is the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, assessing the performance of federal agencies.

Combined with a five-year delay in launching these next-generation satellites, with the first scheduled to blast off in 2011, these canceled or "degraded" instruments leave the nation facing critical gaps in satellite monitoring of the planet beginning in 2015, the report stated. And a National Academy of Sciences analysis of the disarray in the satellite program stressed that because of Earth's growing population, it's more crucial than ever to monitor pollution, water quality, land use and other environmental conditions.

Casting blame

Many blame the cuts on Bush administration policies that favored manned moon and Mars missions over shoring up aging Earth-observing satellite systems. Critics cite a 30 percent decline between 2000 and 2006 in NASA's Earth science budget -- which funds environmental satellites -- as evidence of the administration's lukewarm support of keeping an eye on the planet's condition. The National Academy of Sciences report, along with a chorus of experts in the field, also warns that the country is at risk of losing its worldwide technological leadership in Earth-observing satellites.

Other casualties of the 2006 cuts include an instrument for tracking airborne particles such as sea spray, smog, volcanic ash and smoke -- all factors contributing to the warming or cooling of the planet. The inclusion of a new instrument for monitoring soil moisture was canceled, which would have yielded information valuable to, among others, farmers and those monitoring the spread of deserts worldwide.

These cuts spell a 46 percent decline in data about the Earth's conditions that these new satellites were designed to provide, and the Government Accountability Office report concluded that because of the trouble-plagued satellite program, "our nation's ability to understand climate change may be limited."

Those in the field use harsher language.

Many Earth-monitoring satellites "are really in desperate shape," said Field, with Stanford's Carnegie Institution.

He copes with the neglect daily. Field and his staff rely on data from Landsat 7, a satellite that malfunctioned in 2003 and is limping along at two-thirds its capacity. For example, when it flies over the Amazon basin, where it's used to monitor rain forest deforestation, it sends images marred by white lines showing where the satellite failed to gather data. To back up that defective machine, they use data sent by a 28-year-old satellite, Landsat 5, which was designed to last three years.

"Landsat 7 is just basically broken," Field said. He considers it a "miracle" that Landsat 5 still functions.

Help from above

In the 1960s, the United States began using satellites to observe its lands, oceans, atmosphere and the space environment near Earth. The satellites continuously monitor the planet's dynamic environment, and allow humans to peer into inaccessible places. Information beamed by these spacecraft is now essential for forecasting weather, tracking conditions on Earth and in its atmosphere, and projecting long-term climate trends. With satellite data, rising sea levels can be monitored, helping communities on islands and along coastal areas plan. Satellites help farmers assess soil conditions before planting, allow foresters to examine logging activities, let water managers monitor the mountain snowpack that provides water to cities, and track the migration of wildlife such as buffalo and elephants.

Satellite data is also essential for crafting international agreements for reducing global warming, said Molly Macauley, an economist with Resources for the Future, a research institute in Washington, D.C.

Delay now, pay later

Field, the Carnegie Institution scientist, echoed many of his colleagues' views in saying the cuts also reflect a lack of support for climate monitoring in particular during the Bush administration. Former President George W. Bush held that there was insufficient information to conclude global warming was caused by human activity, but that the economic harm of regulating heat-trapping gases was certain.

A May 2 article in Defense Industry Daily noted that "one of the most controversial decisions" after the 2006 reduction in satellite sensors was the fact that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of Defense "apparently chose not to seek additional funding" to retain the climate instruments. The agencies, along with NASA, jointly managed one of the programs, NPOESS. The other, GOES-R, is managed solely by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Had the agencies received more funding at that earlier stage, subsequent cost increases and launch delays could have been avoided, the prime contractor on the satellite program testified before Congress, according to the article. The NPOESS program, at nearly $14 billion in cost, is now more than $7 billion over its original estimate.

Jumping into the fray, the National Academy of Sciences in 2007 released a 455-page report on the nation's environmental satellite program, offering the most comprehensive recommendations to date for getting it back on track. Chief among them was an infusion of money for Earth-observing satellites. And the funding decline in the years before the report's release put the country's ability to monitor the climate and severe weather "at great risk," the academy report warned.

"There was a decreased emphasis on Earth observations" during the Bush administration, Field said. "That was because NASA was so strongly focused on the moon and Mars."

In 2004, Bush announced that NASA would turn its focus to more manned space missions. The first goal was returning humans to the moon by 2020, and establishing a lunar launchpad for staffed missions to Mars. He proposed a $12 billion budget for the first five years, with $11 billion diverted from existing NASA programs.

The Obama administration remains committed to manned space flights, but it canceled the projected $108 billion return-to-moon plan, called Constellation, a move that's roiling some in Congress. Instead, the administration is seeking international and commercial partnerships for developing manned missions to asteroids and to Mars. The administration also proposed increased funding of $2.4 billion for Earth observation research at NASA.

The White House stated that it's committed to "minimizing -- if not eliminating -- potential gaps in data" in Earth-monitoring satellite activities in the coming decades.

"The urgency to maintain the continuity ... that's out in front of everybody," said Mark Mulholland, a senior official with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "Certainly in the last couple of years there's been an increasing emphasis at the administration level on climate monitoring," he added.

But the Government Accountability Office's Powner said it's clear that stronger leadership is needed for the nation's environmental satellite program, and he said that job belongs to the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House.

"We pinned it on OSTP," he said. "They have the responsibility to coordinate these interagency-type, long-term issues."

Without that kind of oversight, Powner said, agencies commonly focus on their own priorities, and fail to commit to long-term plans -- an approach essential for the complex job of designing and launching Earth-observing satellites.

A senior analyst with the technology policy office "did not agree or disagree with our recommendations," the report stated.

Field concurred with Powner's position. He described the dearth of leadership as another serious gap in the nation's Earth-observing satellite program.

"There's nobody in the federal system that's really responsible for ensuring the kind of long-term observations that you want on a planet that's changing," he said.

Suzanne Bohan covers science. Contact her at 510-262-2789. Follow her at Twitter.com/suzbohan.

# The 1994 Clinton administration decision to save costs by merging into NPOESS previously separate military and civilian Earth-observing satellite systems backfired, ultimately creating a dysfunctional program plagued by bureaucratic wrangling, delays and cost overruns. In contrast, GOES-R is run by a single civilian agency.
# Due to escalating costs, in 2006 numerous climate sensors on NPOESS were cut or "degraded" and the number of satellites were reduced from six to four, in addition to a "preparatory" test satellite. Despite the cuts, the NPOESS program is five years behind schedule, with the preparatory satellite now scheduled to launch in 2011. At nearly $14 billion in cost, it's more than double its original $6.2 billion estimate.
# Facing $5 billion in projected overruns, the number of GOES-R launches was also reduced, from four to two. The first is scheduled in 2015, one year behind schedule. Also canceled was a state-of-the-art sensor designed to yield valuable new information about oceans and coastlines, winds, humidity and severe weather events, among other environmental conditions.
# A government agency in the spring released two reports warning that the launch delays and sensor cuts threatened to create serious gaps, beginning in 2015, in the nation's ability to monitor key aspects of climate change.
# Sensors for forecasting weather were largely spared, but took hits. For example, in the coming years some U.S. military sites could experience up to 70-minute delays in getting weather data. That time lag would particularly affect military operations in the air and on the ocean. An instrument that would have advanced severe weather monitoring was also cut.
# President Barack Obama's 2011 budget disbands the tri-agency management of NPOESS to loosen the bureaucratic logjam, putting NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in charge of two of the satellites, in addition to the "preparatory" satellite. The program will be renamed the Joint Polar Satellite System, or JPSS. The Department of Defense will be put in charge of the other two, under a still-unnamed program. GOES-R remains under NOAA management.
# In a setback to closing the gaps, in late June the Obama administration canceled a crucial sensor for monitoring how the Earth's temperature changes as the sun's energy fluctuates. The satellite planned under the newly split program is too small to include the instrument.

Sources: Government Accountability Office: April report, "Environmental Satellites: Strategy Needed to Sustain Critical Climate and Space Weather Instruments" and May report, "Polar-Orbiting Environmental Satellites: Agencies Must Act Quickly to Address Risks that Jeopardize the Continuity of Weather and Climate Data"

Top Insurgents Escaped Prison Days After Iraq Took Over

2010-07-23T10:30:00.000-07:00

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By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and OMAR AL-JAWOSHY
Published: July 23, 2010

BAGHDAD — An outsize ceremonial skeleton key traded hands last week in the official transfer of Camp Cropper, the last jail in Iraq that had been under American control. The Iraqi government was, one American general said, “equipped, prepared and poised to take over.”
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Iraq’s justice minister, Dara Nurredin Dara, and Maj. Gen. Jerry Cannon on July 15.
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Notes from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and other areas of conflict in the post-9/11 era. Go to the Blog »

But it did not end the dark history of prisons in Iraq over the last seven years: Just five days later, four prisoners, at least three of them said to be high-ranking members in the nation’s most violent insurgent group, escaped. The warden and several guards are nowhere to be found.

“Leaders from the Islamic State of Iraq were able to escape from Cropper Prison,” read a statement that appeared Friday on a Web site that carries messages from the group, which is affiliated with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. “And no one from the apostates has been able to find them, 36 hours after their escape.”

Sunni extremists sometimes use the term “apostates” to describe the majority Shiites, who control Iraq’s government.

The July 15 transfer of Camp Cropper, which had held many of what the United States military considered “high value” inmates, was considered yet another milestone toward full Iraqi sovereignty, just over a month before America is scheduled to withdraw the last of its combat troops.

But institutions are being handed over to a political system in disarray. There is no new government nearly five months after parliamentary elections.

And while overall violence is relatively low, a deadly campaign of assassinations is under way against political figures, members of Awakening groups and people who had cooperated with Americans. The group to which the escaped prisoners belonged, the Islamic State of Iraq, claimed responsibility for one of the worst of these recent attacks: On Sunday, bombings killed at least 47 members of Awakening Councils, made up of former Sunni insurgents who switched sides.

The men escaped from the Camp Cropper prison complex, near Baghdad International Airport, on Tuesday, though Iraqi officials did not make the news public for 48 hours. The missing men include the group’s finance minister, its interior minister and its justice minister, the security officials said, without identifying them. The standing of a fourth escapee was unclear.

The men had been captured by American forces and had been held for about 15 months, the Iraqi police said Friday. On Friday, the United States military in Iraq declined to answer questions on the escape from the prison, where 1,500 inmates are held. In Washington, Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said: “U.S. forces are not involved in any aspect of running or securing the facility. The government of Iraq is investigating the circumstances surrounding the escape.” It is not known how the four men escaped the highly secured prison, but Iraq’s minister of justice, Dara Nurredin Dara, said Friday that the jail’s American-assigned warden, Omar Hamis Hamadi, was missing as well.

“We were told that he was trustworthy and had a good reputation,” Mr. Dara said.

Other security officials said that several guards had failed to report to work since the escape.

The prison system in Iraq has been consistently troubled since the United States military invaded Iraq in 2003. Seeking to tame an increasingly effective insurgency, American soldiers arrested thousands of suspects, many of them without proof, and held them for a year or longer.

The system began to change after the scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison, in which American jailers tortured and abused detainees. Experts say that many men became radicalized against Americans inside the prisons.

Experts also say that, as prisoners have been released and transferred to Iraqi authority, the system remains abusive. In April, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki ordered the closing of a secret prison that held hundreds of detainees from northern Iraq. Dozens of prisoners had been tortured before the country’s human rights minister and the United States intervened.

High-level suspects have disappeared from Iraqi detention with maddening frequency. On Friday, the British Embassy in Baghdad said the British foreign secretary had raised concerns with Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, about the recent disappearance of the man convicted in the 2004 kidnapping and murder of a British-Iraqi aid worker, Margaret Hassan. The man, Ali Lutfi Jassar al-Rawi, was in custody and appealing his conviction when he disappeared.

At Camp Cropper, the American military continues to operate one of the prison’s blocks at the request of the Iraqi government, overseeing about 200 inmates, including members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown Sunni group, and officials who had been part of Saddam Hussein’s government. The Iraqi government asked the Americans to hold on to some of the prisoners while Iraqi law enforcement officials determine their legal status. The men escaped from the Iraqi-controlled part of the prison.

In recent months, American and Iraqi security forces have captured and killed dozens of members of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, including its top leaders. American generals, however, caution that while the organization has been significantly weakened, it continues to be capable of launching attacks that lead to mass casualties.

Duraid Adnan and Zaid Thaker contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Elisabeth Bumiller from Washington.

Hamas, Israel, and the Gaza flotilla: seven facts you need to know

2010-06-03T19:30:00.000-07:00

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Amid a barrage of criticism of Israel, fair-minded observers should consider these seven facts before judging the flotilla raid.

By Nadav Tamir / June 3, 2010
Boston

In the torrent of rage and confusion generated by the loss of life when the Israeli Navy enforced the embargo on the Gaza Strip this week, there has been a regrettable overlooking of certain fundamental facts. As is so frequently the case, these facts have gotten buried in the rubble of political rhetoric. In order to prevent this incident from having a deleterious effect on the peace process going forward, the following must be understood:

Fact 1: The Gaza Strip is an armed camp, ruled with an iron fist by a repressive Hamas regime that has not only repeatedly pledged itself to the annihilation of Israel and the torpedoing of any prospects for Middle East peace, but has made good on its pledges by firing approximately 10,000 missiles, rockets, and mortar bombs at Israeli civilians over the past several years for the express purpose of killing or wounding those civilians or, at a minimum, terrifying them.

Fact 2: The United States, the European Union, and the international community have recognized that Hamas is a terrorist enterprise, which surely is beyond dispute.

Fact 3: When faced with an armed enemy committed to its destruction, which has done its very best to make war against Israeli civilians, Israel has two choices: to try to protect its civilians from those attacks, or to simply shrug its shoulders and hope that the attacks stop. There is, quite simply, no nation on earth that would choose the latter course, and no reasonable and fair-minded person who would expect it to.

Fact 4: In an effort to stop the missiles from being manufactured and used against it, and only for that reason, Israel has been forced to try to keep the materials used for that purpose out of the Gaza Strip. This is an obvious step needed to prevent the kind of war that caused so much destruction in 2008, when the increase in attacks by Hamas and its allies against Israeli civilians eventually triggered an Israeli response to stop them. There can be no real doubt that Israel is entitled to keep weapons of war from being used against it.

Fact 5: Israel repeatedly, and expressly, made clear to those who organized the effort to break the embargo that it would willingly take all of the humanitarian aid that was on their boats and transfer it to Gaza, without delay. All that Israel wanted was to be able to ensure that materials were, in fact, humanitarian aid, rather than the sorts of materials used for launching attacks that are supplied to Hamas by the Iranians and others. The organizers of the flotilla refused – because, of course, getting humanitarian aid to Gaza was not what their gambit was really about.

Fact 6: Israel regularly provides humanitarian aid to Gaza, and volunteering to get the humanitarian aid from the ships to Gaza was consistent with Israeli policy all along.

And Fact 7, which is now coming to light several days after the initial and predictable barrage of criticism of Israel: Those on at least one of the ships planned all along to attack Israelis when they sought to enforce the embargo, and indeed, their attack on the Israelis was brutal.

This fact has been starkly captured in video widely circulating around the Internet, showing the vicious beatings initiated by those on board one of the ships against Israelis, who for their part had been instructed to refrain from using any force if at all possible. Indeed, in Israel the military is being criticized for failing to adequately prepare its naval personnel to anticipate the attacks on them from the boats, and for being too passive, and too trusting, in its approach to the flotilla.

As for the evidence that certain individuals of those responsible for orchestrating this tragedy are linked to Al Qaeda and other representatives of the worst forces on the planet, the next days will likely yield more information.

But the larger issue is this: Has the desire to blame Israel in certain quarters reached such an irrational frenzy that the fundamental facts of any issue relating to the Middle East conflict will reliably be overlooked? Are those who are committed to a fair-minded and reasonable analysis of that conflict prepared to insist that others who like nothing more than jumping to conclusions stop, pause, think, and consider the actual evidence?

There will always be those who don’t let facts to get in the way of their biases. But fair-minded people examine the evidence before forming conclusions, especially when emotions run high. Israel – and the cause of peace in the Middle East – is counting on them to do just that.

Nadav Tamir is the consul general at the consulate general of Israel to New England.

Full body scanners arrive at airports - along with skepticism

2010-03-05T13:25:00.000-08:00

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The expanded use of full body scanners at US airports raises familiar privacy concerns, but also questions about cost and efficiency.

By Daniel B. Wood Staff writer / March 5, 2010
Burbank, California

Waiting for her bags here at the Bob Hope International Airport baggage claim, Doris Kern is easily engaged on the subject of using body scanners to screen airline passengers.

“I will feel safer when more places use them,” says the mother of three. “But given the option, I’d rather take a pat down."

The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) announced Friday that nine more US airports will receive the machines in the next week as the Obama administration heightens security efforts in the wake of the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas day ... by a man carrying explosives in his underpants.

Three machines will go online Monday at Boston's Logan International Airport, to be followed by units at Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; San Jose, Calif.; Columbus, Ohio; San Diego; Charlotte, N.C.; Cincinnati; Los Angeles; Oakland, Calif.; and Kansas City, according to the TSA's Lee Kair.

Experts say – and polls concur – that the rollout of body scanners at US airport security checkpoints will not be accompanied by the strong public resistance met in Europe. A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll released in January found that 78 percent of respondents said they approved of using the scanners, and 67 percent said they are comfortable being examined by one.

Some analysts, however, do agree with European aviation-security experts who remain unconvinced of the cost benefits.

“I think the magnitude with which they are deploying them is overkill,” says Bruce McIndoe, President of iJET Intelligent Risk Systems, a global risk and security company based in Annapolis, Maryland. The cost of the machines is high, and they have to be operated, calibrated, and maintained – which is very expensive on top of that purchase price, he says.

And others say the cost should be measured not only in dollars spent, but in time delays for passengers.

“This is not going to replace metal detectors anytime soon,” says Sam Kamin, an associate professor of criminal law at the University of Denver, who has written about high-tech scanning and detection at airports and the possible constitutional implications. “If this did, it would take you four hours to get on your flight, and it would cripple air travel," he says.

Passengers will have the option of accepting or declining a body scan. Those who do – and pass – will not have to pass through a metal detector or other security equipment. Those who decline must walk through a metal detector and submit to a pat down.

The scanners, which allow the TSA to see beneath a passenger's clothing to search for explosives and other contraband, have drawn fire from civil libertarians. The American Civil Liberties Union has denounced the use of them as a "virtual strip search."

The TSA counters that the images from the scanners are seen only by a security officer in a remote viewing room, that passengers' faces will be blurred, and that the images aren't stored.

Information from Associated Press was used in this report.

Coburn warns against majority-vote tactic in weekly Republican address

2010-02-27T06:50:00.000-08:00

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By Jordan Fabian - 02/27/10 06:00 AM ET

Should Democrats use the budget reconciliation process to pass healthcare reform, it would fly in the face of public opinion, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said in the Republicans’ weekly address.

Coburn, a physician who attended this week’s bipartisan healthcare summit at the White House, repeated Republican calls to scrap the current healthcare proposals and start from scratch.

“Unfortunately, even before the summit took place the majority in Congress signaled its intent to reject our offers to work together,” he said. “Instead they want to use procedural tricks and backroom deals to ram through a new bill that combines the worst aspects of the bills the Senate and House passed last year.”

The White House and Democratic leaders in Congress have said that they will move forward with their existing reform proposals despite Republican calls to stop.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has not yet said whether or not he will use the maneuver that would allow Democrats to get around a GOP filibuster of the healthcare reform bill.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday that Obama will unveil the way he would like to proceed next week but did not say whether or not the White House would endorse the controversial use of the reconciliation tactic.

At the healthcare summit, Obama hinted at its use, saying that the public wants a majority vote on the proposals.

Coburn said that while the summit was not a waste of time, Republican claims often fell upon deaf ears.

“While we listened to one another, I’m concerned that the majority in Congress is still not listening to the American people on the subject of healthcare reform,” he said. “By an overwhelming margin, the American people are telling us to scrap the current bills, which will lead to a government takeover of healthcare, and we should start over.”

Despite Coburn’s staunch position against the Democrats’ health plans, he earned praise at the summit from members of the other party such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for offering “positive ideas.”

Coburn highlighted one of his healthcare proposals in his address, the Patients’ Choice Act he introduced with Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Reps. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)

“Our proposals to rein in the massive amount of fraud, waste and duplication in our healthcare system drew widespread praise from Democrats at the summit, including the president,” he said. “Democrats and Republicans agree that eliminating waste and inefficiency would lower costs and improve access tomorrow."

But Coburn said that lawmakers would not be able to capitalize on areas of bipartisan agreement if the Democrats move ahead with their plan, even though Democrats have said that they have adopted more than 100 GOP amendments to their bills.

“If the president and the leaders in Congress are serious about finding common ground they should continue this debate, not cut it off by rushing through a partisan bill the American people have already rejected,” Coburn said.
Source:
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/84019-coburn-warns-against-majority-vote-tactic-in-weekly-gop-address
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Iraq’s Known Unknowns, Still Unknown

2010-02-25T10:00:00.000-08:00

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By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: February 23, 2010

From the very beginning of the U.S. intervention in Iraq and the effort to build some kind of democracy there, a simple but gnawing question has lurked in the background: Was Iraq the way Iraq was (a dictatorship) because Saddam was the way Saddam was, or was Saddam the way Saddam was because Iraq was the way Iraq was — a collection of warring sects incapable of self-rule and only governable with an iron fist?

Alas, some seven years after the U.S. toppled Saddam’s government, a few weeks before Iraq’s second democratic national election, and in advance of the pullout of American forces, this question still has not been answered. Will Iraq’s new politics triumph over its cultural divides, or will its cultural/sectarian divides sink its fledgling democracy? We still don’t know.

In many ways, Iraq is a test case for the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s dictum that “the central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”

Ironically, though, it was the neo-conservative Bush team that argued that culture didn’t matter in Iraq, and that the prospect of democracy and self-rule would automatically bring Iraqis together to bury the past. While many liberals and realists contended that Iraq was an irredeemable tribal hornet’s nest and we should not be sticking our hand in there; it was a place where the past would always bury the future.

But stick we did, and in so doing we gave Iraqis a chance to do something no other Arab people have ever had a chance to do: freely write their own social contract on how they would like to rule themselves and live together.

With elections set for March 7, with America slated to shrink to 50,000 troops by September — and down to zero by the end of 2011 — Iraqis will have to decide how they want to exploit this opportunity.

I met last week with Gen. Ray Odierno, the overall U.S. commander in Iraq, who along with Vice President Joe Biden has done more to coach, coax, cajole and occasionally shove Iraqis away from the abyss than anyone else. I found the general hopeful but worried. He was hopeful because he has seen Iraqis go to the brink so many times and then pull back, but worried because sectarian violence is steadily creeping back ahead of the elections and certain Shiite politicians, like the former Bush darling Ahmed Chalabi — whom General Odierno indicated is clearly “influenced by Iran” and up to no good — have been trying to exclude some key Sunni politicians from the election.

It is critical, said Odierno, that “Iraqis feel that the elections are credible and legitimate” and that the democratic process is working. “I don’t want the campaigning to lead to a sectarian divide again,” he added. “I worry that some elements will feel politically isolated and will not have the ability to influence and participate.”

How might this play out? The ideal but least likely scenario is that we see the emergence of an Iraqi Shiite Nelson Mandela. The Shiites, long suppressed by Iraq’s Baathist-led Sunni minority, are now Iraq’s ruling majority. Could Iraq produce a Shiite politician, who, like Mandela, would be a national healer — someone who would use his power to lead a real reconciliation instead of just a Shiite dominion? So far, no sign of it.

Even without a Mandela, Iraq could still hold together, and thrive, if its rival Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish communities both recognize the new balance of power — that the Shiites are now the dominant community in Iraq and, ultimately, will have the biggest say — and the new limits of power. No community can assert its will by force and, therefore, sectarian disputes have to be resolved politically.

The two scenarios you don’t want to see are: 1) Iraq’s tribal culture triumphing over politics and the country becoming a big Somalia with oil; or 2) as America fades away, Iraq’s Shiite government aligning itself more with Iran, and Iran becoming the kingmaker in Iraq the way Syria has made itself in Lebanon.

Why should we care when we’re leaving? Quite simply, so much of the turmoil in the region was stoked over the years by Saddam’s Iraq and Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran, both financed by billions in oil revenues. If, over time, a decent democratizing regime could emerge in Iraq and a similar one in Iran — so that oil wealth was funding reasonably decent regimes rather than retrograde ones — the whole Middle East would be different.

The odds, though, remain very long. In the end, it will come back to that nagging question of politics versus culture. Personally, I’m a believer in the argument Lawrence Harrison makes in his book “The Central Liberal Truth” — culture matters, a lot more than we think, but cultures can change, a lot more than we expect. But such change takes time, leadership and often pain. Which is why, I suspect, Iraqis will surprise us — for good and for ill — a lot more before they finally answer the question: Who are we and how do we want to live together?

Skelton opposes repeal of 'Don't ask, don't tell'

2010-01-15T15:00:00.000-08:00

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By Roxana Tiron - 01/15/10 02:30 PM ET

The leading House Democrat on military policy said Friday that he opposes repealing the law that bans openly gay people from serving in the military.

Seventeen years ago, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) played a major role in crafting the controversial law known as "Don't ask, don't tell." When President Bill Clinton wanted to lift the ban preventing gay people from joining the military, Skelton opposed the move. The end result was a compromise under which gay service members would conceal their sexual orientation.

Now, after President Barack Obama pledged during his campaign and first year in office to repeal the law, Skelton finds himself on the opposite side once again.

"I am personally not for changing the law," he said during a C-SPAN "Newsmakers" interview that will air Sunday.

Because the military is engaged in two major conflicts, in Afghanistan and Iraq, changing the law would create "disruption" that can cause some "serious problems," Skelton said during the interview.

He said the full House Armed Services Committee won't hold a hearing on the repeal of the law. Rather, the Personnel subcommittee will hold the hearing at some point this year.

Skelton also said he would oppose efforts to repeal the law in Congress — setting the stage for a potentially intense debate within his own committee with Democrats who want to see the law repealed.

Meanwhile, Skelton's Senate counterpart, Carl Levin (D-Mich.), said that the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing on the issue at the end of January.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that he and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen are prepared to testify before the Senate.

Gates said at a press briefing that there are continuing conversations within the Pentagon about "implementing the president's intent."

Obama has come under increasing pressure from gay-rights advocates to move on the repeal. Gay-rights advocates are eyeing the change in law for this year, but it is unclear how Obama will proceed. The Pentagon has moved slowly on the issue and there have been reports of internal dissent on how fast changes to the law should be instituted.

Giant tuna fetches $177,000 at Japan fish auction

2010-01-05T08:00:00.000-08:00

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By SHINO YUASA
The Associated Press
Tuesday, January 5, 2010; 6:28 AM

TOKYO -- A giant bluefin tuna fetched 16.3 million yen ($177,000) in an auction Tuesday at the world's largest wholesale fish market in Japan.

The 513-pound (233-kilogram) fish was the priciest since 2001 when a 440-pound (200 kilogram) tuna sold for a record 20.2 million yen ($220,000) at Tokyo's Tsukiji market.

The gargantuan tuna was bought and shared by the owners of two Japanese sushi restaurants and one Hong Kong-based sushi establishment, said a market representative on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information.

Caught off the coast of northern Japan, the big tuna was among 570 put up for auction Tuesday. About 40 percent of the auctioned fish came from abroad, including from Indonesia and Mexico, the representative said.

Japan is the world's biggest consumer of seafood with Japanese eating 80 percent of the Atlantic and Pacific bluefins caught. The two tuna species are the most sought after by sushi lovers.

However, tuna consumption in Japan has declined because of a prolonged economic slump as the world's second-largest economy struggles to shake off its worst recession since World War II.

"Consumers are shying away from eating tuna ... We are very worried about the trend," the market representative said.

Apart from falling demand for tuna, wholesalers are worried about growing calls for tighter fishing rules amid declining tuna stocks.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas in November slashed the quota for the 2010 catch by about one-third to 13,500 tons (12,250 metric tons) - a move criticized by environmentalists as not going far enough.

Sources: Bomber at CIA base was a double agent

2010-01-04T07:00:00.000-08:00

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January 4, 2010

WASHINGTON (AP) — The suicide bomber who killed eight people inside a CIA base in Afghanistan was a Jordan-born terrorist double agent who was invited to the base because he claimed to have information targeting Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a foreign government official confirmed Monday

The bombing killed seven CIA employees — four officers and three contracted security guards — and a Jordanian intelligence officer, Ali bin Zaid, according to a second former U.S. intelligence official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the incident.

The former senior intelligence official and the foreign official said the bomber was Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year old doctor from Zarqa, Jordan, who had been recruited by Jordanian intelligence. Zarqa is the hometown of slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. NBC News first reported the bomber's identity.

He was arrested more than a year ago by Jordanian intelligence and was thought to have been persuaded to support U.S. and Jordanian efforts against al-Qaida, according to the NBC report. He was invited to Camp Chapman, a tightly secured CIA forward base in Khost province on the fractious Afghan-Pakistan frontier, because he was offering urgent information to track down Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's right-hand man.

The CIA declined to comment on the report.

Hajj Yacoub, a self-proclaimed spokesman for the Taliban in Pakistan, identified the bomber on Muslim militant Web sites as Hammam Khalil Mohammed, also known as Abu-Dujana al-Khurasani. There was no independent confirmation of Yacoub's statement.

Al-Balawi was not searched for bombs when he got onto Camp Chapman, according to both former officials and a current intelligence official.

He detonated the explosive shortly after his debriefing began, according to one of the former intelligence officials. In addition to the eight dead, there were at least six wounded, according to the CIA.The bodies of seven CIA employees arrived Monday at Dover Air Force Base in a small private ceremony attended by CIA Director Leon Panetta, other agency and national security officials, and friends and family, said CIA spokesman George Little.

" These patriots courageously served their nation. The agency extends its gratitude to the United States military for their unwavering support since the attack, including their assistance at Dover," Little said in a statement issued Monday.

The former senior intelligence official said one of the big unanswered questions is why so many people were present for the debriefing — the interview of the source — when the explosive was detonated.

A half-dozen former CIA officers told The Associated Press that in most cases, only one or two agency officers would typically meet with a possible informant along with an interpreter. Such small meetings would normally be used to limit the danger and the possible exposure of the identities of both officers and informants.

An online jihadist magazine in September 2009 posted an interview with al-Balawi, according to SITE Monitoring Service, a terrorist watch group that reads and translates messages on extremist forums.

SITE said Monday that al-Balawi used his pseudonym — identified as Khorsani — in the postings, describing how he rose through the ranks of online jihadist forums. He said he went to Afghanistan to fight, and he exhorted others to do violence.

"No words are more eloquent than those proven by acts, so that if that Muslim survives, he will be one who proves his words with acts. If he dies in the Cause of Allah, he will grant his words glory that will be permanent marks on the path to guide to jihad, with permission from Allah," al-Balawi wrote, according to SITE's translation.

A Jordanian government official, who was not authorized to speak to the press, said the Jordanian government has no connection to the bomber. The official said the Jordanian government had not verified whether the bomber was Jordanian.The Taliban's Yacoub said the Jordanian intelligence officer, bin Zaid, was helping the CIA recruit agents to spy on al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Bin Zaid allegedly recruited the suicide bomber.

Jordan's state news agency Petra identified bin Zaid as an army officer on a humanitarian mission in Afghanistan. It said he was killed Wednesday evening "as a martyr while performing the sacred duty of the Jordanian forces in Afghanistan." It did not provide other details.

The Jordanian military released a brief statement acknowledging bin Zaid had been killed in Afghanistan, but it did not mention he was working with Jordanian intelligence or cooperating with the CIA.

Bin Zaid's family declined to comment.

Bin Zaid is known to be a relative of Jordan's King Abdullah II. He held the title of sharif, or nobleman, which was bestowed upon him by the Jordanian monarch.

King Abdullah and other members of the royal family received Bin Zaid's body, which was repatriated Saturday in a private ceremony. His wake was held in the Royal Palace.

The death of bin Zaid underscored the close relationship between the Jordanian intelligence service and the CIA in the U.S. global war on terrorism.

Jordan is known to have acted as a proxy jailer for the CIA in 2004, when Jordanian intelligence officers interrogated several al-Qaida militants who were flew in on rendition flights from Guantanamo Bay.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch and several other watchdogs rebuked Jordan for what they described then as systematic torture of the detainees. Jordan denied the link to the CIA and the abuse allegations.

A key U.S. ally in the Mideast, Jordan also contributed valuable intelligence data to the United States, which helped track down the former al-Qaida in Iraq leader, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in 2006. Al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq in June that year.

5 myths about keeping America safe from terrorism

2010-01-03T10:00:00.000-08:00

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By Stephen Flynn
Sunday, January 3, 2010

With President Obama declaring a "systemic failure" of our security system in the wake of the attempted Christmas bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner, familiar arguments about what can and should be done to reduce America's vulnerabilities are again filling the airwaves, editorial pages and blogosphere. Several of these arguments are based on assumptions that guided the U.S. response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- and unfortunately, they are as unfounded now as they were then. The biggest whopper of all? The paternalistic assertion that the government can keep us all safe without our help.

1. Terrorism is the gravest threat facing the American people.

Americans are at far greater risk of being killed in accidents or by viruses than by acts of terrorism. In 2008, more than 37,300 Americans perished on the nation's highways, according to government data. Even before H1N1, a similar number of people died each year from the seasonal flu. Terrorism is a real and potentially consequential danger. But the greatest threat isn't posed by the direct harm terrorists could inflict; it comes from what we do to ourselves when we are spooked. It is how we react -- or more precisely, how we overreact -- to the threat of terrorism that makes it an appealing tool for our adversaries. By grounding commercial aviation and effectively closing our borders after the 2001 attacks, Washington accomplished something no foreign state could have hoped to achieve: a blockade on the economy of the world's sole superpower. While we cannot expect to be completely successful at intercepting terrorist attacks, we must get a better handle on how we respond when they happen.

2. When it comes to preventing terrorism, the only real defense is a good offense.

The cornerstone of the Bush administration's approach to dealing with the terrorist threat was to take the battle to the enemy. But offense has its limits. We still aren't generating sufficiently accurate and timely tactical intelligence to adequately support U.S. counterterrorism efforts overseas. And going after terrorists abroad hardly means they won't manage to strike us at home. Just days before the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253, the United States collaborated with the Yemeni government on raids against al-Qaeda militants there. The group known as al-Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula is now claiming responsibility for having equipped and trained Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who allegedly tried to blow up the flight. The group is also leveraging the raids to recruit militants and mount protests against Yemen's already fragile central government.

At the same time, an emphasis on offense has often come at the expense of investing in effective defensive measures, such as maintaining quality watch lists, sharing information about threats, safeguarding such critical assets as the nation's food and energy supplies, and preparing for large-scale emergencies. After authorities said Abdulmutallab had hidden explosives in his underwear, airline screeners held up flights to do stepped-up passenger pat-downs at boarding gates -- pat-downs that inevitably avoided passengers' crotches and buttocks. This kind of quick fix only tends to fuel public cynicism about security efforts. But if we can implement smart security measures ahead of time (such as requiring refineries next to densely populated areas to use safer chemicals when they manufacture high-octane gas), we won't be incapacitated when terrorists strike. Strengthening our national ability to withstand and rapidly recover from terrorism will make the United States a less appealing target. In combating terrorism, as in sports, success requires both a capable offense and a strong defense.

3. Getting better control over America's borders is essential to making us safer.

Our borders will never serve as a meaningful line of defense against terrorism. The inspectors at our ports, border crossings and airports have important roles when it comes to managing immigration and the flow of commerce, but they play only a bit part in stopping would-be attackers. This is because terrorist threats do not originate at our land borders with Mexico and Canada, nor along our 12,000 miles of coastline. They originate at home as well as abroad, and they exploit global networks such as the transportation system that moved 500 million cargo containers through the world's ports in 2008. Moreover, terrorists' travel documents are often in perfect order. This was the case with Abdulmutallab, as well as with shoe-bomber Richard Reid in 2001. Complaints about porous borders may play well politically, but they distract us from the more challenging task of forging international cooperation to strengthen safeguards for our global transportation, travel and financial systems. They also sidestep the disturbing fact that the number of terrorism-related cases involving U.S. residents reached a new high in 2009.

4. Investing in new technology is key to better security.

Not necessarily. Technology can be helpful, but too often it ends up being part of the problem. Placing too much reliance on sophisticated tools such as X-ray machines often leaves the people staffing our front lines consumed with monitoring and troubleshooting these systems. Consequently, they become more caught up in process than outcomes. And as soon procedures become routine, a determined bad guy can game them. We would do well to heed two lessons the U.S. military has learned from combating insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan: First, don't do things in rote and predictable ways, and second, don't alienate the people you are trying to protect. Too much of what is promoted as homeland security disregards these lessons. It is true that technology such as full-body imaging machines, which have received so much attention in the past week, are far more effective than metal detectors at screening airline passengers. But new technologies are also expensive, and they are no substitute for well-trained professionals who are empowered and rewarded for exercising good judgment.

5. Average citizens aren't an effective bulwark against terrorist attacks.

Elite pundits and policymakers routinely dismiss the ability of ordinary people to respond effectively when they are in harm's way. It's ironic that this misconception has animated much of the government's approach to homeland security since Sept. 11, 2001, given that the only successful counterterrorist action that day came from the passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93. These passengers didn't have the help of federal air marshals. The Defense Department's North American Aerospace Defense Command didn't intercept the plane -- it didn't even know the airliner had been hijacked. But by charging the cockpit over rural Pennsylvania, these private citizens prevented al-Qaeda terrorists from reaching their likely target of the U.S. Capitol or the White House. The government leaders whose constitutional duty is "to provide for the common defense" were defended by one thing alone -- an alert and heroic citizenry.

This misconception is particularly reckless because it ends up sidelining the greatest asset we have for managing the terrorism threat: the average people who are best positioned to detect and respond to terrorist activities. We have only to look to the attempted Christmas Day attack to validate this truth. Once again it was the government that fell short, not ordinary people. A concerned Nigerian father, not the CIA or the National Security Agency, came forward with crucial information. And the courageous actions of the Dutch film director Jasper Schuringa and other passengers and crew members aboard Flight 253 thwarted the attack.

Stephen Flynn is the president of the Center for National Policy and author of "The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation."

Iraqis furious as Blackwater charges dismissed

2010-01-02T22:00:00.000-08:00

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Rebecca Santana, Associated Press

Saturday, January 2, 2010

(01-02) 04:00 PST Baghdad - --

Iraqis seeking justice for 17 people shot dead at a Baghdad intersection responded with bitterness and outrage Friday at a U.S. judge's decision to throw out a case against a Blackwater security team accused in the killings.

The Iraqi government vowed to pursue the case, which became a source of contention between the United States and the Iraqi government. Many Iraqis also held up the judge's decision as proof of what they'd long believed: U.S. security contractors were above the law.

"There is no justice," said Bura Sadoun Ismael, who was wounded by two bullets and shrapnel during the shooting. "I expected the American court would side with the Blackwater security guards who committed a massacre in Nisoor Square."

What happened on Nisoor Square on Sept. 16, 2007, raised Iraqi concerns about their sovereignty because Iraqi officials were powerless to do anything to the Blackwater employees who had immunity from local prosecution. The shootings also highlighted the degree to which the United States relied on private contractors during the Iraq conflict.

Blackwater had been hired by the State Department to protect U.S. diplomats. The guards said they were ambushed at a busy intersection in western Baghdad, but U.S. prosecutors and many Iraqis said the Blackwater guards let loose an unprovoked attack on civilians using machine guns and grenades.

"Investigations conducted by specialized Iraqi authorities confirmed unequivocally that the guards of Blackwater committed the crime of murder and broke the rules by using arms without the existence of any threat obliging them to use force," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement Friday.

He did not elaborate on what steps the government planned to take to pursue the case.

The shootings led the Iraqi government to strip the North Carolina-based company of its license to work in the country, and Blackwater replaced its management and changed its name to Xe Services.

Five guards from the company were charged in the case with manslaughter and weapons violations. The charges carried mandatory 30-year prison terms, but a federal judge Friday dismissed all the charges. U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina cited repeated government missteps in the investigation, saying that prosecutors built their case on sworn statements that the guards had given with the idea that they would be immune from prosecution.

Dozens of Iraqis have filed a separate lawsuit alleging that Blackwater employees engaged in indiscriminate killings and beatings. That civil case was not affected by Urbina's decision and is still before a Virginia court.

This article appeared on page A - 2 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Source: CIA Suicide Bomber Invited on Base

2009-12-31T19:00:00.000-08:00

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Bomber who Killed 7 CIA Employees at Afghan Base Was Apparently Being Courted as an Informant

(CBS/AP) Last updated at 6:47 p.m. EST

The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees and wounded six more at a remote outpost in southeastern Afghanistan had been invited onto the base and had not been searched, two former U.S. officials have told The Associated Press.

A former senior intelligence official says the man was being courted as an informant and that it was the first time he had been brought inside the camp.

The official says a senior and experienced CIA debriefer came from Kabul for the meeting, suggesting that the purpose of the session was to gain intelligence.

The former intelligence officials and another former official with knowledge of the attack spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The Central Intelligence Agency would not confirm the details, and said it was still gathering evidence.

"It's far too early to draw conclusions about something that happened just yesterday," said spokesman George Little.

A separate U.S. official suggested the bomber may have set off the explosives as he was about to be searched.

The bombing was expected to deal a major psychological blow to the spy agency, if not its ability to collect valuable intelligence on Taliban and al Qaeda forces operating along Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan. Officials credit the base with providing some of the intelligence which has enabled CIA drone strikes to eliminate much of al Qaeda's top leadership, reports CBS News correspondent David Marin.

The New York Times reports that the victims were responsible for collecting information about militant networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and plotting missions to kill the networks’ top leaders.

CBSNews.com Special Report: Afghanistan

Martin reports Afghan soldiers and civilians are present at almost every American outpost since one of the chief principals of the U.S. strategy is to partner with the Afghans. According to Christine Fair of Georgetown University, some of them may actually be working for the Taliban.

"They have really become a vehicle of infiltration for the Taliban," Fair said. "This is most certainly a vulnerability in our strategy going forward in trying to hand over security to the Afghans," said Fair; "If we don't really have a way of figuring out who we can trust."

CIA Director Leon Panetta said in a message to agency staff that the casualties sustained in Wednesday's strike at Forward Operating Base Chapman were the result of a terrorist attack.

Initial reports indicated that eight American civilians had been killed. There was no explanation for the discrepancy in Panetta's message, which was released by the CIA in an unusual step a day after one of the deadliest attacks on the Central Intelligence Agency in its history.

"Those who fell yesterday were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism," Panetta said. "We owe them our deepest gratitude, and we pledge to them and their families that we will never cease fighting for the cause to which they dedicated their lives - a safer America."

"Yesterday's tragedy reminds us that the men and women of the CIA put their lives at risk every day to protect this nation," he said. "Throughout our history, the reality is that those who make a real difference often face real danger."

No further information about the victims would be released," the CIA director said, "due to the sensitivity of their mission and other ongoing operations."

President Barack Obama said the killed CIA employees come from a "long line of patriots" whose courageous service has helped to thwart terrorist plots and save lives.

In a letter to CIA employees released by the agency, Mr. Obama said the U.S. would not be able to maintain its freedom and security without their service. He also noted that the spy agency has been tested "as never before" since the Sept. 11 attacks.

© MMIX, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

General insists Hmong head home voluntarily

2009-12-29T02:00:00.000-08:00

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Govt says deportation 'is for their own good'
* Published: 29/12/2009 at 12:00 AM

The Huay Nam Khao camp in Phetchabun has closed its doors after it was cleared Monday of nearly 4,000 ethnic Hmong.

Just over 100 Hmong were left Monday night awaiting deportation to Laos, said the Royal Thai Armed Force Headquarters' deputy chief of joint staff, Worapong Sanganetra.

Gen Worapong insisted all the Hmong had left for Laos voluntarily.

The deportations began at 4am.

About 110 trucks and buses joined together in convoys to carry the ethnic Hmong across the border to Laos.

The first vehicles arrived at the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge in Nong Khai about 5pm, while the last was expected to have arrived about 3am today, officials involved in the operation said.

Thailand and Laos will hold a joint press conference on the operation this morning at Paksan town in Laos.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said the deportations had gone smoothly and there had been no resistance from the Hmong.

People pray before they are sent back to Laos.

He stressed the need to send them all back to Laos given the peaceful situation along the Thai-Laos border.

The prime minister said that if the US wanted to offer the Hmong third-country resettlement, it could contact Laos directly.

Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said the government was confident Laos would keep its word to improve the Hmong's quality of life.

He rejected human rights groups' claims the deportation would do them more harm than good.

Thailand had not sent the Hmong to jail but set them on a path to a better life before they can be resettled in a third country, Mr Kasit said.

Rights groups and some countries have voiced concern that the Hmong could be persecuted after their return to Laos.

"Why not have trust in Laos?" Mr Kasit asked.

"Western countries do not trust in the cooperation between Thailand and Laos and between the peoples of the two countries.

"Don't look down on us.

"The Lao government has no intention whatsoever to kill its people."

The minister said it had been proved the 3,000 Hmong who had previously been deported to Laos now had a better life.He said Thailand was ready to provide financial support to improve the lives of the Hmong.

Tug Grounded on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound

2009-12-24T21:00:00.000-08:00

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Steve Brawn

Story Created: Dec 24, 2009 at 4:04 PM AKST

Story Updated: Dec 24, 2009 at 4:04 PM AKST

Cleanup has begun after a 136-foot tug doing an ice survey in Prince William Sound grounded on Bligh Reef - the same reef that played a big part in the Exxon Valdez oil tanker disaster in 1989.

The tug's fuel tanks contain an estimated 33,500 gallons, and some amount of that fuel has been spilled but the amount is not yet known.

The Coast Guard says the tugboat's crew deployed 200-feet of fuel containment booms around the vessel after clearing the reef and continuing to deeper waters Wednesday evening.

The Coast Guard says a fuel sheen has been observed that is about 3 miles long and 30 yards wide that drifted away from the vessel. There is no sheen visible around the tug.

The Coast Guard says an oil response vessel has arrived and is skimming the water near the diesel sheen.

A Fish Oil Story

2009-12-15T20:57:00.000-08:00

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By PAUL GREENBERG
Published: December 15, 2009

“WHAT’S the deal with fish oil?”

If you are someone who catches and eats a lot of fish, as I am, you get adept at answering questions about which fish are safe, which are sustainable and which should be avoided altogether. But when this fish oil question arrived in my inbox recently, I was stumped. I knew that concerns about overfishing had prompted many consumers to choose supplements as a guilt-free way of getting their omega-3 fatty acids, which studies show lower triglycerides and the risk of heart attack. But I had never looked into the fish behind the oil and whether it was fit, morally or environmentally speaking, to be consumed.

The deal with fish oil, I found out, is that a considerable portion of it comes from a creature upon which the entire Atlantic coastal ecosystem relies, a big-headed, smelly, foot-long member of the herring family called menhaden, which a recent book identifies in its title as “The Most Important Fish in the Sea.”

The book’s author, H. Bruce Franklin, compares menhaden to the passenger pigeon and related to me recently how his research uncovered that populations were once so large that “the vanguard of the fish’s annual migration would reach Cape Cod while the rearguard was still in Maine.” Menhaden filter-feed nearly exclusively on algae, the most abundant forage in the world, and are prolifically good at converting that algae into omega-3 fatty acids and other important proteins and oils. They also form the basis of the Atlantic Coast’s marine food chain.

Nearly every fish a fish eater likes to eat eats menhaden. Bluefin tuna, striped bass, redfish and bluefish are just a few of the diners at the menhaden buffet. All of these fish are high in omega-3 fatty acids but are unable themselves to synthesize them. The omega-3s they have come from menhaden.

But menhaden are entering the final losing phases of a century-and-a-half fight for survival that began when humans started turning huge schools into fertilizer and lamp oil. Once petroleum-based oils replaced menhaden oil in lamps, trillions of menhaden were ground into feed for hogs, chickens and pets. Today, hundreds of billions of pounds of them are converted into lipstick, salmon feed, paint, “buttery spread,” salad dressing and, yes, some of those omega-3 supplements you have been forcing on your children. All of these products can be made with more environmentally benign substitutes, but menhaden are still used in great (though declining) numbers because they can be caught and processed cheaply.

For the last decade, one company, Omega Protein of Houston, has been catching 90 percent of the nation’s menhaden. The perniciousness of menhaden removals has been widely enough recognized that 13 of the 15 Atlantic states have banned Omega Protein’s boats from their waters. But the company’s toehold in North Carolina and Virginia (where it has its largest processing plant), and its continued right to fish in federal waters, means a half-billion menhaden are still taken from the ecosystem every year.

For fish guys like me, this egregious privatization of what is essentially a public resource is shocking. But even if you are not interested in fish, there is an important reason for concern about menhaden’s decline.

Quite simply, menhaden keep the water clean. The muddy brown color of the Long Island Sound and the growing dead zones in the Chesapeake Bay are the direct result of inadequate water filtration — a job that was once carried out by menhaden. An adult menhaden can rid four to six gallons of water of algae in a minute. Imagine then the water-cleaning capacity of the half-billion menhaden we “reduce” into oil every year.

So what is the seeker of omega-3 supplements to do? Bruce Franklin points out that there are 75 commercial products — including fish-oil pills made from fish discards — that don’t contribute directly to the depletion of a fishery. Flax oil also fits the bill and uses no fish at all.

But I’ve come to realize that, as with many issues surrounding fish, more powerful fulcrums than consumer choice need to be put in motion to fix things. President Obama and the Congressional leadership have repeatedly stressed their commitment to wresting the wealth of the nation from the hands of a few. A demonstration of this commitment would be to ban the fishing of menhaden in federal waters. The Virginia Legislature could enact a similar moratorium in the Chesapeake Bay (the largest menhaden nursery in the world).

The menhaden is a small fish that in its multitudes plays such a big role in our economy and environment that its fate shouldn’t be effectively controlled by a single company and its bottles of fish oil supplements. If our government is serious about standing up for the little guy, it should start by giving a little, but crucial, fish a fair deal.

Paul Greenberg is the author of the forthcoming “Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food.”
» A version of this article appeared in print on December 16, 2009, on page A43 of the New York edition.

Viruses That Leave Victims Red in the Facebook

2009-12-13T19:00:00.000-08:00

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By BRAD STONE
Published: December 13, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO — It used to be that computer viruses attacked only your hard drive. Now they attack your dignity.

Jodi Chapman clicked on a Twitter message last month to take an online intelligence test, causing her own account to be hijacked.

Matt Marquess’s Twitter account sent out messages for days.

Malicious programs are rampaging through Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, spreading themselves by taking over people’s accounts and sending out messages to all of their friends and followers. The result is that people are inadvertently telling their co-workers and loved ones how to raise their I.Q.’s or make money instantly, or urging them to watch an awesome new video in which they star.

“I wonder what people are thinking of me right now?” said Matt Marquess, an employee at a public relations firm in San Francisco whose Twitter account was recently hijacked, showering his followers with messages that appeared to offer a $500 gift card to Victoria’s Secret.

Mr. Marquess was clueless about the offers until a professional acquaintance asked him about them via e-mail. Confused, he logged in to his account and noticed he had been promoting lingerie for five days.

“No one had said anything to me,” he said. “I thought, how long have I been Twittering about underwear?”

The humiliation sown by these attacks is just collateral damage. In most cases, the perpetrators are hoping to profit from the referral fees they get for directing people to sketchy e-commerce sites.

In other words, even the crooks are on social networks now — because millions of tightly connected potential victims are just waiting for them there.

Often the victims lose control of their accounts after clicking on a link “sent” by a friend. In other cases, the bad guys apparently scan for accounts with easily guessable passwords. (Mr. Marquess gamely concedes that his password at the time was “abc123.”)

After discovering their accounts have been seized, victims typically renounce the unauthorized messages publicly, apologizing for inadvertently bombarding their friends. These messages — one might call them Tweets of shame — convey a distinct mix of guilt, regret and embarrassment.

“I have been hacked; taking evasive maneuvers. Much apology, my friends,” wrote Rocky Barbanica, a producer for Rackspace Hosting, an Internet storage firm, in one such note.

Mr. Barbanica sent that out last month after realizing he had sent messages to 250 Twitter followers with a link and the sentence, “Are you in this picture?” If they clicked, their Twitter accounts were similarly commandeered.

“I took it personally, which I shouldn’t have, but that’s the natural feeling. It’s insulting,” he said.

Earlier malicious programs could also cause a similar measure of embarrassment if they spread themselves through a person’s e-mail address book.

But those messages, traveling from computer to computer, were more likely to be stopped by antivirus or firewall software. On the Web, such measures offer little protection. (Although they are popularly referred to as viruses or worms, the new forms of Web-based malicious programs do not technically fall into those categories, as they are not self-contained programs.)

Getting tangled up in a virus on a social network is also more painfully, and instantaneously, public. “Once it’s delivered to everyone in three seconds, the cat is out of the bag,” said Chet Wisniewski of Sophos, a Web security firm. “When people got viruses on their computers, or fell for scams at home, they were generally the only ones that knew about it and they cleaned it up themselves. It wasn’t broadcast to the whole world.”

Social networks have become prime targets of such programs’ creators for good reason, security experts say. People implicitly trust the messages they receive from friends, and are inclined to overlook the fact that, say, their cousin from Ohio is extremely unlikely to have caught them on a hidden webcam.

Sophos says that 21 percent of Web users report that they have been a target of malicious programs on social networks. Kaspersky Labs, a Russian security firm, says that on some days, one in 500 links on Twitter point to bad sites that can infect an inadequately protected computer with typical viruses that jam hard drives. Kaspersky says many more links are purely spam, frequently leading to dating sites that pay referral fees for traffic.

A worm that spread around Facebook recently featured a photo of a sparsely dressed woman and offered a link to “see more.” Adi Av, a computer developer in Ashkelon, Israel, encountered the image on the Facebook page of a friend he considered to be a reliable source of amusing Internet content.

A couple of clicks later, the image was posted on Mr. Av’s Facebook profile and sent to the “news feed” of his 350 friends.

“It’s an honest mistake,” he said. “The main embarrassment was from the possibility of other people getting into the same trouble from my profile page.”

Others confess to experiencing a more serious discomfiture.

“You feel like a total idiot,” said Jodi Chapman, who last month unwisely clicked on a Twitter message from a fellow vegan, suggesting that she take an online intelligence test.

Ms. Chapman, who sells environmentally friendly gifts with her husband, uses her Twitter account to communicate with thousands of her company’s customers. The hijacking “filled me with a sense of panic,” she said. “I was so worried that I had somehow tainted our company name by asking people to check their I.Q. scores.”

Social networking attacks do not spare the experts. Two weeks ago, Lee Rainey, director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a nonprofit research group, accidentally sent messages to dozens of his Twitter followers with a link and the line, “Hi, is this you? LOL.” He said a few people actually clicked.

“I’m worried that people will think I communicate this way,” Mr. Rainey said. “ ‘LOL,’ as my children would tell you, is not the style that I want to engage the world with.”
A version of this article appeared in print on December 14, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition.

Diabetes Cases Expected to Double in 25 Years

2009-11-27T20:00:00.000-08:00

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Soaring rates to bring unprecedented medical, economic burdens, study predicts

By Jennifer Thomas
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, Nov. 27 (HealthDay News) -- The number of people with diabetes in the United States is expected to double over the next 25 years, a new study predicts.

That would bring the total by 2034 to about 44.1 million people with the disease, up from 23.7 million today.

At the same time, the cost of treating people with diabetes will triple, the study also warns, rising from an estimated $113 billion in 2009 to $336 billion in 2034.

One factor driving the soaring costs: the number of people living with diabetes for lengthy periods, the researchers said. Over time, the cost of caring for someone with diabetes tends to rise along with their risk for developing complications, such as end-stage renal disease, which requires dialysis.

"We believe our model provides a more precise estimate of what the population size will look like and what it will cost the country and government programs like Medicare," said study author Dr. Elbert Huang, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago.

Prior forecasts, including the ones currently used by the federal government's budget analysts, have underestimated the burden, the researchers said. A 1991 study, for example, predicted that 11.6 million people would have diabetes in 2030. In 2009, there were already more than twice that many living with diabetes.

"In a similar way, we may be underestimating what's happening, which is actually very disturbing," Huang said.

Among Medicare beneficiaries, the number with diabetes is expected to rise from 8.2 million to 14.6 million in 2034, with an accompanying rise in spending from $45 billion to $171 billion.

"That essentially means that in 2034, half of all direct spending on diabetes care will be coming from the Medicare population," Huang said.

The study is published in the December issue of Diabetes Care.

The high cost of chronic disease is one of the most pressing issues facing the United States as legislators grapple with financial strains on Medicare and the larger issue of health-care reform, the researchers say.

Factors driving the increase in diabetes cases include the aging population and continued high rates of obesity, both of which are risk factors for type 2 diabetes, in which the body does not produce enough insulin or the cells don't use it correctly. In the study, the researchers assumed that the obesity rate would remain relatively stable, topping out at about 30 percent in the next decade and then declining slightly to about 27 percent in 2033.

Dr. David Kendall, chief scientific and medical officer for the American Diabetes Association, said the study is one of several recent papers predicting a dramatic rise in the incidence of diabetes. And though which methodology provides the most accurate predictions is open to debate, he said, the overarching message is that steps need to be taken to prevent diabetes from overwhelming an already overburdened health-care system.

"This is, in a sense, evidence of an iceberg," Kendall said. "What we are seeing currently is only a fraction of the potential future risk."

In making their estimates, the researchers used data on people 24 to 85 years old who took part in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and the National Health Interview Study.

"This is clearly a very pressing problem," said study co-author Michael O'Grady, a senior fellow at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. "It's one of the few chronic illnesses we have that is growing, and the cost of doing nothing is going to be quite high."

Matt Peterson, director of information resources at the American Diabetes Association, said that community-based intervention programs that include dietary counseling and exercise, such as walking for 30 minutes most days of the week, can help combat the trend.

"We're not talking about massive weight loss or for everyone to become marathon runners," Peterson said. "We are talking about modest weight loss of 10 to 15 pounds. It's a challenge, but it's an achievable goal."

For those with diabetes, the American Diabetes Association recommends modest weight loss, increased physical activity, maintaining A1C (blood sugar) levels below 7, cholesterol control and blood pressure control to prevent complications.

More information

The American Diabetes Association has more on living with diabetes.

SOURCES: Elbert Huang, M.D., assistant professor, medicine, University of Chicago Medical Center, Chicago; Michael O'Grady, Ph.D., senior fellow, National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago; Matt Peterson, director, information resources, American Diabetes Association, Alexandria, Va.; David Kendall, M.D., chief scientific and medical officer, American Diabetes Association, Alexandria, Va.; December 2009 Diabetes Care

Last Updated: Nov. 27, 2009

Experts: Bishops covered up priests' child abuse

2009-11-26T20:30:00.000-08:00

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By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
The Associated Press
Thursday, November 26, 2009; 6:12 PM

DUBLIN -- Roman Catholic Church leaders in Dublin spent decades sheltering child-abusing priests from the law and most fellow clerics turned a blind eye, an investigation ordered by Ireland's government concluded Thursday.

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who handed over more than 60,000 previously secret church files to the three-year investigation, said he felt deep shame and sorrow for how previous archbishops presided over endemic child abuse - yet claimed afterward not to understand the gravity of their sins.

Martin said his four predecessors in Ireland's capital, including retired Cardinal Desmond Connell, must have understood that priests' molestation and rape of boys and girls "was a crime in both civil and canon law. For some reason or another they felt they could deal with all this in little worlds of their own.

"They were wrong, and children were left to suffer."

There was a similarly shocking investigation into decades of unchecked child abuse in Irish schools, workhouses and orphanages run nationwide by 19 Catholic orders of nuns, priests and brothers.

That report in May sought to document the scale of abuse as well as the reasons why church and state authorities didn't stop it, whereas Thursday's 720-page report focused on why church leaders in the Dublin Archdiocese - home to a quarter of Ireland's 4 million Catholics - did not tell police about a single abuse complaint against a priest until 1995.

By then, the investigators found, successive archbishops and their senior deputies - among them qualified lawyers - already had compiled confidential files on more than 100 parish priests who had sexually abused children since 1940. Those files had remained locked in the Dublin archbishop's private vault.

The investigators also dug up a paper trail documenting the church's long-secret insurance policy, taken out in 1987, to cover potential lawsuits and compensation demands. Dublin church leaders publicly denied the existence of the problem for a decade afterward - but since the mid-1990s have paid out more than euro10 million ($15 million) in settlements and legal bills.

The report cited documents showing how church officials learned about some cases only when devoutly Catholic police received complaints from children or their parents - but handed responsibility back to church leaders to sort out the problems themselves.

Thursday's report detailed "sample" cases of 46 priests who faced 320 documented complaints, although the investigators said they were confident that the priests had abused many more children than that. They cited testimony from one priest who admitted abusing more than 100 children, and another priest who said he abused a child approximately every two weeks for 25 years.

Just 11 of the 46 ultimately were convicted of abusing children - typically decades after church leaders learned of their crimes - while two others are scheduled to face Dublin criminal court actions within months. Fourteen are dead and most of the rest have been defrocked or barred from parish duties. Just six are still active priests.

Three Dublin archbishops - John Charles McQuaid (1940-72), Dermot Ryan (1972-84) and Kevin McNamara (1985-87) - did not tell police about clerical abuse cases, instead opting to avoid public scandals by shuttling offenders from parish to parish and even overseas to U.S. churches, the commission found.
It was not until 1995 that then-Archbishop Connell allowed police to see church files on 17 clerical abuse cases. At that time, Connell actually held records of complaints against at least 29 priests, the report found. Connell later pursued a lawsuit against the investigators in an abandoned bid to keep them from seeing more than 5,500 files documenting the church's knowledge of abusive priests.

The report said all four archbishops sought "the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church, and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities."

The investigators lauded a handful of priests and mostly low-ranking police who pursued complaints and prosecutions, almost always unsuccessfully, from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Senior police officers "clearly regarded priests as being outside their remit" and handed "complaints to the archdiocese instead of investigating them," the report said.

"A few (priests) were courageous and brought complaints to the attention of their superiors. The vast majority simply chose to turn a blind eye," it said.

Ireland's police commander, Commissioner Fachtna Murphy, said he was "deeply sorry" to read that his force failed to provide victims of abusive priests "the level of response or protection which any citizen in trouble is entitled to expect."

The government also apologized for the state's failure to pursue Dublin priests accused of child abuse until recent years.

Justice Minister Dermot Ahern, who received the Dublin Archdiocese report in July but delayed its publication for legal vetting, vowed that the state would never again treat the Catholic Church with deference.

"A priest's collar will protect no criminal," he said.

But pressure groups representing more than 15,000 documented victims of abuse by Irish Catholic officials said the government was not doing enough to end the danger of Catholic child abuse - in part because the law still stops short of requiring bishops to report abuse complaints to police.

Maeve Lewis, executive director of an Irish abuse counseling service called One in Four, noted that not a single person in Ireland has been convicted for "recklessly endangering" children, a crime created in 2006 legislation.

Lewis said the archbishops, bishops, monsignors, police and government health officials who suppressed abuse complaints for decades had never faced criminal investigations "even though they are every bit as guilty as the priests who committed the abuse."

And she forecast that, because abused children often do not seek justice until they reach adulthood, children today were still being abused by priests. "It's very likely in 10 or 15 years' time that the children who are being abused today will bring forward allegations," she said.

"As Irish people we like to think we live in a civilized society," she said, "but we need to hang our heads in shame."

---

On the Net:
Report,http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/PB09000504

Republicans considering ideological purity test for candidates

2009-11-24T20:00:00.000-08:00

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Tue Nov 24, 3:57 pm ET

Ten members of the Republican National Committee are proposing a resolution demanding candidates embrace at least eight of 10 conservative principles if they hope to receive financial support and an official endorsement from the RNC. The "Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates," is designed to force candidates to prove that they support "conservative principles" while opposing "Obama's socialist agenda," according to The New York Times' Caucus blog. The proposal highlights the ongoing tug-of-war for the ideological soul of the Republican party, and has been met with skepticism both inside and outside of the party.

Some are speculating that the move was inspired by the GOP’s recent loss in New York's 23rd House race, a seat the party had held since the 1800s. That contest saw Dede Scozzafava, a moderate Republican endorsed by the RNC, driven out of the race in favor of Doug Hoffman, a more conservative candidate backed by the likes of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. After Scozzafava dropped out of the race, the RNC endorsed Hoffman, who went on to lose to the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens.

James Bopp Jr., an Indiana attorney, initiated the resolution, saying that "conservatives have lost trust in the Republican party." Bopp Jr., who floated a failed proposal earlier this year demanding that Democrats rename their party the "Democrat Socialist Party," was joined by 10 RNC co-sponsors. The group says they cited Ronald Reagan in naming the resolution because the former president said that "someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent." The ten guidelines, distributed to RNC members in recent weeks, are as follows:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership;

Predictably, the proposed resolution has elicited derision from all corners of the political spectrum, including the right wing. In criticizing the proposal, conservative blogger Erick Erickson says that Republicans "risk giving liberal candidates easy opportunities to get conservative endorsements simply by checking the box without ever meaning it," adding that the measure is essentially hollow because the "GOP cannot live up to its own platform adopted at a national convention, it sure as heck won’t live up to any pledge put forward by a group of RNC committeemen."

Meanwhile, liberal blogger Steve Benen wonders if Reagan himself would even pass the 80% threshold mandated by the resolution bearing his name, noting that Reagan "voted for several tax increases, began the modern era of massive federal debt, ran huge deficits, and approved an immigration measure the far-right still resents."

However, not everyone finds fault with it. A Republican strategist and former Bush White House official, who asked to remain anonymous, told Yahoo! News that the resolution "bodes well" because "Republicans are continuing to discuss policy positions and principles," adding "this should not be treated as a purge document - as the media is portraying it - but more of a document for discussion as Republicans attempt to rebuild the party in 2010."

Despite the debate that it’s already inspired, whether or not the resolution even gets voted on by the RNC's membership remains up in the air. A spokeswoman for RNC Chairman Michael Steele told The Wall Street Journal that until the deadline for submitting resolutions for the party's winter meeting is reached, "we do not know what resolutions will be submitted, nor what the final language of any resolution ultimately submitted may be."

-- Brett Michael Dykes is a contributor to the Yahoo! News Blog

Phys Ed: Why Doesn’t Exercise Lead to Weight Loss?

2009-11-04T20:30:00.000-08:00

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By Gretchen Reynolds

For some time, researchers have been finding that people who exercise don’t necessarily lose weight. A study published online in September in The British Journal of Sports Medicine was the latest to report apparently disappointing slimming results. In the study, 58 obese people completed 12 weeks of supervised aerobic training without changing their diets. The group lost an average of a little more than seven pounds, and many lost barely half that.

How can that be? Exercise, it seems, should make you thin. Activity burns calories. No one doubts that.

“Walking, even at a very easy pace, you’ll probably burn three or four calories a minute,” beyond what you would use quietly sitting in a chair, said Dan Carey, Ph.D., an assistant professor of exercise physiology at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, who studies exercise and metabolism.

But few people, an overwhelming body of research shows, achieve significant weight loss with exercise alone, not without changing their eating habits. A new study from scientists at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver offers some reasons why. For the study, the researchers recruited several groups of people. Some were lean endurance athletes; some sedentary and lean; some sedentary and obese. Each of the subjects agreed to spend, over the course of the experiment, several 24-hour periods in a special laboratory room (a walk-in calorimeter) that measures the number of calories a person burns. Using various calculations, the researchers could also tell whether the calories expended were in the form of fat or carbohydrates, the body’s two main fuel sources. Burning more fat than carbohydrates is obviously desirable for weight loss, since the fat being burned comes primarily from body fat stores, and we all, even the leanest among us, have plenty of those.

The Denver researchers were especially interested in how the athletes’ bodies would apportion and use calories. It has been well documented that regular endurance training increases the ability of the body to use fat as a fuel during exercise. They wondered, though, if the athletes — or any of the other subjects — would burn extra fat calories after exercising, a phenomenon that some exercisers (and even more diet and fitness books) call “afterburn.”

“Many people believe that you rev up” your metabolism after an exercise session “so that you burn additional body fat throughout the day,” said Edward Melanson, Ph.D., an associate professor in the division of endocrinology at the School of Medicine and the lead author of the study. If afterburn were found to exist, it would suggest that even if you replaced the calories you used during an exercise session, you should lose weight, without gaining weight — the proverbial free lunch.

Each of Melanson’s subjects spent 24 quiet hours in the calorimeter, followed later by another 24 hours that included an hourlong bout of stationary bicycling. The cycling was deliberately performed at a relatively easy intensity (about 55 percent of each person’s predetermined aerobic capacity). It is well known physiologically that, while high-intensity exercise demands mostly carbohydrate calories (since carbohydrates can quickly reach the bloodstream and, from there, laboring muscles), low-intensity exercise prompts the body to burn at least some stored fat. All of the subjects ate three meals a day.

To their surprise, the researchers found that none of the groups, including the athletes, experienced “afterburn.” They did not use additional body fat on the day when they exercised. In fact, most of the subjects burned slightly less fat over the 24-hour study period when they exercised than when they did not.

“The message of our work is really simple,” although not agreeable to hear, Melanson said. “It all comes down to energy balance,” or, as you might have guessed, calories in and calories out. People “are only burning 200 or 300 calories” in a typical 30-minute exercise session, Melanson points out. “You replace that with one bottle of Gatorade.”
Related

This does not mean that exercise has no impact on body weight, or that you can’t calibrate your workouts to maximize the amount of body fat that you burn, if that’s your goal.

“If you work out at an easy intensity, you will burn a higher percentage of fat calories” than if you work out a higher intensity, Carey says, so you should draw down some of the padding you’ve accumulated on the hips or elsewhere — if you don’t replace all of the calories afterward. To help those hoping to reduce their body fat, he published formulas in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research last month that detailed the heart rates at which a person could maximize fat burning. “Heart rates of between 105 and 134” beats per minute, Carey said, represent the fat-burning zone. “It’s probably best to work out near the top of that zone,” he says, “so that you burn more calories over all” than at the extremely leisurely lower end.

Perhaps just as important, bear in mind that exercise has benefits beyond weight reduction. In the study of obese people who took up exercise, most became notably healthier, increasing their aerobic capacity, decreasing their blood pressure and resting heart rates, and, the authors write, achieving “an acute exercise-induced increase in positive mood,” leading the authors to conclude that, “significant and meaningful health benefits can be achieved even in the presence of lower than expected exercise-induced weight loss.”

Finally and thankfully, exercise seems to aid, physiologically, in the battle to keep off body fat once it has been, through resolute calorie reduction, chiseled away. In other work by Melanson’s group, published in September, laboratory rats that had been overfed and then slimmed through calorie reduction were able to “defend” their lower weight more effectively if they ran on a treadmill and ate at will than if they had no access to a treadmill. The exercise seemed to reset certain metabolic pathways within the rats, Melanson says, that blunted their body’s drive to replace the lost fat. Similar mechanisms, he adds, probably operate within the bodies of humans, providing scientific justification for signing up for that Thanksgiving Day 5K.

Lieberman: Doing nothing on healthcare better than government-run option

2009-11-01T21:00:00.000-08:00

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By Mike Soraghan - 11/01/09 01:27 PM ET

Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday it's worth defeating a healthcare overhaul in order to prevent the creation of a government-run health insurance program.

Interviewed on CBS's "Face the Nation," the independent member of the Democratic Caucus said doing "nothing" is better than a so-called public option.

"'Nothing' is better than getting that," Lieberman said. "We ought to follow the doctors' oath and say, 'First, let's do no harm.'"

The Connecticut lawmaker said fixing the economy and creating jobs is a higher priority than healthcare, and a government-run insurance plan would damage the economy by hiking premiums, raising taxes or increasing the national debt.

Supporters of the public option say that it would help drive down premiums and lower healthcare costs by competing with private insurance companies who often dominate their markets.

The House bill to be debated next week in the House has a public option. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has indicated that he will include a public option in the Senate version, despite doubts about whether it can get enough votes to pass.

Those doubts grew last week when Lieberman announced he would join a Republican filibuster to prevent a public option. Lieberman is one of the 60 votes that Senate leaders count on to get the 60 votes they need to end Republican filibusters.

"I'm not going to filibuster to stop the debate on healthcare reform from beginning because I want to have that debate," Lieberman said Sunday. "I want to have healthcare reform. ...But I feel so strongly about the creation of another government health insurance entitlement, the government going into the health insurance business, I think it's such a mistake that I would use the power I have as a single senator to stop a final vote."

Supporters lashed out at Lieberman's announcement last week, saying he was catering to the insurance companies headquartered in his state. One liberal Democrat, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), tied it to the campaign contributions Lieberman has received from the industry.

Lieberman has gotten $2.6 million from the health sector during his time in the Senate, according to Opensecrets.com, ranking him 15th highest in Congress.

Lieberman rejected that idea Sunday, saying he filed anti-trust cases against companies when he was Connecticut attorney general and supports ending the industry's anti-trust exemption.

"I have never hesitated to get tough on insurance companies when I thought they were wrong," Lieberman said.

He said it was his critics who insist on a public option who threaten the prospects for passing a bill.

"By having a litmus test, they're stopping us from getting anything done," Lieberman said.

Also Sunday, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) outlined how he plans to offer an alternative healthcare proposal in the House. He has previously said he will have an alternative and Democratic leaders have said they will allow a vote on it.

Boehner said the Congressional Budget Office is currently "scoring," or drafting a cost estimate, for a bill that takes "eight or nine" of the principles Republicans have espoused.

"We do not increase taxes, we do not cut Medicaid or Medicare, and do not have mandates on individuals or businesses," Boehner said on CNN's "State of the Union."

"I'm hopeful that Speaker Pelosi will allow us to offer an alternative."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has indicated she may not allow amendments by Republicans or her fellow Democrats. But House Democratic leaders have said Republicans will get a vote on their proposal. Asked last week if the Republican proposal will be available to the public for three days prior to the vote, as he and others have demanded for Pelosi's bill, Boehner was noncommittal.

Largest Cruise Ship Passes Bridge Challenge

2009-11-01T18:21:00.000-08:00

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World's largest cruise ship narrowly clears Danish bridge on maiden voyage to Florida
By JAN M. OLSEN Associated Press Writer
KORSOER, Denmark October 31, 2009 (AP)
The Associated Press

The world's largest cruise ship cleared a crucial obstacle Sunday, lowering its smokestacks to squeeze under a bridge in Denmark.
This Oct. 30, 2009 photo released by Royal Caribbean shows Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas... Expand
This Oct. 30, 2009 photo released by Royal Caribbean shows Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas departing a ship yard in Finland. The Oasis of the Seas, the largest passenger vessel ever built, is set to be handed over to Royal Caribbean International on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009. (AP Photo/ Royal Caribbean) NO SALES Collapse
(AP)

The Oasis of the Seas — which rises about 20 stories high — passed below the Great Belt Fixed Link with a slim margin as it left the Baltic Sea on its maiden voyage to Florida.

Bridge operators said that even after lowering its telescopic smokestacks the giant ship had less than a 2-foot (half-meter) gap.

Hundreds of people gathered on beaches at both ends of the bridge, waiting for hours to watch the brightly lit behemoth sail by shortly after midnight (2300GMT; 7 p.m. EDT).

"It was fantastic to see it glide under the bridge. Boy, it was big," said Kurt Hal, 56.

Company officials are banking that its novelty will help guarantee its success. Five times larger than the Titanic, the $1.5 billion ship has seven neighborhoods, an ice rink, a small golf course and a 750-seat outdoor amphitheater. It has 2,700 cabins and can accommodate 6,300 passengers and 2,100 crew members.

Accommodations include loft cabins, with floor-to-ceiling windows, and 1,600-square-foot (487-meter) luxury suites with balconies overlooking the sea or promenades.

The liner also has four swimming pools, volleyball and basketball courts, and a youth zone with theme parks and nurseries for children.

Oasis of the Sea, nearly 40 percent larger than the industry's next-biggest ship, was conceived years before the economic downturn caused desperate cruise lines to slash prices to fill vacant berths.

It was built by STX Finland for Royal Caribbean International and left the shipyard in Finland on Friday. Officials hadn't expected any problems in passing the Great Belt bridge, but traffic was stopped for about 15 minutes as a precaution when the ship approached, Danish navy spokesman Joergen Brand said.

Aboard the Oasis of the Seas, project manager Toivo Ilvonen of STX Finland confirmed that the ship had passed under the bridge without any incidents."Nothing fell off," he said.

The enormous ship features various "neighborhoods" — parks, squares and arenas with special themes. One of them will be a tropical environment, including palm trees and vines among the total 12,000 plants on board. They will be planted after the ship arrives in Fort Lauderdale.

In the stern, a 750-seat outdoor theater — modeled on an ancient Greek amphitheater — doubles as a swimming pool by day and an ocean front theater by night. The pool has a diving tower with spring boards and two 33-foot (10-meter) high-dive platforms. An indoor theater seats 1,300 guests.

One of the "neighborhoods," named Central Park, features a square with boutiques, restaurants and bars, including a bar that moves up and down three decks, allowing customers to get on and off at different levels.

Once home, the $1.5 billion floating extravaganza will have more, if less visible, obstacles to duck: a sagging U.S. economy, questions about the consumer appetite for luxury cruises and criticism that such sailing behemoths are damaging to the environment and diminish the experience of traveling.

It is due to make its U.S. debut on Nov. 20 at its home port, Port Everglades in Florida.

Karzai 'faces West poll pressure'

2009-10-17T19:15:00.000-07:00

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There has been a flurry of diplomatic activity in the Afghan capital ahead of the announcement of the results of the presidential poll, the BBC has learned.

Senior sources say top international figures have been working to persuade President Hamid Karzai that he may have to face a second round of voting.

A fraud investigation is expected to bring Mr Karzai's vote tally below the 50% needed to avoid a run-off.

Officials say Mr Karzai is furious over the prospect of facing a second round.

The fraud allegations which have surfaced in the two months since the 20 August poll have generated huge political uncertainty, reports the BBC's Martin Patience in Kabul.

It comes at a time when Washington is debating whether to send more troops.

Fraud findings

Mr Karzai was initially awarded 55% of votes in the poll, with his nearest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, getting 28%.

AFGHAN FRAUD ALLEGATIONS
13 Oct: Karzai casts doubt on fair functioning of ECC, but his opponents accuse him of manufacturing his concerns
30 Sep: UN recalls envoy Peter Galbraith following row over the vote recount process
15 Sep: ECC chief says 10% of votes need to be recounted
8 Sep: IEC says votes from 600 polling stations "quarantined"
3 Sep: Claims 30,000 fraudulent votes cast for Karzai in Kandahar
30 Aug: 2,000 fraud allegations are probed; 600 deemed serious
20 Aug: Election day and claims 80,000 ballots were filled out fraudulently for Karzai in Ghazni
18 Aug: Ballot cards sold openly and voter bribes offered

Election: Main fraud allegations

But the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) is due to report its findings into fraud allegations this weekend.

It will report to the Independent Election Commission (IEC), which could adjust the final tally based on the report - bringing Mr Karzai's vote total below 50%, and triggering a run-off.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown telephoned the candidates on Friday.

Senior sources told our correspondent they had urged Mr Karzai to accept the findings of the ECC's fraud investigations.

The French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and US Senator John Kerry - chair of the US Senate's foreign relations committee - are also in Kabul meeting Mr Karzai and Mr Abdullah.

Karzai 'fury'

Mrs Clinton told CNN: "It is likely that they will find that President Karzai got very close to the 50-plus-1" (50% of votes, plus one vote) threshold for a second round of voting.

She added: "I think one can conclude that the likelihood of him winning a second round is probably pretty high."

But officials told our correspondent that Mr Karzai is furious at the turn of events, and is threatening to delay - or even block - attempts to hold a second round.

His position appears to have been strengthened by the IEC. Its spokesman said that not all the findings of the investigation may be implemented - despite the fact that the IEC is constitutionally bound to obey the orders of the ECC.

Their reported confrontation may delay the official announcement of results - providing a breathing space for the frenzied diplomatic efforts, unnamed diplomats have told news agencies.

Strategy review

A run-off between Mr Karzai and Mr Abdullah would be due within two weeks, although security concerns and winter snows could hamper efforts.

The US is reviewing its strategy in Afghanistan.

Three American soldiers were killed in bomb attacks in the country as Nato-led forces fought Taliban militants.

Two of them died in eastern Afghanistan on Friday and one in southern Afghanistan, officials said.

A brief history of climate change

2009-10-05T20:00:00.000-07:00

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As the UN climate summit in Copenhagen approaches, BBC News environment correspondent Richard Black traces key milestones, scientific discoveries, technical innovations and political action.
Schematic of the Newcomen Engine
The Newcomen Engine foreshadowed industrial scale use of coal

1712 - British ironmonger Thomas Newcomen invents the first widely used steam engine, paving the way for the Industrial Revolution and industrial scale use of coal.

1800 - world population reaches one billion.

1824 - French physicist Joseph Fourier describes the Earth's natural "greenhouse effect". He writes: "The temperature [of the Earth] can be augmented by the interposition of the atmosphere, because heat in the state of light finds less resistance in penetrating the air, than in re-passing into the air when converted into non-luminous heat."

1861 - Irish physicist John Tyndall shows that water vapour and certain other gases create the greenhouse effect. "This aqueous vapour is a blanket more necessary to the vegetable life of England than clothing is to man," he concludes. More than a century later, he is honoured by having a prominent UK climate research organisation - the Tyndall Centre - named after him.

1886 - Karl Benz unveils the Motorwagen, often regarded as the first true automobile.

1896 - Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius concludes that industrial-age coal burning will enhance the natural greenhouse effect. He suggests this might be beneficial for future generations. His conclusions on the likely size of the "man-made greenhouse" are in the same ballpark - a few degrees Celsius for a doubling of CO2 - as modern-day climate models.
Svante Arrhenius in his lab
Svante Arrhenius unlocked the man-made greenhouse a century ago

1900 - another Swede, Knut Angstrom, discovers that even at the tiny concentrations found in the atmosphere, CO2 strongly absorbs parts of the infrared spectrum. Although he does not realise the significance, Angstrom has shown that a trace gas can produce greenhouse warming.

1927 - carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and industry reach one billion tonnes per year.

1930 - human population reaches two billion.

1938 - using records from 147 weather stations around the world, British engineer Guy Callendar shows that temperatures had risen over the previous century. He also shows that CO2 concentrations had increased over the same period, and suggests this caused the warming. The "Callendar effect" is widely dismissed by meteorologists.

1955 - using a new generation of equipment including early computers, US researcher Gilbert Plass analyses in detail the infrared absorption of various gases. He concludes that doubling CO2 concentrations would increase temperatures by 3-4C.

1957 - US oceanographer Roger Revelle and chemist Hans Suess show that seawater will not absorb all the additional CO2 entering the atmosphere, as many had assumed. Revelle writes: "Human beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment..."

1958 - using equipment he had developed himself, Charles David (Dave) Keeling begins systematic measurements of atmospheric CO2 at Mauna Loa in Hawaii and in Antarctica. Within four years, the project - which continues today - provides the first unequivocal proof that CO2 concentrations are rising.

Margaret Thatcher
Change in future is likely to be more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto
Margaret Thatcher

1960 - human population reaches three billion.

1965 - a US President's Advisory Committee panel warns that the greenhouse effect is a matter of "real concern".

1972 - first UN environment conference, in Stockholm. Climate change hardly registers on the agenda, which centres on issues such as chemical pollution, atomic bomb testing and whaling. The United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) is formed as a result.

1975 - human population reaches four billion.

1975 - US scientist Wallace Broecker puts the term "global warming" into the public domain in the title of a scientific paper.

1987 - human population reaches five billion

1987 - Montreal Protocol agreed, restricting chemicals that damage the ozone layer. Although not established with climate change in mind, it has had a greater impact on greenhouse gas emissions than the Kyoto Protocol.

1988 - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) formed to collate and assess evidence on climate change.

1989 - UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher - possessor of a chemistry degree - warns in a speech to the UN that "We are seeing a vast increase in the amount of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere... The result is that change in future is likely to be more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto." She calls for a global treaty on climate change.

1989 - carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and industry reach six billion tonnes per year.
Graph of CO2 concentration
The CO2 concentration, as measured at Mauna Loa, has risen steadily

1990 - IPCC produces First Assessment Report. It concludes that temperatures have risen by 0.3-0.6C over the last century, that humanity's emissions are adding to the atmosphere's natural complement of greenhouse gases, and that the addition would be expected to result in warming.

1992 - at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, governments agree the United Framework Convention on Climate Change. Its key objective is "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system". Developed countries agree to return their emissions to 1990 levels.

1995 - IPCC Second Assessment Report concludes that the balance of evidence suggests "a discernible human influence" on the Earth's climate. This has been called the first definitive statement that humans are responsible for climate change.

1997 - Kyoto Protocol agreed. Developed nations pledge to reduce emissions by an average of 5% by the period 2008-2012, with wide variations on targets for individual countries. US Senate immediately declares it will not ratify the treaty.

1998 - strong El Nino conditions combine with global warming to produce the warmest year on record. The average global temperature reached 0.52C above the mean for the period 1961-1990 (a commonly-used baseline).

1998 - publication of the controversial "hockey stick" graph indicating that modern-day temperature rise in the northern hemisphere is unusual compared with the last 1,000 years. The work would later be the subject of two enquiries instigated by the US Congress.
Rajendra Pachauri
Rajendra Pachauri's IPCC netted the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007

1999 - human population reaches six billion.

2001 - President George W Bush removes the US from the Kyoto process.

2001 - IPCC Third Assessment Report finds "new and stronger evidence" that humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases are the main cause of the warming seen in the second half of the 20th Century.

2005 - the Kyoto Protocol becomes international law for those countries still inside it.

2005 - UK Prime Minister Tony Blair selects climate change as a priority for his terms as chair of the G8 and president of the EU.

2006 - the Stern Review concludes that climate change could damage global GDP by up to 20% if left unchecked - but curbing it would cost about 1% of global GDP.

2006 - carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning and industry reach eight billion tonnes per year.

2007 - the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report concludes it is more than 90% likely that humanity's emissions of greenhouse gases are responsible for modern-day climate change.

2007 - the IPCC and former US vice-president Al Gore receive the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change".

2007 - at UN negotiations in Bali, governments agree the two-year "Bali roadmap" aimed at hammering out a new global treaty by the end of 2009.

2008 - half a century after beginning observations at Mauna Loa, the Keeling project shows that CO2 concentrations have risen from 315 parts per million (ppm) in 1958 to 380ppm in 2008.

2008 - two months before taking office, incoming US president Barack Obama pledges to "engage vigorously" with the rest of the world on climate change.

2009 - China overtakes the US as the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter - although the US remains well ahead on a per-capita basis.

2009 - 192 governments convene for the UN climate summit in Copenhagen.

Report Cites Firefight as Lesson in Afghan Warfare

2009-10-02T19:30:00.000-07:00

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By THOM SHANKER
Published: October 2, 2009

WASHINGTON — The paratroopers of Chosen Company had plenty to worry about as they began digging in at their new outpost on the fringe of a hostile frontier village in eastern Afghanistan.

Intelligence reports were warning of militants massing in the area. As the paratroopers looked around, the only villagers they could see were men of fighting age idling in the bazaar. There were no women and children, and some houses looked abandoned. Through their night scopes they could see furtive figures on the surrounding mountainsides.

A few days later, they were almost overrun by 200 insurgents.

That firefight, a debacle that cost nine American lives in July 2008, has become the new template for how not to win in Afghanistan. The calamity and its roots have been described in bitter, painstaking detail in an unreleased Army history, a devastating narrative that has begun to circulate in an initial form even as the military opened a formal review this week of decisions made up and down the chain of command.

The 248-page draft history, obtained by The New York Times, helps explain why the new commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, is pressing so hard for a full-fledged commitment to a style of counterinsurgency that rests on winning over the people of Afghanistan even more than killing militants. The military has already incorporated lessons from the battle in the new doctrine for war in Afghanistan.

The history offers stark examples of shortcomings in the unit’s preparation, the style of combat it adopted, its access to intelligence, its disdain for the locals — in short, plenty of blame to go around.

Before the soldiers arrived, commanders negotiated for months with Afghan officials of dubious loyalty over where they could dig in, giving militants plenty of time to prepare for an assault.

Despite the suspicion that the militants were nearby, there were not enough surveillance aircraft over the lonely outpost — a chronic shortage in Afghanistan that frustrated Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates at the time. Commanders may have been distracted from the risky operation by the bureaucratic complexities of handing over responsibility at the brigade level to replacements — and by their urgent investigation of an episode that had enraged the local population, the killing a week earlier in an airstrike of a local medical clinic’s staff as it fled nearby fighting in two pickup trucks.

Above all, the unit and its commanders had an increasingly tense and untrusting relationship with the Afghan people.

The history cited the “absence of cultural awareness and understanding of the specific tribal and governance situation” and the emphasis on combat operations over the development of the local economy and other civil affairs, a reversal of the practices of the unit that had just left the area.

The battle of Wanat is being described as the “Black Hawk Down” of Afghanistan, with the 48 American soldiers and 24 Afghan soldiers outnumbered three to one in a four-hour firefight that left nine Americans dead and 27 wounded in one of the bloodiest days of the eight-year war.

Soldiers who survived the battle described how their automatic weapons turned white hot and jammed from nonstop firing. Mortally wounded troops continued to hand bullet belts to those still able to fire.

The ammunition stockpile was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, igniting a stack of 120-millimeter mortar rounds — and the resulting fireball flung the unit’s antitank missiles into the command post. One insurgent got inside the concertina wire and is believed to have killed three soldiers at close range, including the platoon commander, Lt. Jonathan P. Brostrom.

The description of the battle at Wanat — the heroism, the violence and the missteps that may have contributed to the deaths — ends with a judgment that the fight was “as remarkable as any small-unit action in American military history.”

The author, the military historian Douglas R. Cubbison, also included a series of criticisms in his review, sponsored by the Army’s Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., that laid blame on a series of decisions made before the battle.

The draft report criticized the “lack of adequate preparation time” before arriving in Afghanistan, which meant there was little training geared specifically for Afghanistan, and not even a detailed operational plan for the year of combat that lay ahead.

Pentagon and military officials say those initial criticisms are being revised to reflect subsequent interviews with other soldiers and officers who were at Wanat or who served in higher-level command positions. After a round of revisions, the study will go through a formal peer-review process and be published.

The battle stands as proof that the United States is facing off against a sophisticated adversary in Afghanistan today, one that can fight anonymously with roadside bombs or stealthily with kidnappings — but also can operate like a disciplined armed force using well-rehearsed small-unit tactics to challenge the American military for dominance on the conventional battlefield.

Official judgment on whether errors were made by the unit on the ground or by any leaders up the chain of command will be determined by a new investigation opened this week by Gen. David H. Petraeus of United States Central Command at the urging of Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The call for such an independent review came from family members of the fallen, including David P. Brostrom, father of the slain platoon commander and himself a retired Army colonel, as well as from a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia.

The history is replete with wrong turns at every point of the unit’s mission, starting with the day it was reassigned to Afghanistan from training for Iraq.
After having served for more than a year in other hot zones of eastern Afghanistan, the platoon arrived in the village at dark on July 8, 2008, just two weeks from the day it was supposed to go home to its base in Italy.

The men wore their adopted unit emblem — skull patches fashioned after Marvel Comics’ antihero, the Punisher. They unloaded their Humvees, packed with weapons, water and the single rucksack each had kept when the rest of his kit was shipped home. They had plenty of ammunition.

But at the end of an intense tour of combat, they had run out of good relations with an increasingly distrustful population.

They named it Outpost Kahler, after a popular sergeant who had been killed by one of their own Afghan guards early that year. His last words as he moved ahead of his comrades to check whether their Afghan partners were asleep while on duty had been, “This might be dangerous.” (The shooting was ruled an accident, but relations between skeptical American troops and Afghan forces deteriorated.)

Although the 173rd Airborne Brigade had been scheduled to return to Iraq from its base in Italy, the need for forces to counter a resurgence of militant violence in eastern Afghanistan prompted new orders for the brigade to switch immediately to preparations for mountain warfare — many of the outposts were linked only by narrow, rutted trails, and some could be reached only be helicopter — and a wholly different culture and language. “Unfortunately, the comparatively late change of mission for the 173rd Airborne B.C.T. from Iraq to Afghanistan did not permit the brigade sufficient time to prepare any form of campaign plan,” the history reports.

The unit arrived at Wanat ill prepared for the hot work of building an outpost in the mountains in July; troops were thirsty from a lack of fresh water, and their one construction vehicle ran out of gas, so the unit was unable to complete basic fortifications. The soldiers had no local currency to buy favor by investing in the village economy, the history makes clear. The soldiers also said they complained up the chain of command about the lack of air surveillance over their dangerous corner of Afghanistan, but no more was provided.

Even as they settled into their spartan command post, the unit’s commanders were insulted to learn that local leaders were meeting together in a “shura,” or council, to which they were not invited — and which might even have been a session used to coordinate the assault on the Americans that began before dawn the very next morning.

The four-hour firefight finally ended when American warplanes and attack helicopters strafed insurgent positions. The paratroopers drove back the insurgents, but ended up abandoning the village 48 hours later

» A version of this article appeared in print on October 3, 2009, on page A1 of the New York edition.

An iPod World, With a Hunger for Electricity

2009-09-19T11:08:00.000-07:00

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By JAD MOUAWAD and KATE GALBRAITH
Published: September 19, 2009

With two laptop-loving children and a Jack Russell terrier hemmed in by an electric fence, Peter Troast figured his household used a lot of power. Just how much power did not really hit him until the night the family turned off the overhead lights at their home in Maine and began hunting gadgets that glowed in the dark.

“It was amazing to see all these lights blinking,” Mr. Troast said.

As goes the Troast household, so goes the planet.

Electricity use from power-hungry gadgets is rising fast all over the world. The fancy new flat-panel televisions everyone has been buying in recent years have turned out to be bigger power hogs than some refrigerators.

The proliferation of personal computers, iPods, cellphones, game consoles and all the rest amounts to the fastest-growing source of power demand in the world. Americans now have about 25 consumer electronic products in every household, compared with just three in 1980.

Worldwide, consumer electronics now represent 15 percent of household power demand, and that is expected to triple over the next two decades, according to the International Energy Agency, making it more difficult to tackle the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming.

To satisfy the demand from gadgets will require building the equivalent of 560 coal-fired power plants, or 230 nuclear plants, according to the agency.

Most energy experts see only one solution: mandatory efficiency rules specifying how much power devices may use.

Appliances like refrigerators are covered by such rules in the United States. But efforts to cover consumer electronics like televisions and game consoles have been repeatedly derailed by manufacturers worried about the higher cost of meeting the standards. That has become a problem as the spread of such gadgets counters efficiency gains made in recent years in appliances.

In 1990, refrigerator efficiency standards went into effect in the United States. Today, new refrigerators are fancier than ever, but their power consumption has been slashed by about 45 percent since the standards took effect. Likewise, thanks in part to standards, the average power consumption of a new washer is nearly 70 percent lower than a new unit in 1990.

“Standards are one of the few ways to cheaply go after big chunks of energy savings,” said Chris Calwell, a founder and senior researcher at Ecos, a consulting firm that specializes in energy efficiency.

Part of the problem is that many modern gadgets cannot entirely be turned off; even when not in use, they draw electricity while they await a signal from a remote control or wait to record a television program.

“We have entered this new era where essentially everything is on all the time,” said Alan Meier, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a leading expert on energy efficiency.

People can, of course, reduce this waste — but to do so takes a single-minded person.

Mr. Troast, of South Freeport, Me., is just the kind of motivated homeowner willing to tackle such a project. His day job is selling energy efficiency equipment through an online business. He was not put off by the idea of hunting behind cabinets to locate every power supply and gadget, like those cable boxes, Web routers or computers that glowed in the dark.

The Troasts cut their monthly energy use by around 16 percent, partly by plugging their computers and entertainment devices into smart power strips. The strips turn off when the electronics are not in use, cutting power consumption to zero.

While Mr. Troast’s experience demonstrates that consumers can limit the power wasted by inactive devices, another problem is not as easily solved: many products now require large amounts of power to run.

The biggest offender is the flat-screen television. As liquid crystal displays and plasma technologies replace the old cathode ray tubes, and as screen sizes increase, the new televisions need more power than older models do. And with all those gorgeous new televisions in their living rooms, Americans are spending more time than ever watching TV, averaging five hours a day.

The result is a surge in electricity use by TVs, which can draw more power in a year than some refrigerators now on the market. Energy experts say that manufacturers have paid too little attention to the power consumption of televisions, in part because of the absence of federal regulation.
Another power drain is the video game console, which is found in 40 percent of American households. Energy experts — and many frustrated parents — say that since saving games is difficult, children often keep the consoles switched on so they can pick up where they left off.
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Noah Horowitz, at the Natural Resources Defense Council, calculated that the nation’s gaming consoles, like the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and the Sony PlayStation 3, now use about the same amount of electricity each year as San Diego, the ninth-largest city in country.

Mandatory efficiency standards for electronic devices would force manufacturers to redesign their products, or spend money adding components that better control power use. Many manufacturers fight such mandates because they would increase costs, and they also claim the mandates would stifle innovation in a fast-changing industry.

The government has never aggressively tackled the television issue because of opposition from the consumer electronics lobby in Washington, experts say. In 1987, before televisions had swelled into such power hogs, Congress gave the Energy Department — which generally carries out the standards — the option of setting efficiency rules for TVs.

But industry opposition derailed an effort in the 1990s to use that authority, according to Steve Nadel of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. A more recent attempt to require home electronics to use no more than one watt of power in standby mode met the same fate.

The federal government has moved forward on two standards for electronics, covering battery chargers and external power supplies, and those were authorized by Congress only in the last few years.

In the absence of federal action, a few states have moved on their own. The California Energy Commission just proposed new standards for televisions that would cut their power consumption in half by 2013. But that effort has set off a storm of protest from manufacturers and their trade group, the Consumer Electronics Association. (It is still expected to pass, in November.)

A spokesman for the industry said that government regulations could not keep up with the pace of technological change.

“Mandates ignore the fundamental nature of the industry that innovates due to consumer demand and technological developments, not regulations,” said Douglas Johnson, the senior director of technology policy at the association.

Mr. Johnson said that California’s limits on manufacturers, which he called arbitrary, might delay or even prohibit some features of new devices. Instead, he praised the government’s voluntary Energy Star program, which he says encourages efficiency without sacrificing innovation.

“Mandatory limits, such as we see in California, threaten to raise prices for consumers and reduce consumer choice,” he said.

Estimates vary regarding how much a mandatory efficiency program for gadgets would cost consumers. For some changes, like making sure devices draw minimal power in standby mode, experts say the cost may be only a few extra cents. At the other extreme, the most energy-efficient of today’s televisions can cost $100 more than the least energy-efficient. (That expense would be partly offset over time, of course, by lower power needs.)

Some types of home electronics are rated under Energy Star, a program that classifies products in more than 60 categories according to their energy consumption. But that program, while a boon to conscientious consumers who buy only the most efficient products, does not prevent the sale of wasteful devices and has not succeeded in driving them off the market.

The lack of regulation of gadgets is a notable contrast to the situation with appliances.

Congress adopted the nation’s first electrical efficiency standards in the 1980s, focusing initially on kitchen and other large appliances. That effort made some steep gains, particularly for refrigerators, which were once among the biggest power hogs in a typical home.

The federal effort lagged during the administration of George W. Bush, and the Energy Department missed a string of deadlines set by Congress. But the Obama administration has vowed to make maximum use of existing law, speeding up the adoption of 26 standards on a host of products that include microwave ovens and clothes dryers. Tougher lighting standards, embraced by both the Bush and Obama administrations, are due to take effect in coming years.

But Congress has never granted any administration the authority to set standards for power-hogging electronic gadgets like game consoles and set-top boxes. Even now, when both the administration and Congress are focused on the nation’s energy problems, no legislation is moving forward to tackle the issue.

Experts like Dan W. Reicher, who directs Google’s energy efforts, argue that the United States must do better, setting an example for the rest of the world.

“If we can’t improve the efficiency of simple appliances and get them into greater use,” Mr. Reicher said, “it’s hard to believe that we’ll succeed with difficult things like cleaning up coal-fired power plants.”

Obama goes back to school

2009-09-03T20:00:00.000-07:00

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Thu Sep 3, 3:11 pm ET

On September 8, in what the Department of Education is touting as a "historic" speech, President Obama will be talking directly to students across the U.S., live on the White House website. But some parents and conservatives are blasting the president, calling the speech an excuse to brainwash American children.

Last month, in an interview with 11-year-old student reporter Damon Weaver, the president announced his big back-to-school plan:

"I'm going to be making a big speech to young people all across the country about the importance of education; about the importance of staying in school; how we want to improve our education system and why it’s so important for the country. So I hope everybody tunes in."

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent a letter to the nation's principals, inviting schools to watch the speech and included suggested classroom activities. But Jim Greer, the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, came out swinging against the planned speech. An excerpt from his statement:

"The address scheduled for September 8, 2009, does not allow for healthy debate on the President's agenda, but rather obligates the youngest children in our public school system to agree with our President's initiatives or be ostracized by their teachers and classmates."

NBC spoke with Katie Gordon, a spokeswoman for the Florida Republican Party, who said the party's "beef" is with the accompanying lesson plans. The guide for pre-K through grade 6 suggests questions students think about during the speech, such as "What is the President trying to tell me? What is the President asking me to do?"

The plan for grades 7-12 includes a "guided discussion," with suggested topics: "What resonated with you from President Obama's speech? What is President Obama inspiring you to do?"

The Cato Institute, a public-policy research foundation, issued a press release entitled "Hey Obama, Leave Those Kids Alone," criticizing the "troubling buzzwords" in the lesson plans:

"It's one thing for a president to encourage all kids to work hard and stay in school – that's a reasonable use of the bully pulpit. It's another thing entirely, however, to have the U.S. Department of Education send detailed instructions to public schools nationwide on how to glorify the president and the presidency, and push them to drive social change."

Across the blogosphere, comments covered the spectrum, from critical to supportive, and from one student, a little anger:

"I sent my children to school to be educated NOT indoctrinated." — justamom

"The fact that people want to keep their kids from hearing the President of the United States encourage them to do well in school shows a true level of ignorance." — Firefey

"As an [sic] 9th grade student, I'd like to say that 1. I'm not sure why everyone is so scared that we'll all be brainwashed by the President ... 2. My school is one that is not allowing us to watch the speech, and quite frankly, I'm pissed." — Willbw

Both Presidents George Bush and Ronald Reagan both gave speeches aimed specifically at students that were nationally televised. In 1989, Bush delivered a televised anti-drug speech, and Reagan's 1986 commencement speech and Q&A session was "beamed over public television into 171 school districts," according to the L.A. Times.

It's worth noting that schools are, encouraged, not required, to air the speech. The Houston Chronicle reports that one Dallas school district is leaving the decision to individual teachers. Susan Dacus, spokeswoman for the Wylie school district, says parents who don't want their children to see it can opt out.

In an ironic twist, one Missouri school won't be airing the speech because of a lack of funding. Michelle Baumstark, spokeswoman for Columbia public schools, told the Columbia Daily Tribune, "We don’t have the funding or the equipment to support that type of broadcasting.”

— Lili Ladaga

Yahoo! News bloggers compile the best news content from our providers and scour the Web for the most interesting news stories so you don't have to.

Obama to address Congress as health care debate grows

2009-09-03T09:55:00.000-07:00

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By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland – Wed Sep 2, 8:36 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will seek to boost flagging support for health care reform next week with a rare speech to Congress after a rocky summer raised questions both about his leadership and legislative program.

Obama, who has staked significant political capital on a broad plan to overhaul the $2.5 trillion healthcare industry, will make his speech to a joint session of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on September 9, an administration official said.

The address comes as falling poll numbers and rising opposition to his reform plans have prodded the president to develop a new strategy for striking a deal.

White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Obama will address Congress because the health care debate has entered a new phase.

"Now we have to pull the final strands together and get this done," Axelrod told reporters. "We at a different stage in this debate and he'll be discussing where we are and what we have to do to get those final 10 yards to get this done."

Democratic and Republican lawmakers return next week from a monthlong recess punctuated by widely publicized town hall meetings that saw bitter shouting matches over health care.

Obama has broad goals of reducing health care costs and bringing medical insurance to the some 46 million Americans who do not have it. But opposition has focused on the "public option" -- a proposed government-run health insurance plan that Obama supports as an alternative option to private insurance.

The White House, stung by coordinated resistance by Republicans and tepid support from some Democrats -- some of whom wanted the White House to be more involved in the legislative battle -- signaled a sharper tone as a push toward passage of a bill intensifies.

"Congress is coming back from recess and over the last few days key Republicans have made it abundantly clear that they are not seriously interested in a bipartisan solution," said Dan Pfeiffer, White House deputy communications director.

Republicans, sensing a possible Democratic soft spot ahead of next year's mid-term elections, said a big new public speech was not the answer.

"Obviously, we want to hear what the President has to say, but the American people don't want a new speech, they want a new plan," said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Republican Leader John Boehner.

"We need to scrap the Democrats' government takeover of health care and start over on a real, bipartisan plan for reform," he said.

SEEKING COMPROMISE

A senior Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the "new phase" was driven in part by negative comments from two Republican senators, Charles Grassley and Mike Enzi, who have been part of a bipartisan Senate "Gang of Six" group seeking a compromise.

The official said Obama felt it was time to pull together various strands from several bills that have been debated on Capitol Hill as well as other proposals.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has set a September 15 deadline for his Gang of Six to come up with a bipartisan plan, saying that otherwise he is ready to push a bill through the committee with only Democratic support.

The "gang" is meeting via teleconference Friday.

"Attacks by political operatives in the White House undermine bipartisan efforts and drive senators away from the table," Grassley spokeswoman Jill Kozeny said.

In the past month, Americans surveyed in polls have shown increasing concern about Obama's handling of health care and his popularity with voters has declined.

A CBS News poll Tuesday said most Americans found health care proposals discussed in Congress confusing and thought Obama had not clearly explained his plans to overhaul the system, his top legislative priority.

"The Democrats lost control of the debate on health care and they need to seize the initiative and show people what they are going to do," said Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.

Obama still wants the "public option" on health insurance, which is favored by his liberal base. But it is strongly opposed by the insurance industry, and many lawmakers doubt such an option could pass in the Senate, already unnerved by its nearly $1 trillion pricetag.

As a result, Obama and his aides have put less emphasis on the public option in recent weeks, stressing instead that he wants to increase choice and competition through the most acceptable means possible.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Thomas Ferraro, Donna Smith and Ross Colvin; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

Michael Jackson movie opening moved up two days

2009-08-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

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August 20, 2009 | 5:18 pm

Now this is really it.

Aiming to create a cinematic happening out of the theatrical release of its newly acquired Michael Jackson movie, Sony announced today that “Michael Jackson: This Is It” will arrive in theaters for a limited two-week run on Oct. 28 — two days earlier than its original release date.

And in an attempt to stoke fan anticipation for the film — which includes more than 80 hours of behind-the-scenes and rehearsal footage shot in the lead-up to Jackson’s sold-out London comeback concerts — the studio is taking the unusual step of putting tickets on sale Sept. 27, more than a month before the film arrives at multiplexes.

“As we began assembling the footage for the motion picture we realized we captured something extraordinary, unique and very special,” said the film’s director, Kenny Ortega, in a statement. Ortega, the director-choreographer behind Disney’s lucrative “High School Musical” TV-movie franchise and the movie “Dirty Dancing,” as well as Jackson’s creative partner on his Dangerous and HIStory tours, worked closely with the performer up until his death as director of Jackson’s This Is It concerts.

“For the first time ever, fans will see Michael as they have never seen him before — this great artist at work. It is raw, emotional, moving and powerful footage that captures his interactions with the ‘This Is It’ collaborators that he had personally assembled for this once in a lifetime project,” said Ortega.

Disney made successful use of a similarly unorthodox release strategy for its 3-D concert movie “Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds.” That film’s limited two-week engagement in February 2008 drove attendance in its opening weekend, resulting in “Best of Both Worlds” becoming a surprise No. 1 hit.

Moving “This Is It’s” release date to Oct. 28 from Oct. 30 also makes solid tactical sense for Sony.

Halloween, which falls this year on a Saturday, typically the biggest day of the week for movie attendance, is one of the toughest weekends of the year at the U.S. box office, although the date finds a natural correlation with one of the songs included in “This Is It”: Jackson’s ghoulishly themed smash hit “Thriller.”

Contrary to earlier reports, the filmmakers confirmed that “This Is It” will not contain sequences shot in 3-D.

— Chris Lee

Photo: Michael Jackson. Credit: Kevin Mazur/AEG Getty Images

White House: Afghan war not in crisis

2009-08-09T10:30:00.000-07:00

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By ANNE GEARAN, AP National Security Writer Anne Gearan, Ap National Security Writer – 2 hrs 4 mins ago

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama's national security adviser did not rule out adding more U.S. forces in Afghanistan to help turn around a war that he said on Sunday is not now in crisis.

James Jones, a retired Marine general with experience in Afghanistan, said the United States will know "by the end of next year" whether the revamped war plan Obama announced in March is taking hold.

The administration is redefining how it will measure progress, with new benchmarks that reflect a redrawn strategy. An outline is expected next month.

Making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows, Jones did little to dispel the growing expectation that Obama soon will be asked to supplement the 21,000 additional forces he already approved for Afghanistan this year.

"We won't rule anything out," but the new strategy is too fresh for a full evaluation, Jones said.

"If things come up where we need to adjust one way or the other, and it involves troops or it involves more incentives ... for economic development or better assistance to help the Afghan government function, we'll do that."

The Obama plan is supposed to combine a more vigorous military campaign against the Taliban with a commitment to protect Afghan civilians and starve the insurgents of sanctuary and popular support. It envisions a large development effort led by civilians, which has not fully happened, and a rapid expansion of the Afghan armed forces to eventually take over responsibility for security.

"If we can get that done ... we will know that fairly quickly," Jones said.

The New York Times reported Sunday that the Pentagon has created a target list of Afghan drug traffickers to be captured or killed. Citing interviews with two U.S. generals in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report to be released this week, the Times said the strategy is aimed at disrupting the flow of drug money used to finance Taliban insurgents.

The system to measure progress in Afghanistan is several weeks from completion. It reflects creeping congressional skepticism about the war and its costs. The United States has spent more than $220 billion since the U.S.-led invasion of 2001, plus billions for more toward aid and development projects. By the United States' own admission, much of the aid money was wasted.

Members of the House Appropriations Committee wrote recently that they are worried about "the prospects for an open-ended U.S. commitment to bring stability to a country that has a decades-long history of successfully rebuffing foreign military intervention and attempts to influence internal politics."

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Sunday he does not know how Congress would react to a new request for additional troops.

"It depends on what the facts and the arguments are," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. "It depends what our commanders in the field say. It depends also I think in part what our NATO allies are willing to do."

Appearing with him, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., warned against repeating what he called the mistake of committing too few troops to Iraq at the start of the war.

"My message to my Democratic colleagues is that we made mistakes in Iraq. Let's not 'Rumsfeld' Afghanistan," Graham said, referring to former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld resisted sending a very large U.S. force at the outset of the Iraq war in 2003.

"Let's don't do this thing on the cheap," Graham said. He said he will "be shocked if more troops are not requested by our commanders."

Violence has spiked this year, with roadside bombs the militants' weapon of choice. There are relatively few direct firefights. There are signs the Taliban is pursuing a classic tactic of a smaller, weaker enemy waiting out a larger, militarily superior one.

Deaths among U.S. and other NATO troops have soared. With 74 foreign troops killed — including 43 Americans — July was the deadliest month for international forces since the start of the war in 2001.

There are currently 62,000 U.S. troops and 39,000 allied forced in Afghanistan, on top of about 175,000 Afghan soldiers and police. Some NATO countries plan to withdraw their troops in the next couple of years, even as the U.S. ramps up its presence.

The newly installed top U.S. general in Afghanistan is preparing an interim assessment that is expected to be a sober accounting of the difficulties of fighting an entrenched and technically capable insurgency eight years into the war. Gen. Stanley McChrystal is expected to identify shortfalls that should be filled by more forces — perhaps a mix of Afghan, NATO and U.S.

His report had been expected this week but is now delayed at least until after the Afghan national elections on Aug. 20.

U.S. officials have said they are neutral on the election's outcome so long as voting comes off smoothly and with a minimum of irregularities. Jones cited the elections as evidence of progress. He rejected the idea that a secret, hastily arranged gathering of the top U.S. defense officials in Europe last weekend carried a whiff of desperation.

"No, I don't think we're at a crisis level ... or that there's going to be any movement on the ground by the Taliban that's going to overthrow the government. We're going to have, I think, a good election," Jones said.

Jones appeared on "Fox News Sunday," NBC's "Meet the Press" and CBS' "Face the Nation." Levin and Graham were on CBS.

Pentagon eyes accelerated "bunker buster" bomb

2009-08-02T07:40:00.000-07:00

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Sun Aug 2, 2009 4:49pm EDT

* Bomb could be ready for B-2 bomber by July 2010

* Would deliver 10 times explosive power of predecessor

By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON, Aug 2 (Reuters) - The Pentagon is seeking to speed deployment of an ultra-large "bunker-buster" bomb on the most advanced U.S. bomber as soon as July 2010, the Air Force said on Sunday, amid concerns over perceived nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran.

The non-nuclear, 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator, or MOP, which is still being tested, is designed to destroy deeply buried bunkers beyond the reach of existing bombs.

If Congress agrees to shift enough funds to the program, Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N)'s radar-evading B-2 bomber "would be capable of carrying the bomb by July 2010," said Andy Bourland, an Air Force spokesman.

"The Air Force and Department of Defense are looking at the possibility of accelerating the program," he said. "There have been discussions with the four congressional committees with oversight responsibilities. No final decision has been made."

The precision-guided weapon, built by Boeing Co (BA.N), could become the biggest conventional bomb the United States has ever used.

Carrying more than 5,300 pounds of explosives. it would deliver more than 10 times the explosive power of its predecessor, the 2,000-pound BLU-109, according to the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency, which has funded and managed the seed program.

Chicago-based Boeing, the Pentagon's No. 2 supplier by sales, could be put on contract within 72 hours to build the first MOP production models if Congress signs off, Bourland said.

The threat reduction agency is working with the Air Force to transition the program from "technology demonstration" to acquisition, said Betsy Freeman, an agency spokeswoman.

Both the U.S. Pacific Command, which takes the lead in U.S. military planning for North Korea, and the Central Command, which prepares for contingencies with Iran, appeared to be backing the acceleration request, said Kenneth Katzman, an expert on Iran at the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress.

"It's very possible that the Pentagon wants to send a signal to various countries, particularly Iran and North Korea, that the United States is developing a viable military option against their nuclear programs," Katzman said.

But he cautioned against concluding there was any specific mission in mind at this time.

BIGGEST BOMB

The MOP would be about one-third heavier than the 21,000-pound (9.5 million kg) GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb -- dubbed the "mother of all bombs" -- that was dropped twice in tests at a Florida range in 2003.

The 20-foot-long (6-metre) MOP is built to be dropped from either the B-52 or the B-2 "stealth" bomber. It is designed to penetrate up to 200 feet (61 metres) underground before exploding, according to the U.S. Air Force.

The suspected nuclear facilities of Iran and North Korea are believed to be largely buried underground to escape detection and boost their chances of surviving attack.

During a visit to Jerusalem last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates sought to reassure Israel that a drive by President Barack Obama to talk Iran into giving up its nuclear work was not "open-ended."

Iran says its uranium enrichment -- a process with bomb-making potential -- is for energy only and has rejected U.S.-led demands to curb the program.

For its part, North Korea responded to new United Nations sanctions, imposed after it detonated a second nuclear device, by vowing in June to press the production of nuclear weapons and act against international efforts to isolate it.

(Editing by Doina Chiacu)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

U.S. Adviser’s Blunt Memo on Iraq: Time ‘to Go Home’

2009-07-30T19:00:00.000-07:00

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By MICHAEL R. GORDON
Published: July 30, 2009

WASHINGTON — A senior American military adviser in Baghdad has concluded in an unusually blunt memo that Iraqi forces suffer from entrenched deficiencies but are now able to protect the Iraqi government, and that it is time “for the U.S. to declare victory and go home.”

Text of Colonel Reese’s Memo (July 31, 2009)

The memo offers a look at tensions that emerged between Iraqi and American military officers at a sensitive moment when American combat troops met a June 30 deadline to withdraw from Iraq’s cities, the first step toward an advisory role. The Iraqi government’s forceful moves to assert authority have concerned some American officers, though senior American officials insisted that cooperation had improved.

Prepared by Col. Timothy R. Reese, an adviser to the Iraqi military’s Baghdad command, the memorandum details Iraqi military weaknesses in scathing language, including corruption, poor management and the inability to resist Shiite political pressure. Extending the American military presence beyond August 2010, he argues, will do little to improve the Iraqis’ military performance while fueling growing resentment of Americans.

“As the old saying goes, ‘Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days,’ ” Colonel Reese wrote. “Since the signing of the 2009 Security Agreement, we are guests in Iraq, and after six years in Iraq, we now smell bad to the Iraqi nose.”

Those conclusions are not shared by the senior American commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, and his recommendation for an accelerated troop withdrawal is at odds with the timetable approved by President Obama.

A spokeswoman for General Odierno said that the memo did not reflect the official stance of the United States military and was not intended for a broad audience, and that some of the problems the memo referred to had been solved since its writing in early July.

Still, the memo opens a rare window into a debate among American military officers about how active the American role should be in Iraq and for how long. While some in the military endorse Colonel Reese’s assessment, other officers say that American forces need to stay in Iraq for the next couple of years as the Iraqis struggle with heightened tensions between the Kurds and Arabs, insurgent attacks in and around Mosul and checking authoritarian tendencies of the Iraqi government.

“We now have an Iraqi government that has gained its balance and thinks it knows how to ride the bike in the race,” Colonel Reese wrote. “And in fact they probably do know how to ride, at least well enough for the road they are on against their current competitors. Our hand on the back of the seat is holding them back and causing resentment. We need to let go before we both tumble to the ground.”

Before deploying to Iraq, Colonel Reese served as the director of the Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., the Army’s premier intellectual center. He was an author of an official Army history of the Iraq war — “On Point II” — that was sharply critical of the lapses in postwar planning.

As an adviser to the Baghdad Operations Command, which is led by an Iraqi general, Abud Qanbar, Colonel Reese drew examples from Baghdad Province, which is less volatile than the area near Mosul in northern Iraq, where the Sunni insurgency is strongest. But he noted that he had read military reports from other regions and that he believed that there were similar dynamics nationwide.

Colonel Reese, who could not be reached for comment, submitted his paper to General Odierno’s command, but copies have circulated among active-duty and retired military officers and been posted on at least one military-oriented Web site.

Colonel Reese’s memo lists a number of problems that have emerged since the withdrawal of American combat troops from Baghdad, completed June 30. They include, he wrote, a “sudden coolness” to American advisers and the “forcible takeover” of a checkpoint in the Green Zone. Iraqi units, he added, are much less willing to conduct joint operations with their American counterparts “to go after targets the U.S. considers high value.”

The Iraqi Ground Forces Command, Colonel Reese wrote, has imposed “unilateral restrictions” on American military operations that “violate the most basic aspects” of the Status of Forces Agreement that governs American and Iraqi military relations.

“The Iraqi legal system in the Rusafa side of Baghdad has demonstrated a recent willingness to release individuals originally detained by the U.S. for attacks on the U.S.,” he added.

A spokeswoman for General Odierno, Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberle, said of the memo: “The e-mail reflects one person’s personal view at the time we were first implementing the Security Agreement post-30 June. Since that time many of the initial issues have been resolved and our partnerships with Iraqi Security Forces and G.O.I. partners now are even stronger than before 30 June.” G.O.I. is the abbreviation for the government of Iraq.

Colonel Reese appears to have anonymously circulated a less detailed version of his memo on a blog called “The Enchanter’s Corner.” The author, listed on the site as “Tim the Enchanter,” is described as an active-duty Army officer serving as an adviser in Iraq who is “passionate about political issues.” That post on Iraq, along with one criticizing President Obama’s health care proposals, has been removed but can be found in cached versions.

Under the plan developed by General Odierno, the vast majority of the approximately 130,000 American forces in Iraq will remain through Iraq’s national elections, which are expected to be held next January. After the elections and the formation of a new Iraqi government, there will be rapid reductions in American forces. By the end of August 2010, the United States would have no more than 50,000 troops in Iraq, which would include six brigades whose primary role would be to advise and train Iraqi troops.

Some experts, like Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former adviser to Gen. David H. Petraeus, have argued that this timetable may be too fast “Renewed violence in Iraq is not inevitable, but it is a serious risk,” Mr. Biddle wrote in a recent paper. “The most effective option for prevention is to go slow in drawing down the U.S. military presence in Iraq. Measures to maximize U.S. leverage on important Iraqi leaders — especially Maliki,” he added, referring to Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki “— can be helpful in steering Iraqis away from confrontation and violence, but U.S. leverage is a function of U.S. presence.”

During a recent appearance at the United States Institute of Peace, a Washington-based research organization, Mr. Maliki appeared to be contemplating a possible role for American forces after the December 2011 deadline for the removal of all American troops under the Status of Forces Agreement.

But while General Odierno has drawn up detailed plans for a substantial advisory role, Colonel Reese argued in favor of a more limited — and shorter — effort, and recommended that all American forces be withdrawn by August 2010.

“If there ever was a window where the seeds of a professional military culture could have been implanted, it is now long past,” he wrote. “U.S. combat forces will not be here long enough or with sufficient influence to change it. The military culture of the Baathist-Soviet model under Saddam Hussein remains entrenched and will not change. The senior leadership of the I.S.F. is incapable of change in the current environment.”

Palin faces questions as she makes her exit

2009-07-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

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EX-GOVERNOR: People wonder why she quit and what she plans to do next.

By MATTHEW DALY
The Associated Press

Published: July 25th, 2009 10:58 PM

Gov. Sarah Palin gained fame -- and to some infamy -- since she embarked on a vice-presidential bid less than a year ago. Her surprising departure from Alaska's top office is gaining her something else: questions over her motives and next big move.

She leaves office today with her political future clouded by ethics probes, mounting legal bills and dwindling popularity. A new Washington Post-ABC poll puts her national favorability rating at 40 percent, with 53 percent giving her an unfavorable rating.

The Republican governor faces queries about why she is quitting more than a year before her term ends and what she plans to do after she steps down.

Palin has said little about any major moves but has hinted that she has a bigger role in mind. She is scheduled to speak Aug. 8 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California and has said she plans to write a book, campaign for political candidates from coast to coast and build a right-of-center coalition.

Above all, Palin plans to continue speaking her mind on the social networking site Twitter.

"Ain't gonna shut my mouth / I know there's got to be a few hundred million more like me / just trying to keep it free," Palin said in a recent Tweet, quoting the song "Rollin'," by the country duo Big & Rich.

Such offerings endear Palin to millions of fans, including more than 100,000 who follow her on Twitter. But are they enough to launch a political movement?

Political scientist Jerry McBeath said the answer isn't clear.

"In the context of 305 million Americans, 100,000 is not a lot of followers," he said.

McBeath, chairman of the political science department at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said Palin "needs to do something beyond tweeting -- or twittering, whatever it is -- to establish a continuous national presence."

A more conventional politician would write a syndicated column or host a radio or TV show, McBeath said. "I don't know if Sarah Palin wants that."

"I think she believes she has something to say that is of value to voters who share her views and believes that part of her calling is to continue" speaking out on Twitter, he said.

Spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton disputed the notion that Palin is running for president or has media deals lined up.

"I cannot express enough there is no plan after July 26. There is absolutely no plan," she said earlier this month. "The decision (to quit) was made in the vacuum of what was best for Alaska and now I'm accepting all the options, but there is nothing planned."

Palin's biggest legacy may be putting Alaska on the national stage, said Larry Persily, a former journalist and Palin staffer who now works for a Republican state legislator.

"Before, if you played a word game and someone said Alaska, you might say oil or even whales," he said. "Now you say Alaska: 'Palin.' "

Alaska's first female governor arrived at the state Capitol in December 2006 on an ethics reform platform after defeating two former governors in the primary and general elections. Her prior political experience consisted of terms as Wasilla's mayor and councilwoman and a stint as head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

Unknown on the national stage until John McCain tapped her as his running mate, Palin infused excitement into the Republican's presidential bid. But she also became the butt of talk-show jokes and Democratic criticism, targeted at news that the Republican Party had spent $150,000 or more on a designer wardrobe and what some considered poor performances by the Alaska governor in television interviews.

Now, 2 1/2 years later, former state Senate President Lyda Green, a one-time Palin ally who is now a leading critic, said Palin's tenure is likely to have a negative effect on the state.

"There are going be some things that the Legislature will have to go in and redo," she said, including the likely review of a deal to bring a natural gas pipeline to the state.

Green, who like Palin is a Republican from Wasilla, called Palin a narcissist whose actions "are very much toward herself and her goals and what she sees for her future."

But Palin's future goals remain unclear.

Stapleton said the answer will emerge in coming weeks:

"On July 27, we'll sit down and say, 'OK, here are your options. How do you now want to effect that positive change for Alaska from outside the role as governor?' "

Many sharks 'facing extinction'

2009-06-25T03:30:00.000-07:00

By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News

Endangered hammerhead sharks are often caught for their valuable fins

Many species of open ocean shark are under serious threat, according to an assessment by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The Red list gives the status of 64 types of shark and ray, over 30% of which are threatened with extinction.

The authors, IUCN's Shark Specialist Group, say a main cause is overfishing.

Listed as endangered are two species of hammerhead shark, often subject to "finning" - a practice of removing the fins and throwing away the body.

This is the first time that IUCN Red List criteria, considered the world's most comprehensive inventory of the conservation status of plants and animals, have been used to classify open ocean, or pelagic, sharks and rays.

The list is part of an ongoing international scientific project to monitor the animals.

The authors classified a further 24% of the examined species as Near Threatened.

Sharks are "profoundly vulnerable" to overfishing, they say. This is principally because many species take several years to mature and have relatively few young.
Shark in fishing net
Open ocean sharks are caught in high seas tuna and swordfish fisheries

"[But] despite mounting threats, sharks remain virtually unprotected on the high seas," said Sonja Fordham, deputy chair of the IUCN Shark Specialist Group and one of the editors of the report.

"[We have] documented serious overfishing of these species, in national and international waters. This demonstrates a clear need for immediate action on a global scale."

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization recognised the potential threat to sharks over a decade ago, when it launched its "International Plan of Action for the Conservation and Management of Sharks" in 1999.

But the "requested improvements fisheries data from member states... have been painfully slow and simply inadequate", according to this report by the IUCN.

Many pelagic sharks are caught in high seas tuna and swordfish fisheries.

Although some are accidentally caught in nets meant for these other fish, they are increasingly targeted for their meat, teeth and liver oil, and because of high demand, particularly in Asia, for their fins.

Discarded bodies

"The hammerheads are special because they have very high quality fins but quite low quality meat," explained Ms Fordham. "They often fall victim to finning."

She told BBC News that, although finning is widely banned, this ban is not always well enforced.

"The EU finning ban is one of the weakest in the world," she said.

"The best, most sure-fire way to enforce a ban is to prohibit the removal of fins at sea.

"But in the EU, you can remove them, providing the fins you bring ashore weigh less than 5% of the weight of the bodies."

This rule was designed to prevent finning, but it provided "wiggle room", said Ms Fordham.

"The IUCN has estimated that, under these rules, you could fin and discard two to three sharks for every shark you keep, " she explained.

'No fishing'

Species listed as Vulnerable included the smooth hammerhead shark, the porbeagle shark and the common, bigeye and pelagic thresher sharks.

Fisheries have fought to keep their right to fish porbeagle sharks because their meat is so valuable, according to Ms Fordham.

"Yet we've already had recommendations from scientists that there should be no fishing of these sharks."

For certain species - that are considered particularly vulnerable - the authors have recommended their complete protection.

"The big-eyed thresher shark, for example, is very slow growing," explained Ms Fordham.

"Fishermen can very easily identify it, because it has a very big eye. So if they catch it accidentally, they can throw it back.

"These sharks tend to survive well when they're thrown back."

By the end of this year, the Shark Specialist Group will publish a complete report, outlining the status of all 400 species of shark, and closely-related skates and rays.

Iran Unrest Reveals Split In U.S. on Its Role Abroad

2009-06-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Iran's post-election tumult has exposed the sharply divergent ways in which the Obama administration and its Republican opponents view the nature of American power and the president's role in speaking to political dissent outside the borders of the United States.

The debate over how far Obama should go in encouraging the protesters who returned to the streets of Tehran amid clouds of tear gas Monday has emboldened Republicans, who see an opportunity to criticize his foreign policy as too timid. In recent days, GOP leaders have invoked the unambiguous Cold War rhetoric of Ronald Reagan as the model for the message Obama should be sending to the demonstrators, citing the inspiration it provided to millions of dissidents behind the Iron Curtain.

During a single weekend interview, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) invoked the 1956 Hungarian revolution, the Prague Spring, the Solidarity movement, and Reagan's 1982 "evil empire" speech on the Soviet Union to argue for more explicit U.S. criticism of the Iranian government, which the Obama administration has made clear it will engage no matter who ultimately emerges as president.

"A direct parallel is now being drawn between the fight for freedom from Islamist tyranny in Iran and across the Middle East and the fight decades earlier for freedom from Soviet tyranny," said Nile Gardiner, director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

"It's almost as if the president lacks confidence in the greatness of his own nation," he added. "He seems unwilling to aggressively project American global power, as if it were something to be ashamed of."

But Obama's shades-of-gray approach rejects comparison to an era when Communist bloc dissidents had virtually no access to the Western media and the world was more neatly divided between a pair of superpowers, not complicated by the set of ambitious regional powers such as Iran that the Obama administration is seeking to manage.

Since taking office, Obama has argued that reclaiming America's moral authority by ending torture and closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay provides essential diplomatic leverage to influence events in such strategic parts of the world as the Middle East and Central Asia. The speech he delivered to the Islamic world in Cairo eights days before the June 12 Iranian election sought to do that by providing what the president saw as an unvarnished accounting of U.S. policy in Iran, Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We're trying to promote a foreign policy that advances our interests, not that makes us feel good about ourselves," said a senior administration official who, like others, declined to be identified, citing the sensitivity of the issue.

Obama's approach to Iran, including his assertion that the unrest there represents a debate among Iranians unrelated to the United States, is an acknowledgment that a U.S. president's words have a limited ability to alter foreign events in real time and could do more harm than good. But privately Obama advisers are crediting his Cairo speech for inspiring the protesters, especially the young ones, who are now posing the most direct challenge to the republic's Islamic authority in its 30-year history.

One senior administration official with experience in the Middle East said, "There clearly is in the region a sense of new possibilities," adding that "I was struck in the aftermath of the president's speech that there was a connection. It was very sweeping in terms of its reach."

The adviser said that "there is something particularly authentic about those who are carrying out these demonstrations," citing the fact that some are carrying symbols of the 1979 Iranian revolution as they march for new elections, including photos of the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"The more you keep this in Iranian terms, the better the chances of change," the adviser said.

The administration's only direct intervention in Iran's post-election unrest was to persuade Twitter to delay planned maintenance that would have taken down the social-networking service during the prime organizing hours of Iran's opposition.

"Iran is not a country behind an iron curtain, and there's a much wider range of information that permeates, a much greater interaction with the world, and a much different view of American history," said Suzanne Maloney, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy. "There's a certain inevitability to these Cold War analogies. But the president has been right on the money in asserting the need to keep us out of this debate."

Obama has condemned the violence as "unjust" and endorsed the "universal principle" of peaceful protest, an approach informed by a sense that America's troubled place in Iranian history would undermine the demonstrators by coloring their cause as a U.S. interest.

His Cairo speech sought to clear the air -- in Iran's case, by acknowledging the U.S. role in the 1953 coup that toppled the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. Translated into Farsi, the speech was delivered to Iranians in real time through a State Department-sponsored text-messaging service.

Obama's advisers say the outreach may have contributed to the defeat in Lebanese elections a few days later of a coalition led by Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed party, that had been predicted to win. In recent days, administration officials have pointed to the Iranian demonstrations as further evidence of Obama's possible influence in the region.

Asked Friday whether the administration believes Obama's outreach to Iran and the Muslim world is affecting events on the ground, press secretary Robert Gibbs said, "You're witnessing something that many people might not have presumed or imagined . . . just a few -- even a few weeks or a few days ago."

Obama's supporters on Capitol Hill have argued that the Iranian demonstrators, some of whom do not favor a change in the Islamic nature of the government, should have no doubt the administration supports their cause.

But Republicans clearly see Obama's approach to foreign policy as a potential weakness. On Sunday, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) called Obama's response "timid and passive" on ABC's "This Week." He cited Reagan's 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate, where he called on Russia's Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall," in urging Obama to "speak truth to power."

In his appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation," McCain compared Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to the printing presses that the United States provided in the early 1980s to the Solidarity leaders in Gdansk, Poland, to help them spread their anti-Soviet message. He recalled his meeting with Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident, who told him that Reagan's "evil empire speech" had "spread like wildfire throughout the gulag."

"We've seen this movie before," McCain said. "And I don't consider it meddling when you stand on the side of principles that made our nation the greatest nation in history."

NKorea warns of nuclear war amid rising tensions

2009-06-14T07:30:00.000-07:00

Jun 14, 7:26 AM (ET)

By HYUNG-JIN KIM

South Korean protesters burn North Korean national flags during a rally, denouncing the ninth anniversary of the June 2000 summit between former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in front of Kim Dae-jung's house in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, June 14, 2009. North Korea's communist regime has warned of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula while vowing to step up its atomic bomb-making program in defiance of new U.N. sanctions. Banner read: "Support U.N. sanctions." (AP Photo/ Lee Jin-man)

Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All right reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea's communist regime has warned of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula while vowing to step up its atomic bomb-making program in defiance of new U.N. sanctions.

The North's defiance presents a growing diplomatic headache for President Barack Obama as he prepares for talks Tuesday with his South Korean counterpart on the North's missile and nuclear programs.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told security-related ministers during an unscheduled meeting Sunday to "resolutely and squarely" cope with the North's latest threat, his office said. Lee is to leave for the U.S. on Monday morning.

A commentary Sunday in the North's main state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, claimed the U.S. has 1,000 nuclear weapons in South Korea. Another commentary published Saturday in the state-run Tongil Sinbo weekly claimed the U.S. has been deploying a vast amount of nuclear weapons in South Korea and Japan.

North Korea "is completely within the range of U.S. nuclear attack and the Korean peninsula is becoming an area where the chances of a nuclear war are the highest in the world," the Tongil Sinbo commentary said.

Kim Yong-kyu, a spokesman at the U.S. military command in Seoul, called the latest accusation "baseless," saying Washington has no nuclear bombs in South Korea. U.S. tactical nuclear weapons were removed from South Korea in 1991 as part of arms reductions following the Cold War.

South Korea's Unification Ministry issued a statement Sunday demanding the North stop stoking tension, abandon its nuclear weapons and return to dialogue with the South.

On Saturday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry threatened war on any country that dared to stop its ships on the high seas under the new sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council on Friday as punishment for the North's latest nuclear test.

It is not clear if the statements are simply rhetorical. Still, they are a huge setback for international attempts to rein in North Korea's nuclear ambitions following its second nuclear test on May 25. It first tested a nuclear device in 2006.

In Saturday's statement, North Korea said it has been enriching uranium to provide fuel for its light-water reactor. It was the first public acknowledgment the North is running a uranium enrichment program in addition to its known plutonium-based program. The two radioactive materials are key ingredients in making atomic bombs.

On Sunday, Yonhap news agency reported South Korea and the U.S. have mobilized spy satellites, reconnaissance aircraft and human intelligence networks to obtain evidence that the North has been running a uranium enrichment program.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said it could not confirm the report. The National Intelligence Service - South Korea's main spy agency - was not available for comment.

North Korea said more than one-third of 8,000 spent fuel rods in its possession has been reprocessed and all the plutonium extracted would be used to make atomic bombs. The country could harvest 13-18 pounds (6-8 kilograms) of plutonium - enough to make at least one nuclear bomb - if all the rods are reprocessed.

In addition, North Korea is believed to have enough plutonium for at least half a dozen atomic bombs.

North Korea says its nuclear program is a deterrent against the U.S., which it routinely accuses of plotting to topple its regime. Washington, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has repeatedly said it has no such intention.

The new U.N. sanctions are aimed at depriving the North of the financing used to build its rogue nuclear program. The resolution also authorized searches of North Korean ships suspected of transporting illicit ballistic missile and nuclear materials.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the new U.N. penalties provide the necessary tools to help check North Korea's continued pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The sanctions show that "North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver those weapons through missiles is not going to be accepted by the neighbors as well as the greater international community," Clinton said Saturday at a news conference in Canada.

CIA chief believes Cheney almost wants US attacked

2009-06-14T03:55:00.000-07:00

Sun Jun 14, 2009 4:07pm EDT

WASHINGTON, June 14 (Reuters) - CIA director Leon Panetta says it's almost as if former vice president Dick Cheney would like to see another attack on the United States to prove he is right in criticizing President Barack Obama for abandoning the "harsh interrogation" of terrorism suspects.

"I think he smells some blood in the water on the national security issue," Panetta said in an interview published in The New Yorker magazine's June 22 issue.

"It's almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it's almost as if he's wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point."

Cheney, who was a key advocate in the Bush administration of controversial interrogation methods such as waterboarding, has become as a leading Republican critic of Obama's ban on harsh interrogations and his plan to shut the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In a blistering May 21 speech, Cheney said Obama's reversal of Bush-era policies were "unwise in the extreme" that would make the American people less safe.

Panetta called Cheney's actions "dangerous politics."

He told The New Yorker he had favored the creation of an independent truth commission to look into the detainee polices of former President George W. Bush. But the idea died in April when Obama decided such a panel could be seen as politically vindictive. (Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Alan Elsner)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

Seattle's Pike Place fishmongers under fire

2009-06-13T04:30:00.000-07:00

By Kim Murphy
June 13, 2009

Ted S. Warren / Associated Press
Erik Espinoza, right, and Anders Miller, center, both of Pike Place Fish Market, look on as J.J. Swanton, left, throws a fish in the salmon-tossing contest held in honor of the 100th anniversary of the Pike Place Market in Seattle in this Aug. 2007 file photo.

Animal rights group PETA protests their plans to exhibit their fish-flinging technique at an upcoming veterinarians conference.

Reporting from Seattle -- In this noisy den of brine and ice, scales and slime, fish always have been part meat, part missile.

One man points to an enormous white-bellied fish, and another man in a wet apron scoops it up from the ice, hoists it over his shoulder and sends it flying 15 feet toward the counter

"Hali-BUT! Hali-BUT! Heyyyyyy!" six men scream in unison. "Goin' right home! Goin' right home!" The counterman catches the hurtling fish neatly between the head and tail fin and slaps it onto a wrapping sheet.

The Pike Place Fish Market is the legendary home of the flying fish: Halibut as big as a wrestler's thigh, spiky medallions of crab, the smooth, rainbow flesh of Chinook salmon, all become rapid-fire marine rockets in the hands of Seattle's fishmongers -- who are as famous for the speed of their fish as for its freshness.

But did anyone ever think of the fish?

Asserting that the practice of lobbing fish above the heads of patrons and tourists at the market and other venues is disrespectful to creatures that already have gone through a lot, an animal rights group is protesting plans to stage a flying-fish exhibition at an upcoming national veterinarians conference in Seattle.

Ultimately, they would like to see the practice banned at the fish market too. They argue that tourists would not be nearly so eager to snap photos if dead kittens or gutted lambs were sailing over their heads.

"Killing animals so you can toss their bodies around for amusement is just twisted," said Ashley Byrne, senior campaigner for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in Washington, D.C.

"And it particularly sends a terrible message to the public when vets call it fun to toss around the corpses of animals. If anyone should be promoting compassion and not callousness toward animals, it should be vets."

The 102-year-old Pike Place Market is perhaps Seattle's most important institution, a cacophony of commerce in the middle of the city that hosts 10 million visitors a year, including flocks of tourists and Seattleites in search of lunch and fresh flowers.

Stretching three levels down the hillside above Elliott Bay, the narrow, crowded rows of stalls and shops begin in the open-air bustle along Pike Street and Western Avenue, opposite the original Starbucks. The air is fragrant with the smells of fish, hot fried mini-doughnuts, Hmong flower sellers' fresh blooms and sizzling gourmet sausage.

In the seemingly endless warrens of shops in the basement and nearby alleys, visitors might find anarchist treatises, herbal tinctures, vintage comic books and last Friday's newspaper from Sarajevo.

The market's flying fish have become such an institution of the Pacific Northwest that the fishmongers often are hired to give demonstrations at conferences, hospitals, schools and company retreats.

Jeremy Ridgway, one of the managers at the market, said that he has done fish shows for the ministry of manpower in Singapore, for schoolchildren in Oklahoma and at countless other venues.

"People get excited about it. They get to hold a fish; they get to touch it. A lot of people have never held a salmon before. In Oklahoma, they don't have wild fish, unless you count catfish," he said.

He said fishmongers are bewildered at the notion that their toss -- which they describe as merely the quickest way of getting fish from display cases to the counter -- shows any lack of reverence for a creature that is, after all, their livelihood.

"I mean, the fish are dead," Ridgway said. "The thing is, we're not laughing and making fun of them. . . . It's just Point A to Point B. That's why we do it."

"Two crabs!" somebody yells, and the smart ones in the crowd quickly duck.

In a letter to the veterinarian association, PETA Director Sarah King said the flying fish demonstration represents callous disregard for the suffering the creatures undergo before they come to the table.

"There is more than enough scientific evidence to prove that fish feel pain and that they do not die well at the hands of the fishing industry," she said, citing numerous studies that show fish have intelligence as well as sophisticated social structures.

"When the fish used in these 'tosses' are pulled up from the depths of the ocean, they undergo the excruciating pain of decompression. The intense pressure often ruptures their swim bladders and damages other internal organs. Then the fish slowly suffocate or are bludgeoned to death. Others are still alive when they are cut open. The fish toss celebrates cruelty to marine animals," King wrote.

W. Ron DeHaven, chief executive of the American Veterinary Medical Assn., said that the flying fish demonstration was scheduled during the convention's July 11 opening session as a team-building exercise for as many as 10,000 veterinarians, receptionists and veterinary technicians.

"We start from a fundamental standpoint as an association, where we support the use of animals for human purposes, such as food and fiber, exhibition and for use as pets and companions, and we think this is consistent with our principles," he said.

At the same time, he said, "we wouldn't want to do anything that would appear to be disrespectful of animals."

PETA has butted heads with the association in the past, criticizing it for not opposing the force-feeding of geese for foie gras or the tight confinement of mother pigs.

So simply switching to rubber fish for the convention demonstration -- after PETA offered to buy such substitutes -- may not be a good option either, DeHaven said.

"The vast majority of our members would support the use of fish for this purpose, and if we are perceived as caving to political pressure from PETA, there is vulnerability for us there, and I don't want to ignore that," he said.

Ridgway said the fishmongers were willing to throw the rubber variety for the vets, but wonders what the point would be. "It would be like throwing basketballs," he said.

"It's probably no more disrespectful than eating them," said Sue Carter, visiting the market one recent afternoon from Mukilteo, Wash., smiling as her salmon sailed toward the cash register. "I wouldn't want to see a fish gasping for air coming flying through the air. But one that's already on the way to the table, why not?"

Sympathy was on ice. Few were inclined to think it through, and those who did came up hungry.

"As far as whether I'd want to see dead cats being thrown around, well, who's going to throw dead cats, unless you're in China or something?" said Vancouver, Canada, resident Robin Graham. "A dead fish is a dead fish."

kim.murphy@latimes.com

America’s Sea of Red Ink Was Years in the Making

2009-06-09T21:30:00.000-07:00

By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: June 9, 2009

There are two basic truths about the enormous deficits that the federal government will run in the coming years.

How Trillion-Dollar Deficits Were Created

The first is that President Obama’s agenda, ambitious as it may be, is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying. The second is that Mr. Obama does not have a realistic plan for eliminating the deficit, despite what his advisers have suggested.

The New York Times analyzed Congressional Budget Office reports going back almost a decade, with the aim of understanding how the federal government came to be far deeper in debt than it has been since the years just after World War II. This debt will constrain the country’s choices for years and could end up doing serious economic damage if foreign lenders become unwilling to finance it.

Mr. Obama — responding to recent signs of skittishness among those lenders — met with 40 members of Congress at the White House on Tuesday and called for the re-enactment of pay-as-you-go rules, requiring Congress to pay for any new programs it passes.

The story of today’s deficits starts in January 2001, as President Bill Clinton was leaving office. The Congressional Budget Office estimated then that the government would run an average annual surplus of more than $800 billion a year from 2009 to 2012. Today, the government is expected to run a $1.2 trillion annual deficit in those years.

You can think of that roughly $2 trillion swing as coming from four broad categories: the business cycle, President George W. Bush’s policies, policies from the Bush years that are scheduled to expire but that Mr. Obama has chosen to extend, and new policies proposed by Mr. Obama.

The first category — the business cycle — accounts for 37 percent of the $2 trillion swing. It’s a reflection of the fact that both the 2001 recession and the current one reduced tax revenue, required more spending on safety-net programs and changed economists’ assumptions about how much in taxes the government would collect in future years.

About 33 percent of the swing stems from new legislation signed by Mr. Bush. That legislation, like his tax cuts and the Medicare prescription drug benefit, not only continue to cost the government but have also increased interest payments on the national debt.

Mr. Obama’s main contribution to the deficit is his extension of several Bush policies, like the Iraq war and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000. Such policies — together with the Wall Street bailout, which was signed by Mr. Bush and supported by Mr. Obama — account for 20 percent of the swing.

About 7 percent comes from the stimulus bill that Mr. Obama signed in February. And only 3 percent comes from Mr. Obama’s agenda on health care, education, energy and other areas.

If the analysis is extended further into the future, well beyond 2012, the Obama agenda accounts for only a slightly higher share of the projected deficits.

How can that be? Some of his proposals, like a plan to put a price on carbon emissions, don’t cost the government any money. Others would be partly offset by proposed tax increases on the affluent and spending cuts. Congressional and White House aides agree that no large new programs, like an expansion of health insurance, are likely to pass unless they are paid for.

Alan Auerbach, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, and an author of a widely cited study on the dangers of the current deficits, describes the situation like so: “Bush behaved incredibly irresponsibly for eight years. On the one hand, it might seem unfair for people to blame Obama for not fixing it. On the other hand, he’s not fixing it.”

“And,” he added, “not fixing it is, in a sense, making it worse.”

When challenged about the deficit, Mr. Obama and his advisers generally start talking about health care. “There is no way you can put the nation on a sound fiscal course without wringing inefficiencies out of health care,” Peter Orszag, the White House budget director, told me.

Outside economists agree. The Medicare budget really is the linchpin of deficit reduction. But there are two problems with leaving the discussion there.

First, even if a health overhaul does pass, it may not include the tough measures needed to bring down spending. Ultimately, the only way to do so is to take money from doctors, drug makers and insurers, and it isn’t clear whether Mr. Obama and Congress have the stomach for that fight. So far, they have focused on ideas like preventive care that would do little to cut costs.

Second, even serious health care reform won’t be enough. Obama advisers acknowledge as much. They say that changes to the system would probably have a big effect on health spending starting in five or 10 years. The national debt, however, will grow dangerously large much sooner.

Mr. Orszag says the president is committed to a deficit equal to no more than 3 percent of gross domestic product within five to 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office projects a deficit of at least 4 percent for most of the next decade. Even that may turn out to be optimistic, since the government usually ends up spending more than it says it will. So Mr. Obama isn’t on course to meet his target.

But Congressional Republicans aren’t, either. Judd Gregg recently held up a chart on the Senate floor showing that Mr. Obama would increase the deficit — but failed to mention that much of the increase stemmed from extending Bush policies. In fact, unlike Mr. Obama, Republicans favor extending all the Bush tax cuts, which will send the deficit higher.

Republican leaders in the House, meanwhile, announced a plan last week to cut spending by $75 billion a year. But they made specific suggestions adding up to meager $5 billion. The remaining $70 billion was left vague. “The G.O.P. is not serious about cutting down spending,” the conservative Cato Institute concluded.

What, then, will happen?

“Things will get worse gradually,” Mr. Auerbach predicts, “unless they get worse quickly.” Either a solution will be put off, or foreign lenders, spooked by the rising debt, will send interest rates higher and create a crisis.

The solution, though, is no mystery. It will involve some combination of tax increases and spending cuts. And it won’t be limited to pay-as-you-go rules, tax increases on somebody else, or a crackdown on waste, fraud and abuse. Your taxes will probably go up, and some government programs you favor will become less generous.

That is the legacy of our trillion-dollar deficits. Erasing them will be one of the great political issues of the coming decade.

E-mail: Leonhardt@nytimes.com

How Trillion-Dollar Deficits Were Created

2009-06-09T21:13:00.000-07:00

To understand the looming deficits, The New York Times analyzed Congressional Budget Office projections of the budget surplus or deficit for the years 2009-12, President Obama’s current term. The budget office has been making estimates for these years for nearly a decade now. The numbers that appear below are the average annual deficit or surplus for this four-year period.

Plan would aid salmon, reduce water for people

2009-06-05T18:10:00.000-07:00

Kelly Zito, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, June 5, 2009

(06-04) 18:10 PDT San Francisco --

Federal regulators prescribed sweeping changes Thursday to the dams, reservoirs and pumps that supply water to two-thirds of California in an effort to restore a salmon population whose steep decline has sounded an environmental alarm and led to the cancellation of two consecutive commercial fishing seasons.

While the measures could save the chinook salmon and other species from extinction, critics argue the plans reduce the water supply to people and farms at a time when the water system is strained by earlier environmental rules, drought, population growth and crumbling infrastructure.

On Thursday, an 800-page biological opinion released by the National Marine Fisheries Service found that operations of the state and federal water systems had jeopardized the state's spring-run chinook salmon, Central Valley steelhead, green sturgeon and Southern Resident killer whales. Moving water from one area of the delta to another and exporting increased supplies to cities and farms slashed flows for fish and boosted water temperatures, the report found.

The agency recommended increasing the amount of cold water stored at Shasta Dam, routing fish around a Red Bluff dam, closing "cross-channel" gates within the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta for longer periods, and cutting delta water exports by 5 to 7 percent. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which represents both the state and federal water systems, expressed initial support of the opinion but said it would examine the document in detail before moving forward.

The aim is to make waterways more hospitable and accessible to spawning salmon, while also preventing the fish from getting trapped in the giant delta pumps that funnel water to 25 million Californians and hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland. Federal architects of the plan say California's future relies on reviving these fragile species.

The salmon population has declined by about 90 percent over the past six years, according to several West Coast fishing industry groups.

"What is at stake here is not just the survival of species, but the health of entire ecosystems and the economies that depend on them," said Maria Rea, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service supervisor for the Sacramento office.
Governor critical of opinion

State officials, however, issued a stinging rebuke of the opinion.

"This federal biological opinion puts fish above the needs of millions of Californians and the health and security of the world's eighth-largest economy," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement. "The piling on of one federal court decision after another in a species-by-species approach is killing our economy and undermining the integrity of the Endangered Species Act."

The governor said he would seek meetings with federal administrators to discuss the opinion.

Thursday's plan is the second released by the agency. Last year, U.S. District Judge Oliver Wanger in Fresno tossed the service's 2004 opinion, which critics contended favored politics over science.

Commercial salmon fisherman, idled for the second season in a row, said the latest plan may resurrect an industry they say historically poured more than $2 billion a year into the state economy.

During a normal year, dozens of fishing boats would be lined up along San Francisco's commercial piers unloading salmon payloads as high as $20,000, said Larry Collins, vice president of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. During a news conference Thursday held by Collins and other industry advocates, the piers were empty.

"We need to do what's right for these fishing communities, what's right for these fish, and we need to do it now," Collins said.

California water managers and representatives of agriculture greeted the plan with much more disappointment than hope. Most of the criticism rested on the plan's call for reducing water deliveries by 5 to 7 percent. The Department of Water Resources estimates deliveries have already been cut by as much as 20 percent after an earlier biological opinion on the threatened delta smelt. Around the state, drought and water cuts have forced many farmers to fallow prime farmland.
Rural, urban hardships

"It's another water supply cut on top of numerous ones over the years that are driving Central Valley economies into the tank," said Mike Wade, executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition. "This is just more of the same."

The cuts also impact urban areas around the state, served mainly by the state water project.

"The new opinion ... further chips away at our ability to provide a reliable water supply for California," said Department of Water Resources Director Lester Snow.

Several Bay Area agencies, including Santa Clara Valley Water District, Zone 7 Water Agency in Alameda County, Contra Costa Water District and Alameda County Water District, rely heavily on delta water.

Instead, Snow and others said the state must take a more comprehensive approach to solve the water network's myriad problems.

The Bay Delta Conservation Plan, a state environmental and planning process whose goals balance both delta ecosystem restoration and water supply reliability, may hold some of the answers. But environmentalists say fixing the water system is as much behavioral as it is structural.

"We have high hopes that the BDCP will help move us away from short-term fixes," said Ann Hayden, senior water resource analyst at Environmental Defense Fund. "But we also need to seriously address alternatives to water supply coming out of the bay-delta - recycling, conservation and groundwater management."

E-mail Kelly Zito at kzito@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Far-right wing activists launch anti-Obama campaign

2009-06-05T02:46:00.000-07:00

JPost.com » Israel » Article
Jun 3, 2009 19:13 | Updated Jun 4, 2009 16:24

By ABE SELIG

Article's topics: Barack Obama

Chanting "No, you can't!" and waving signs bearing messages in a similar vein, nearly 200 people held a demonstration outside the US Consulate on the capital's Rehov Agron on Wednesday evening, protesting the growing American pressure to stop construction in West Bank settlements.

Speakers at the event included MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) and Esther Pollard, the wife of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. All brought a similar message - that the American government does not have the right to dictate where Jews may or may not live within the Land of Israel.

"Mr. Obama, we started demonstrating 16 years ago," said Rabbi Shalom Gold, the founder of Kehillat Zichron Ya'acov in Jerusalem's Har Nof neighborhood, alluding to the early days of the Oslo Accords. "You were in your '30s and you probably didn't know the first thing about Eretz Yisrael... but we're part of God's divine plan, we're here and we're staying here!"

"Be a friend of Israel, but even if you won't be, we have the greatest ally in the world," he said, pointing to the heavens.

Esther Pollard followed, telling the crowd that her message to the US president was that "your problem isn't with Prime Minister Netanyahu, nor is it with the People of Israel. Your problem, Mr. President, is with the almighty God of Israel!"

The protest continued for more than two hours, as the demonstrators ebbed and flowed and consular staff across the street came out to watch the goings-on.
Poster showing Obama and...

The protest was only a part of a wider campaign launched by activists on Wednesday, in which they will try to counter the American stance by portraying Obama as an anti-Semite whose policies would harm the Jewish state.

Over the coming days, activists plan to hang posters throughout the country of Obama wearing a keffiyeh, flanked by the words, "Anti-Semite," and "Jew-hater," written in red in both English and Hebrew. Another poster published by the campaign shows Obama shaking hands with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against a background of a mushroom cloud from a nuclear explosion.

The Jewish National Front, which is backing the protests, said in a statement: "We decided to launch a campaign against the president of the United States and to say that Barack Hussein Obama is bad for the Jews."

"From the moment that he entered the White House, we have been feeling anti-Semitism and hatred toward Israel," the statement continued. "We have a number of plans, among which are demonstrations in the US and protests in front of the consulate and homes of the ambassadors."

Later Wednesday evening, Peace Now issued a statement harshly criticizing the campaign, saying the anti-Obama posters and demonstrations would cause considerable damage to the friendship between the US and Israel.

"The radical Right is damaging our strategic alliance with the US, and is embarrassing Israel in front of the world," the organization said. "[Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu] must renounce this campaign of the settlers at once, and act decisively against the hilltop youth and those who are breaking the law in the settlements."

Jerusalem Post staff contributed to this report.

Budget plan could doom CalWORKS aid to families, children

2009-06-04T21:50:00.000-07:00

By Cynthia Hubert
chubert@sacbee.com
Published: Thursday, Jun. 4, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 1A

Could California become the first state in the nation to do away with welfare?

That doomsday scenario is on the table as lawmakers wrestle with a staggering $24.3 billion budget deficit.

County welfare directors are "in shock" at the very idea of getting rid of CalWORKs, which has been widely viewed as one of the most successful social programs in the state's history, said Bruce Wagstaff, director of the Department of Human Assistance in Sacramento.

"It's difficult to come up with the right adjective to react to this," Wagstaff said. "It would be devastating to the people we serve."

H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the state Department of Finance, said California is in an unprecedented fiscal situation that has made all programs, from education to human services, vulnerable to deep and painful reductions.

"I don't wish for a moment to minimize the profound impact" that eliminating CalWORKs would have, Palmer said. "But the easy decisions are way past being in the rearview mirror for us. We face the specter of California not having cash on hand to pay its bills in July."

Wagstaff and other administrators are betting that the state will rescue the "welfare to work" program. But they are bracing for cuts that would slash benefits to the lowest levels since the late 1990s, when CalWORKs began as part of the federal government's bold reform of the welfare system.

"It would be a huge regression," said Nancy O'Hara, assistant director of the Yolo County Department of Employment and Social Services. "My mind reels just thinking about all of this."

California would save $157 million in the general fund by cutting CalWORKs altogether, according to the County Welfare Directors Association. But the group warns that the state would lose some $620 million in federal funds for the program. Palmer put the projected federal loss much higher, at $3.7 billion.

The association argues that eliminating CalWORKs would force thousands of families into homelessness, hurt the state economically and put added pressure on already strapped county assistance programs.

"No other state has eliminated all aid to dependent children, and no other First World country that we are aware of has no safety net for poor families," said Frank Mecca, the group's executive director. "There really is no fallback, especially given the financial condition that most counties are in."

O'Hara predicted higher rates of child abuse and abandonment if CalWORKs were to disappear.

"I can see it happening, like it did during the Great Depression when people could no longer provide for their children," O'Hara said. "I have not allowed myself to think about it in detail. I'm holding out hope that this won't happen."

CalWORKs, which replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children in California, serves some 525,000 families each month, Mecca said. Welfare caseloads have dropped by half since its inception, he said, although recently they have begun to creep up again because of the wobbly economy.

"CalWORKs represents a real cultural change in the way welfare programs operate, and it's worked. It has proven to be a success," Wagstaff said. "People have gotten jobs. We have seen good outcomes for kids. Poverty rates have gone down. It's almost unthinkable to imagine taking this step backwards."

In Sacramento County, 33,500 families receive CalWORKs benefits, including more than 62,000 children, Wagstaff said. A family of three gets a monthly check of $689, plus food stamps. But CalWORKs does more than simply issue checks, he pointed out. It helps people, many of whom have depended on public assistance for years, learn new skills and get jobs, with subsidies for child care.

"Even as the unemployment rate was going up, we were still putting thousands of people to work," said Wagstaff. "I would argue that when the economy is down, the need for these kinds of services is higher than ever."

Roxanne Morales, 44, lived off welfare "for many years" and credits CalWORKs with turning her life around.

When she learned more than a decade ago that the rules for welfare were changing and she would have to get a job or go to school to retain her benefits, Morales panicked.

"I had my first child at 16," she said. "I had never had a job before. I had no clue. But they pushed me, and I am ever so glad they did."

Today Morales has risen from customer service representative to field supervisor at Maximus Inc., which helps state and local governments manage programs such as Medi-Cal. She is financially independent and happy, she said.

"I would not be in this position today if not for CalWORKs," said Morales. "There is no way they can eliminate this program."

Wagstaff, who helped craft CalWORKs, said he is confident it will survive. "We have no instructions from anyone about shutting it down," he said. "But something big likely is going to happen."

Mecca agreed.

"It's been gratifying to hear from people on both sides of the aisle that eliminating CalWORKs would be unacceptable," said Mecca. "But the magnitude of the state's fiscal problems and the politics in Sacramento are such that we have to take every proposal seriously."

An earlier state budget proposal called for a 6 percent cut in CalWORKs grants, on top of a 4 percent cut scheduled to take effect July 1. It would have eliminated aid to children whose parents are being cut off because they've reached their 60-month time limits for welfare assistance, among other things.

Those cuts might seem palatable next to a proposal to eliminate CalWORKs entirely, Mecca said.

"There is a prevailing view that folks are being softened up for very serious, but less egregious, cuts," he said. "But if that's the strategy, it's reckless and irresponsible."

Palmer said the proposal is no bluff.

"This is not a test," he said.

Call The Bee's Cynthia Hubert, (916) 321-1082.

Obama Hails Judge as ‘Inspiring’

2009-05-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

By PETER BAKER and JEFF ZELENY
Published: May 26, 2009 (New York Times)

WASHINGTON — President Obama announced Tuesday that he would nominate Sonia Sotomayor, a federal appeals judge in New York, to the Supreme Court, choosing a daughter of Puerto Rican parents who was raised in a Bronx public housing project to become the nation’s first Hispanic justice.

In making his first pick for the court, Mr. Obama emphasized Judge Sotomayor’s “extraordinary journey” from modest beginnings to the Ivy League and now the pinnacle of the judicial system. Casting her as the embodiment of the American dream, he touched off a confirmation battle that he hopes to wage over biography more than ideology.

Judge Sotomayor’s past comments about how her sex and ethnicity shaped her decisions, and the role of appeals courts in making policy, generated instant conservative complaints that she is a judicial activist. Senate Republicans vowed to scrutinize her record. But with Democrats in reach of the 60 votes needed to break a filibuster, the White House appeared eager to dare Republicans to stand against a history-making nomination at a time when both parties are courting the growing Hispanic vote.

“When Sonia Sotomayor ascends those marble steps to assume her seat on the highest court of the land,” Mr. Obama said as he introduced her in the East Room of the White House, “America will have taken another important step towards realizing the ideal that is etched above its entrance: Equal justice under the law.”

Ms. Sotomayor, 54, a graduate of Princeton and Yale who served as a prosecutor, corporate litigator and federal district judge before joining the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, a decade ago, would become the nation’s 111th justice.

She would be the third woman to hold a seat on the court and the sixth person on the current nine-member panel with a Roman Catholic background.

If confirmed to succeed Justice David H. Souter, a mainstay of the liberal wing who is retiring, Judge Sotomayor would probably not change the court’s broad philosophical balance. But her views on same-sex marriage, gun rights, financial and environmental regulation, executive power and other polarizing issues could help shape judicial rulings for years, if not decades, to come.

At the heart of the fight over her nomination will be a debate over the role that a judge’s experience should play in rendering decisions. Although Mr. Obama said on Tuesday that “a judge’s job is to interpret, not make law,” his emphasis on a nominee with “empathy” has generated criticism from Republicans, who saw that as code for legislating personal views from the bench.

Judge Sotomayor has said that “our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions.” In a lecture in 2001 on the role her background played in her jurisprudence, she said, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

She also said at a conference in 2005 that a “court of appeals is where policy is made,” a statement she seemed to understand at the time would be controversial, because she added, “I know this is on tape and I should never say that, because we don’t make law.” The White House said she meant that appeals courts play a greater role in interpreting laws than district courts, but Republicans pointed to the comment as another sign that she would try to impose her values in rendering decisions.

“Judge Sotomayor is a liberal activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written,” said Wendy E. Long, counsel to the Judicial Confirmation Network, a conservative group. “She thinks that judges should dictate policy and that one’s sex, race and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.”

Other conservatives said they would focus on her ruling in a New Haven affirmative action case or on how she might rule on same-sex marriage. “Abortion is in some sense a stale issue that has been fought over many times, but gay marriage is very much up for grabs,” said Curt Levey, executive director of the Committee for Justice, a legal group. “Gay marriage will be bigger than abortion.”

As she was nominated on Tuesday, Judge Sotomayor did not retreat from her view that judges ought to look at the impact of their rulings. “I strive never to forget the real-world consequences of my decisions on individuals, businesses and government,” she said.

While conservative groups took aim, Republican senators responded more cautiously, weighing how aggressively they want to fight her confirmation. Twenty-nine Senate Republicans voted against her confirmation to the appellate bench in 1998, including Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, now the party’s Senate leader, while 25 voted for her. Of those still in the Senate, 11 voted against her and 9 for her.

Mr. McConnell said on Tuesday that the Senate would not be a “rubber stamp” and promised that Republicans would “examine her record to ensure she understands that the role of a jurist in our democracy is to apply the law even-handedly, despite their own feelings or personal or political preferences.”

Texting May Be Taking a Toll

2009-05-25T07:30:00.000-07:00

By KATIE HAFNER (New York Times)
Published: May 25, 2009

They do it late at night when their parents are asleep. They do it in restaurants and while crossing busy streets. They do it in the classroom with their hands behind their back. They do it so much their thumbs hurt.

Spurred by the unlimited texting plans offered by carriers like AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless, American teenagers sent and received an average of 2,272 text messages per month in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the Nielsen Company — almost 80 messages a day, more than double the average of a year earlier.

The phenomenon is beginning to worry physicians and psychologists, who say it is leading to anxiety, distraction in school, falling grades, repetitive stress injury and sleep deprivation.

Dr. Martin Joffe, a pediatrician in Greenbrae, Calif., recently surveyed students at two local high schools and said he found that many were routinely sending hundreds of texts every day.

“That’s one every few minutes,” he said. “Then you hear that these kids are responding to texts late at night. That’s going to cause sleep issues in an age group that’s already plagued with sleep issues.”

The rise in texting is too recent to have produced any conclusive data on health effects. But Sherry Turkle, a psychologist who is director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and who has studied texting among teenagers in the Boston area for three years, said it might be causing a shift in the way adolescents develop.

“Among the jobs of adolescence are to separate from your parents, and to find the peace and quiet to become the person you decide you want to be,” she said. “Texting hits directly at both those jobs.”

Psychologists expect to see teenagers break free from their parents as they grow into autonomous adults, Professor Turkle went on, “but if technology makes something like staying in touch very, very easy, that’s harder to do; now you have adolescents who are texting their mothers 15 times a day, asking things like, ‘Should I get the red shoes or the blue shoes?’ ”

As for peace and quiet, she said, “if something next to you is vibrating every couple of minutes, it makes it very difficult to be in that state of mind.

“If you’re being deluged by constant communication, the pressure to answer immediately is quite high,” she added. “So if you’re in the middle of a thought, forget it.”

Michael Hausauer, a psychotherapist in Oakland, Calif., said teenagers had a “terrific interest in knowing what’s going on in the lives of their peers, coupled with a terrific anxiety about being out of the loop.” For that reason, he said, the rapid rise in texting has potential for great benefit and great harm.

“Texting can be an enormous tool,” he said. “It offers companionship and the promise of connectedness. At the same time, texting can make a youngster feel frightened and overly exposed.”

Texting may also be taking a toll on teenagers’ thumbs. Annie Wagner, 15, a ninth-grade honor student in Bethesda, Md., used to text on her tiny LG phone as fast as she typed on a regular keyboard. A few months ago, she noticed a painful cramping in her thumbs. (Lately, she has been using the iPhone she got for her 15th birthday, and she says texting is slower and less painful.)

Peter W. Johnson, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Washington, said it was too early to tell whether this kind of stress is damaging. But he added,

“Based on our experiences with computer users, we know intensive repetitive use of the upper extremities can lead to musculoskeletal disorders, so we have some reason to be concerned that too much texting could lead to temporary or permanent damage to the thumbs.”

Annie said that although her school, like most, forbids cellphone use in class, with the LG phone she could text by putting it under her coat or desk.

Her classmate Ari Kapner said, “You pretend you’re getting something out of your backpack.”

Teachers are often oblivious. “It’s a huge issue, and it’s rampant,” said Deborah Yager, a high school chemistry teacher in Castro Valley, Calif. Ms. Yager recently gave an anonymous survey to 50 of her students; most said they texted during class.

“I can’t tell when it’s happening, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” she said. “And I’m not going to take the time every day to try to police it.”

Dr. Joffe says parents tend to be far less aware of texting than of, say, video game playing or general computer use, and the unlimited plans often mean that parents stop paying attention to billing details. “I talk to parents in the office now,” he said. “I’m quizzing them, and no one is thinking about this.”

Still, some parents are starting to take measures. Greg Hardesty, a reporter in Lake Forest, Calif., said that late last year his 13-year-old daughter, Reina, racked up 14,528 texts in one month. She would keep the phone on after going to bed, switching it to vibrate and waiting for it to light up and signal an incoming message.

Mr. Hardesty wrote a column about Reina’s texting in his newspaper, The Orange County Register, and in the flurry of attention that followed, her volume soared to about 24,000 messages. Finally, when her grades fell precipitously, her parents confiscated the phone.

Reina’s grades have since improved, and the phone is back in her hands, but her text messages are limited to 5,000 per month — and none between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. on weekdays.

Yet she said there was an element of hypocrisy in all this: her mother, too, is hooked on the cellphone she carries in her purse.

“She should understand a little better, because she’s always on her iPhone,” Reina said. “But she’s all like, ‘Oh well, I don’t want you texting.’ ” (Her mother, Manako Ihaya, said she saw Reina’s point.) Professor Turkle can sympathize. “Teens feel they are being punished for behavior in which their parents indulge,” she said. And in what she calls a poignant twist, teenagers still need their parents’ undivided attention.

“Even though they text 3,500 messages a week, when they walk out of their ballet lesson, they’re upset to see their dad in the car on the BlackBerry,” she said. “The fantasy of every adolescent is that the parent is there, waiting, expectant, completely there for them.”

Thailand's countdown coup

2009-05-23T01:54:00.000-07:00

Last Updated: Tuesday, 19 September 2006, 16:46 GMT 17:46 UK

Thailand's latest political crisis traces its roots back to January when Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra sold his family's stake in the telecoms firm Shin Corp.

The move angered many, mainly urban Thais, who complained that the family avoided paying tax and had passed control of an important national asset to Singaporean investors.

It led to mass protests and calls for the resignation of the prime minister, who was already under pressure over his handling of a Muslim insurgency in the south and his extensive control over the media.

In a bid to tackle the crisis, and to show he still had widespread public support despite regular massive street protests in Bangkok, Mr Thaksin dissolved parliament in February and called a snap election for April.

Mr Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai party won 57% of the vote in the April election, but millions of Thais cast protest votes and the opposition refused to take part.

After weeks of limbo, Thailand's highly-revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej called the situation a "mess" and ordered the courts to sort it out.

'Military plot'

The election result was ruled invalid by the Constitutional Court and a new date was set for later this year.

Mr Thaksin took a seven-week break from politics following the election, but came back to work in May.

The atmosphere has remained tense ever since.

The Thai media has speculated about dissatisfaction towards Mr Thaksin within the military, which is traditionally very loyal to the king.

There has also been talk of a split within some parts of the army, following an annual reshuffle which saw some officers with links to Mr Thaksin moved.

The rumours took on a new urgency last month when police intercepted a car driven by a military officer and carrying a large bomb, near the prime minister's house.

Mr Thaksin accused several military officers of plotting to assassinate him.

His opponents accused him of fabricating a story to win him support in the forthcoming election.

Schwarzenegger missed his golden opportunity to give Californians the truth

2009-05-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

He promised to make it work by cutting 'waste, fraud and abuse.' It was never that easy. The real solutions are obvious, though.

Michael Hiltzik
May 21, 2009

Marx Brothers fans will recall that the political philosophy of Rufus T. Firefly in "Duck Soup" boiled down to this:

"If you think this country's bad off now, just wait 'til I get through with it."

I've often considered that to be the secret slogan of Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration. (Just substitute "this state" for "this country.") After Tuesday's election, it's no longer a secret.

Schwarzenegger had the kind of voter support in 2003 that would have allowed him to tell the voters the harsh but necessary truths about California governance and force real reforms down their throats.

Instead, he uttered the same lies about state government and proposed the same nostrums as many of his predecessors: Californians are overtaxed and underserved, the budget can be balanced by cutting waste, fraud and abuse, etc. Like everyone else who has made these claims, he never delivered on his promise.

His cut in the car tax cost the state $3.6 billion per year, making him directly responsible for pretty much all of today's $21-billion budget deficit.

He hoped he could avoid reaping the whirlwind sown by these cliches. Unfortunately, Tuesday was Harvest Day.

Let's list a few of the lies he and our other political leaders have peddled about California's government and examine how they contributed to this week's debacle at the ballot box.

The most onerous lie is that Californians are burdened by the highest state taxes in the nation. The truth, according to 2006 figures derived from the U.S. Census, is that as a percentage of all personal income, California's tax and fee schedule ranks 18th in the country.

Then there's the canard that we unfairly soak our rich. This is supposedly a no-no, because the rich might flee, taking with them their sterling job-creating potential.

The dirty little secret, according to Citizens for Tax Justice, a left-leaning nonprofit group, is that California's wealthiest residents shoulder the lightest burden of any income group in the state. The top 1% of California income-earners (average 2007 income: $2.3 million) paid 7.4% of their income in various state taxes last year, counting the federal deduction for state taxes. The highest rate was paid by the poorest residents. Those earning $20,000 or less, with average income of $12,600, forked over 10.2% of their earnings in sales, excise, property and other levies.

This year's budget deal increased the disparity, raising the effective rate on the rich to 7.8%, but that on the poor to 11.1%.

The theme of the ballot campaign was that the state's chronic budget gridlock could be solved by more gridlock and more borrowing. All lies.

By no means does the governor deserve all the blame for the budget fiasco. Democrats and Republicans alike have abandoned any claim to statesmanship in Sacramento.

And what of the business community? Big corporations, entrepreneurs and mom-and-pop stores all have a huge stake in functional state government.

Yet the state Chamber of Commerce traditionally has offered one nostrum for California's budget ills: Cut taxes. But since it also claims to support better education and improved infrastructure, its approach has simply amounted to throwing the hard challenges back into the laps of a nonfunctional political establishment.

The truth is that real solutions to the budget crisis are obvious.

One: Eliminate, or at least loosen substantially, the two-thirds legislative requirement to pass a budget or raise taxes.

This rule has allowed a small Republican minority to hold up all budget progress unless its reactionary program is incorporated in the deal. If the supermajority were pared back even to 60%, the minority lawmakers would be unable to block a budget unless they could enlist at least a few moderates in their cause. The improvement in the tone of legislating would be immediate.

Two: Remove legislative term limits. This ridiculous provision has reduced the Capitol to a nursery full of would-be legislators needing afternoon naps. Worse, it has sapped legislative leadership of its vigor.

Since mid-1995, there have been nine speakers of the Assembly. Over the previous 20 years, there were two, including Willie Brown, the original target of the term-limit movement. You want to tell me that government in Sacramento has improved since then? As long as term limits exist, we'll never have a 21st-century state government.

Three is the Big One: Revise Proposition 13. Prop 13 is often described as a tax-cutting measure, but that scarcely does justice to the damage it has caused.

By rendering the property tax useless as a revenue device, Prop 13 hit local governments especially hard. Key budgeting authority devolved from cities and counties up to Sacramento, where they have to compete with the state government for money. You want your streets paved or more teachers for your third grade? Stand in line behind the health department, or the corrections department, or Caltrans.

So city streets deteriorate and local schools get worse. Police and firefighters are laid off. All the places where the voters come into face-to-face contact with their governments crumble.

The result? Voters get more cynical, more convinced that government is expensive and useless. It's a vicious circle -- the more government is unable to do the things voters want it to do, the less faith the voters have in government and the less they're willing to spend on it. Which leaves it with less money to do the things voters want. And on and on.

Reversing the worst effects of Proposition 13 doesn't take rocket science. Commercial property should be subject to regular reassessment -- the "split roll" that, inexplicably, can't gain traction in Sacramento. Cash-strapped homeowners can be provisionally protected from the burden of higher residential assessments -- say by allowing some assessments to be deferred until the home is sold.

Plainly, local government needs to recover its authority to collect revenue directly. That would help our political leadership make the case that, considering the quality of the services and institutions state and local government provide, Californians aren't overtaxed but undertaxed -- and the wealthy are the most undertaxed of all.

If Tuesday's election proves anything, it's that California's political sacred cows all need to be herded into the abattoir and dismembered, once and for all.

Breaking the cycle that has brought us to this pass will take political courage and real statesmanship. California's voters have been trained for too long to think they can have roads, schools, universities, clean air and other amenities without paying their true cost. The task of our next generation of leaders will be to show that California is not ungovernable -- it's just been ungoverned.

Michael Hiltzik's column appears Mondays and Thursdays. Reach him at michael.hiltzik@latimes.com, read his previous columns at www.latimes.com/hiltzik, and follow @latimeshiltzik on Twitter.

Cheney's speech contained omissions, misstatements

2009-05-21T02:55:00.000-07:00

By Jonathan S. Landay and Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers Jonathan S. Landay And Warren P. Strobel, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Thu May 21, 7:10 pm ET

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Dick Cheney's defense Thursday of the Bush administration's policies for interrogating suspected terrorists contained omissions, exaggerations and misstatements.

In his address to the American Enterprise Institute , a conservative policy organization in Washington , Cheney said that the techniques the Bush administration approved, including waterboarding — simulated drowning that's considered a form of torture — forced nakedness and sleep deprivation, were "legal" and produced information that "prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people."

He quoted the Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair , as saying that the information gave U.S. officials a "deeper understanding of the al Qaida organization that was attacking this country."

In a statement April 21 , however, Blair said the information "was valuable in some instances" but that "there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means. The bottom line is that these techniques hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

A top-secret 2004 CIA inspector general's investigation found no conclusive proof that information gained from aggressive interrogations helped thwart any "specific imminent attacks," according to one of four top-secret Bush-era memos that the Justice Department released last month.

FBI Director Mueller Robert Muller told Vanity Fair magazine in December that he didn't think that the techniques disrupted any attacks.

— Cheney said that President Barack Obama's decision to release the four top-secret Bush administration memos on the interrogation techniques was "flatly contrary" to U.S. national security, and would help al Qaida train terrorists in how to resist U.S. interrogations.

However, Blair, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, said in his statement that he recommended the release of the memos, "strongly supported" Obama's decision to prohibit using the controversial methods and that "we do not need these techniques to keep America safe."

— Cheney said that the Bush administration "moved decisively against the terrorists in their hideouts and their sanctuaries, and committed to using every asset to take down their networks."

The former vice president didn't point out that Osama bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al Zawahri , remain at large nearly eight years after 9-11 and that the Bush administration began diverting U.S. forces, intelligence assets, time and money to planning an invasion of Iraq before it finished the war in Afghanistan against al Qaida and the Taliban .

There are now 49,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan fighting to contain the bloodiest surge in Taliban violence since the 2001 U.S.-led intervention, and Islamic extremists also have launched their most concerted attack yet on neighboring, nuclear-armed Pakistan .

— Cheney denied that there was any connection between the Bush administration's interrogation policies and the abuse of detainee at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, which he blamed on "a few sadistic guards . . . in violation of American law, military regulations and simple decency."

However, a bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report in December traced the abuses at Abu Ghraib to the approval of the techniques by senior Bush administration officials, including former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld .

"The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own," said the report issued by Sens. Carl Levin , D- Mich. , and John McCain , R- Ariz. "The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality and authorized their use against detainees."

— Cheney said that "only detainees of the highest intelligence value" were subjected to the harsh interrogation techniques, and he cited Khalid Sheikh Mohammad , the alleged mastermind of the 9-11 attacks.

He didn't mention Abu Zubaydah, the first senior al Qaida operative to be captured after 9-11. Former FBI special agent Ali Soufan told a Senate subcommittee last week that his interrogation of Zubaydah using traditional methods elicited crucial information, including Mohammed's alleged role in 9-11.

The decision to use the harsh interrogation methods "was one of the worst and most harmful decisions made in our efforts against al Qaida ," Soufan said. Former State Department official Philip Zelikow , who in 2005 was then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's point man in an internal fight to overhaul the Bush administration's detention policies, joined Soufan in his criticism.

— Cheney said that "the key to any strategy is accurate intelligence," but the Bush administration ignored warnings from experts in the CIA , the Defense Intelligence Agency , the State Department , the Department of Energy and other agencies, and used false or exaggerated intelligence supplied by Iraqi exile groups and others to help make its case for the 2003 invasion.

Cheney made no mention of al Qaida operative Ali Mohamed al Fakheri , who's known as Ibn Sheikh al Libi , whom the Bush administration secretly turned over to Egypt for interrogation in January 2002 . While allegedly being tortured by Egyptian authorities, Libi provided false information about Iraq's links with al Qaida , which the Bush administration used despite doubts expressed by the DIA.

A state-run Libyan newspaper said Libi committed suicide recently in a Libyan jail.

— Cheney accused Obama of "the selective release" of documents on Bush administration detainee policies, charging that Obama withheld records that Cheney claimed prove that information gained from the harsh interrogation methods prevented terrorist attacks.

"I've formally asked that (the information) be declassified so the American people can see the intelligence we obtained," Cheney said. "Last week, that request was formally rejected."

However, the decision to withhold the documents was announced by the CIA , which said that it was obliged to do so by a 2003 executive order issued by former President George W. Bush prohibiting the release of materials that are the subject of lawsuits.

— Cheney said that only "ruthless enemies of this country" were detained by U.S. operatives overseas and taken to secret U.S. prisons.

A 2008 McClatchy investigation, however, found that the vast majority of Guantanamo detainees captured in 2001 and 2002 in Afghanistan and Pakistan were innocent citizens or low-level fighters of little intelligence value who were turned over to American officials for money or because of personal or political rivalries.

In addition, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Oct. 5, 2005 , that the Bush administration had admitted to her that it had mistakenly abducted a German citizen, Khaled Masri , from Macedonia in January 2004 .

Masri reportedly was flown to a secret prison in Afghanistan , where he allegedly was abused while being interrogated. He was released in May 2004 and dumped on a remote road in Albania .

In January 2007 , the German government issued arrest warrants for 13 alleged CIA operatives on charges of kidnapping Masri.

— Cheney slammed Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and criticized his effort to persuade other countries to accept some of the detainees.

The effort to shut down the facility, however, began during Bush's second term, promoted by Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates .

"One of the things that would help a lot is, in the discussions that we have with the states of which they (detainees) are nationals, if we could get some of those countries to take them back," Rice said in a Dec. 12, 2007 , interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. "So we need help in closing Guantanamo ."

— Cheney said that, in assessing the security environment after 9-11, the Bush team had to take into account "dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists."

Cheney didn't explicitly repeat the contention he made repeatedly in office: that Saddam cooperated with al Qaida , a linkage that U.S. intelligence officials and numerous official inquiries have rebutted repeatedly.

The late Iraqi dictator's association with terrorists vacillated and was mostly aimed at quashing opponents and critics at home and abroad.

The last State Department report on international terrorism to be released before 9-11 said that Saddam's regime "has not attempted an anti-Western terrorist attack since its failed plot to assassinate former President ( George H.W.) Bush in 1993 in Kuwait ."

A Pentagon study released last year, based on a review of 600,000 Iraqi documents captured after the U.S.-led invasion, concluded that while Saddam supported militant Palestinian groups — the late terrorist Abu Nidal found refuge in Baghdad , at least until Saddam had him killed — the Iraqi security services had no "direct operational link" with al Qaida .

Specter defends Pelosi, questions CIA's honesty

2009-05-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

By Reid Wilson
Posted: 05/20/09 03:10 PM [ET]

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) took the opportunity Wednesday to defend House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has come under fire in recent weeks over a controversy surrounding when she was told of the use of enhanced interrogation techniques being used by the CIA.

"The CIA has a very bad record when it comes to — I was about to say 'candid'; that's too mild — to honesty," Specter, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a lunch address to the American Law Institute. He cited misleading information about the agency's involvement in mining harbors in Nicaragua and the Iran-Contra affair.

"Director [Leon] Panetta says the agency does not make it a habit to misinform Congress. I believe that is true. It is not the policy of the Central Intelligence Agency to misinform Congress," Specter said. "But that doesn't mean that they're all giving out the information."

Because of leaks that have come from Congress, Specter said, he understands the agency's hesitancy to disclose all its information.

"The current controversy involving Speaker Pelosi and the CIA is very unfortunate, in my opinion, because it politicizes the issue and it takes away attention from ... how does the Congress get accurate information from the CIA?" Specter said. "For political gain, people are making headlines."

Specter and Pelosi have worked together on health and human services legislation, and the senator characterized the Speaker as "reliable and very able." He said he agrees with mounting calls that notes about the meetings should be publicly disclosed.

"Speaker Pelosi wants the notes disclosed. I think they ought to be, in the interest of transparency," Specter said. "The Speaker's entitled to have as much light shed on this as possible, and so [is] the public. The public is entitled to know what went on there."

The new Democrat also said Wednesday that he will ask the eventual nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter what sort of cases he or she would allow to be heard.

"You can't ask the nominee how the nominee is going to decide a case. We all know that. But I think it's a fair question to say, 'What cases will you hear? What cases will you take?' " Specter said.

Four of the nine Supreme Court justices must agree to grant a writ of certiorari to hear a case. Specter said he was troubled by the current court's refusal to hear several cases dealing with executive authority, which he worried has been expanded too greatly since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Specter, who served as the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during confirmation hearings for Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, has been relegated to the most junior perch on the committee after switching to the Democratic Party.

But as a centrist Democrat, Specter will remain one of the key votes in the Senate as interest groups on both sides pressure him to support or oppose the eventual nominee. Specter has said he will remain an independent voice in the Senate, and in announcing his party switch affirmed that he still will oppose Dawn Johnsen's nomination to head the Office of Legal Counsel.

Only one other Democrat — Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.) — has taken the same position opposing Johnsen.

Specter has been involved in every Supreme Court nomination fight since being elected to the Senate in 1980. His questioning of Robert Bork is credited with helping take down President Reagan's nominee in 1987, and he played a key role in questioning Anita Hill during Justice Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearings in 1991.

Specter said aggressive questioning at confirmation hearings, which did not become standard procedure until the 1950s, is warranted.

"I'd let the process take its course. I don't think we have strayed too far. But then I participated in the Bork hearings," Specter said. "There are many in the Senate who take the position that there's not a whole lot of deference given to the president."

Since Bork's nomination collapsed, court nominations have become flashpoints between conservatives and liberals, with groups instantly mobilizing when a vacancy comes about.

"When the hearings are politicized, the whole process is political," Specter said. He said nominees, who routinely meet with key senators before their confirmation hearings, campaign aggressively to win their seats on the court.

Iraqi militiamen frustrated that promised jobs haven't materialized

2009-05-20T16:16:00.000-07:00

By Jack Dolan and Sahar Issa | McClatchy Newspapers

RAMADI, Iraq — Al Qaida in Iraq fighters are returning to this dusty desert town and attacking the Sunni Muslim militias that once subdued them, and they may have infiltrated the makeshift police force.

However, Raad Sabah al Alwani, a local Sunni leader who helped the U.S. military overcome the extremists in embattled Anbar province in 2007, said his pleas to the Shiite Muslim-dominated Iraqi government for reinforcements and support had fallen on deaf ears.

In another Sunni enclave, south of Baghdad, Mustafa Kamil al Juboori, a local Sunni militia leader who helped oust Sunni militants from his Doura neighborhood, said that U.S. forces had guaranteed jobs in the Iraqi government for his men if they turned against al Qaida in Iraq. Nearly two years later, he said, only 20 of his 2,000 fighters have the jobs they were promised.

Juboori and Alwani are among tens of thousands of Sunni militiamen — loosely known as the Sons of Iraq — who fought for the Americans but now complain that the U.S.-backed national government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki has abandoned them.

For nearly a year, U.S. commanders have offered the Sons of Iraq reassurance that they'll be rewarded with permanent jobs in the Iraqi security forces and other government ministries. So far, however, the Sunni fighters say, Maliki's government has been slow to act.

"I believe the government does not want to help Sunnis," said Alwani, who commands nearly 5,000 men in Anbar province, where the Sons of Iraq movement was born. "Maybe they are afraid of us."

Only 17,000 of the more than 94,000 Sons of Iraq who were on the American payroll have been absorbed into the Iraqi army and police forces, said U.S. Lt. Col. Jeffrey Kulmayer, who until last week oversaw the American military's reconciliation effort.

"The jobs are coming," Kulmayer said. The rest of the Sons of Iraq will start getting hired in July at 18 other government ministries, including trade, education, culture and human rights, he said.

More than 300 Sons of Iraq leaders met at the al Rashid hotel in Baghdad on Tuesday to vent their frustration at Muhammad Salman, the director of the Maliki government's "reconciliation" program.

"All of these problems are technical, not political," Salman said after the meeting. Starting Wednesday, he said, three people from his office would be assigned to answer questions from Sons of Iraq leaders.

Violence raged between Sunnis and majority Shiites in 2006 and 2007. Iraq is calmer now, thanks in part to Juboori, Alwani and others who helped hunt down and kill extremist members of their own sect.

The truce is fragile, however. A recent spasm of bombings made April the bloodiest month in a year, and it isn't clear how the relative peace can last if Maliki's government doesn't keep the American promises to the Sons of Iraq.

U.S. combat forces are set to pull out of Iraqi cities by June 30 and to leave the country by 2011, and many Sunni militia leaders fear that when that happens they'll be shut out of power and walking around with targets on their backs.

Shiite-led Iraqi forces already have arrested hundreds of Sunni militiamen, some of them for attacks that the Sunnis say they carried out against al Qaida in Iraq while they were on the U.S. payroll.

Kulmayer said that 217 Sunni militiamen had been arrested in the last year, all for "misconduct" not sanctioned by their American allies. "Only (Sons of Iraq) who do nefarious activities will be arrested. No one is above the law," he said.

Iraqi security forces arrested another Sons of Iraq leader Monday in Diyala province on charges of committing "crimes against civilians."

An undetermined number of other militia leaders have been assassinated or forced into exile. As Alwani sat for an interview May 13 in Ramadi, another Sunni militia leader in nearby Abu Ghraib vanished in a ball of flame when a "sticky" bomb attached to the underside of his car exploded.

Alwani has had repeated warnings from the central government of planned attempts on his life by al Qaida in Iraq, and he suspects that the group was behind two recent attacks.

He said that al Qaida in Iraq had sent two suicide bombers after him. His men shot and killed one before he could detonate his explosive vest; the other set off a car bomb outside Alwani's house, killing 18 people. "Two bodies we could not find; they vanished completely," he said.

Men whom Alwani recruited to fight al Qaida in Iraq now make up Ramadi's police force. Some have been put on the central government's payroll, but Alwani said he paid others from his own pocket.

What started as a small tribal band grew quickly during the fight for the city. Alwani said he didn't know everyone whom he commanded anymore, and close aides have warned him that members of a resurgent al Qaida in Iraq are infiltrating the force.

Alwani said that many of his men were uneducated and inexperienced at police work, so he's asked the Interior Ministry in Baghdad to send professional police commanders to take control of the force and weed out potential terrorists. The central government, however, has offered no help, he said.

Last month, Alwani said, he gathered the other tribal sheiks in Ramadi to ask for an order warning young men not to commit terrorist acts in the name of al Qaida or their fathers would be held accountable.

The sheiks refused to issue the order. "They're too scared," Alwani said. "That's why we need professional police to come here from Baghdad."

Across the country, some rank-and-file Sunni militia members have returned to their former occupations as farmers or taxi drivers, but many held government jobs when the minority Sunnis dominated the country under Saddam Hussein.

Most of those men are still well armed and guarding checkpoints in Sunni neighborhoods. Experts worry that they might start attacking U.S. and Iraqi patrols if the promised jobs don't come through, triggering another sectarian bloodbath.

"Those promises had a direct effect on our lives, and the lives of all the Americans in Iraq," Juboori said, sipping tea on his lawn with a Smith & Wesson revolver in a holster slung across his chest. "And broken promises would also have a direct effect."

Juboori, too, has been targeted recently. He presents guests with an al Qaida in Iraq video of its last attempt. It shows a car slamming into the driver's side of Juboori's Nissan pickup and then exploding. The suicide bomber died instantly, but the video shows Juboori opening his passenger door and walking away.

"We caught the man responsible for sending the bomber within 10 minutes," Juboori said. When he was asked what happened next, he said he hadn't fired a single shot in the war on terrorism. "My weapon is my mind," he said. "My fighters shoot the bullets."

(Dolan reports for The Miami Herald. Issa is a McClatchy special correspondent. Special correspondent Laith Hammoudi contributed to this report.)

Defeat is sharp rebuke to governor, Legislature

2009-05-20T03:38:00.000-07:00

Matthew Yi,Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

(05-20) 04:00 PDT Sacramento --

California voters soundly rejected a package of ballot measures Tuesday that would have reduced the state's projected budget deficit of $21.3 billion to something slightly less overwhelming: $15.4 billion.
Images
A voter has an entire row of booths to choose from in the...A lone voter marks his ballot in the basement of City Hal...Monique Koller uses a voting machine at Get the Funk Out ... View More Images
May 19 special election

* Defeat is sharp rebuke to governor, Legislature 05.20.09
* Governor exits state as ballot measures falter 05.19.09
* Legislators jump back into budget mess 05.19.09
* Santa Clara mulls 49ers deal 05.19.09
* Bay Area tax measures show mixed returns 05.19.09
* M&R: Pocketbook pain gets personal for state leaders 05.19.09
* Bottom Line: Where state budget cuts will come from 05.20.09
* Handful trudge to polls 05.19.09
* Proposition 1A
* Proposition 1B
* Proposition 1C
* Proposition 1D
* Proposition 1E
* Proposition 1F
* Twitter election feed 05.20.09
* Share Election Day photos
* Major newspaper endorsements

More News

* Defeat is sharp rebuke to governor, Legislature 05.20.09
* White House eyes broad consumer commission 05.20.09
* Under fire, Pelosi gets backing from fellow Democrats 05.20.09
* Senate passes credit card overhaul bill 05.20.09

The defeat of the measures means that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature will have to consider deeper cuts to education, public safety, and health and human services, officials have said.

Propositions 1A through 1E - which would have changed the state's budgeting system, ensured money to schools in future years and generated billions of dollars of revenue for the state's general fund - fell well behind in early returns and never recovered.

The only measure that voters approved was Proposition 1F, which will freeze salaries of top state officials, including lawmakers and the governor, during tough budget years.

In a written statement Tuesday night, Schwarzenegger said that he believes Californians are simply frustrated with the state's dysfunctional budget system.

"Now we must move forward from this point to begin to address our fiscal crisis with constructive solutions," the governor said.

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, said voter rejection of the propositions reflects the fact that people are facing difficult economic times and he is prepared to return to the budget negotiating table today.

"We're going to get right to work ... and finish by June 30," before the new fiscal year begins, he said. "It's not going to be a long, hot summer."

Opponents of the measures on Tuesday labeled the package as "flawed proposals."

"The governor and the Legislature must develop budget solutions that put California on a real path to fiscal stability," said Lillian Taiz, president of California Faculty Association.

The six ballot measures stemmed from a budget deal Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders brokered in February to close a nearly $42 billion budget shortfall through June 2010.

Budget fixes included $17 billion in cuts, more than $12 billion in temporary tax increases, reliance on billions of dollars in federal economic stimulus funds - and asking voters to approve ballot measures to generate more revenue for the cash-strapped state.

Despite all that, California's budget fell deeper into deficit as a result of plummeting revenue and rising costs. With the ballot measures trailing in polls, Schwarzenegger last week announced the state's shortfall could grow to $21.3 billion this summer if voters reject the measures.

His critics accused Schwarzenegger of using scare tactics on the eve of the special election, but the governor argued that Californians had to know what the consequences would be before they voted.

Three of the propositions - 1C, 1D and 1E - would have had immediate impact on the state's budget by raising nearly $6 billion in the new fiscal year that begins July 1.

Prop. 1B would have ensured that schools would get more than $9 billion beginning in the 2011-12 fiscal year, but it would have become valid only if voters also approved Prop. 1A, which Schwarzenegger promoted the most.

Prop. 1A represented the elusive budget reform Schwarzenegger has sought since he was elected more than five years ago. It would have limited spending and created a rainy-day fund while extending the recently enacted tax increases from two years to four.

The measure's spending limit was aimed at getting Republican backing for the budget compromise, which included temporarily increasing vehicle license fees and taxes on sales and income.

But even that wasn't enough to get the plan through the state Senate, resulting in the addition of Prop. 1F, the pay freeze.

Last week, while unveiling the grim prospects for the state budget, Schwarzenegger insisted that the ballot measures are not about him but about the future of the Golden State.

"It's about California's future and California's legacy. It's not about me or any legislator," he said Thursday, adding that the combination of the ballot measures' passage and his budget solutions would put California back on track for a "slow and steady march back to prosperity."

Schwarzenegger tried to build a broad coalition of proponents of the measures, but he did much of the heavy lifting, helping to raise more than $15 million for the "yes" campaign. The proponents of the measures together raised a total of about $29 million.

The opposition, made up mostly of anti-tax groups and some labor unions, raised about $5 million.

The complexity of the ballot package created unlikely allies for both sides. Schwarzenegger was on the same side as the California Teachers Association. The measures' opponents included anti-tax groups, unions and advocates for the poor who often are at odds over state budget priorities and policies.

E-mail the writers at myi@sfchronicle.com and wbuchanan@sfchronicle.com.

Obama Can’t Turn the Page on Bush

2009-05-17T22:38:00.000-07:00

Op-Ed Columnist

By FRANK RICH
Published: May 16, 2009

TO paraphrase Al Pacino in “Godfather III,” just when we thought we were out, the Bush mob keeps pulling us back in. And will keep doing so. No matter how hard President Obama tries to turn the page on the previous administration, he can’t. Until there is true transparency and true accountability, revelations of that unresolved eight-year nightmare will keep raining down drip by drip, disrupting the new administration’s high ambitions.

That’s why the president’s flip-flop on the release of detainee abuse photos — whatever his motivation — is a fool’s errand. The pictures will eventually emerge anyway, either because of leaks (if they haven’t started already) or because the federal appeals court decision upholding their release remains in force. And here’s a bet: These images will not prove the most shocking evidence of Bush administration sins still to come.

There are many dots yet to be connected, and not just on torture. This Sunday, GQ magazine is posting on its Web site an article adding new details to the ample dossier on how Donald Rumsfeld’s corrupt and incompetent Defense Department cost American lives and compromised national security. The piece is not the work of a partisan but the Texan journalist Robert Draper, author of “Dead Certain,” the 2007 Bush biography that had the blessing (and cooperation) of the former president and his top brass. It draws on interviews with more than a dozen high-level Bush loyalists.

Draper reports that Rumsfeld’s monomaniacal determination to protect his Pentagon turf led him to hobble and antagonize America’s most willing allies in Iraq, Britain and Australia, and even to undermine his own soldiers. But Draper’s biggest find is a collection of daily cover sheets that Rumsfeld approved for the Secretary of Defense Worldwide Intelligence Update, a highly classified digest prepared for a tiny audience, including the president, and often delivered by hand to the White House by the defense secretary himself. These cover sheets greeted Bush each day with triumphal color photos of the war headlined by biblical quotations. GQ is posting 11 of them, and they are seriously creepy.

Take the one dated April 3, 2003, two weeks into the invasion, just as Shock and Awe hit its first potholes. Two days earlier, on April 1, a panicky Pentagon had begun spreading its hyped, fictional account of the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch to distract from troubling news of setbacks. On April 2, Gen. Joseph Hoar, the commander in chief of the United States Central Command from 1991-94, had declared on the Times Op-Ed page that Rumsfeld had sent too few troops to Iraq. And so the Worldwide Intelligence Update for April 3 bullied Bush with Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Including, as it happened, into a quagmire.)

What’s up with that? As Draper writes, Rumsfeld is not known for ostentatious displays of piety. He was cynically playing the religious angle to seduce and manipulate a president who frequently quoted the Bible. But the secretary’s actions were not just oily; he was also taking a risk with national security. If these official daily collages of Crusade-like messaging and war imagery had been leaked, they would have reinforced the Muslim world’s apocalyptic fear that America was waging a religious war. As one alarmed Pentagon hand told Draper, the fallout “would be as bad as Abu Ghraib.”

The GQ article isn’t the only revelation of previously unknown Bush Defense Department misbehavior to emerge this month. Just two weeks ago, the Obama Pentagon revealed that a major cover-up of corruption had taken place at the Bush Pentagon on Jan. 14 of this year — just six days before Bush left office. This strange incident — reported in The Times but largely ignored by Washington correspondents preparing for their annual dinner — deserves far more attention and follow-up.

What happened on Jan. 14 was the release of a report from the Pentagon’s internal watchdog, the inspector general. It had been ordered up in response to a scandal uncovered last year by David Barstow, an investigative reporter for The Times. Barstow had found that the Bush Pentagon fielded a clandestine network of retired military officers and defense officials to spread administration talking points on television, radio and in print while posing as objective “military analysts.” Many of these propagandists worked for military contractors with billions of dollars of business at stake in Pentagon procurement. Many were recipients of junkets and high-level special briefings unavailable to the legitimate press. Yet the public was never told of these conflicts of interest when these “analysts” appeared on the evening news to provide rosy assessments of what they tended to call “the real situation on the ground in Iraq.”

When Barstow’s story broke, more than 45 members of Congress demanded an inquiry. The Pentagon’s inspector general went to work, and its Jan. 14 report was the result. It found no wrongdoing by the Pentagon. Indeed, when Barstow won the Pulitzer Prize last month, Rumsfeld’s current spokesman cited the inspector general’s “exoneration” to attack the Times articles as fiction.

But the Pentagon took another look at this exoneration, and announced on May 5 that the inspector general’s report, not The Times’s reporting, was fiction. The report, it turns out, was riddled with factual errors and included little actual investigation of Barstow’s charges. The inspector general’s office had barely glanced at the 8,000 pages of e-mail that Barstow had used as evidence, and interviewed only seven of the 70 disputed analysts. In other words, the report was a whitewash. The Obama Pentagon officially rescinded it — an almost unprecedented step — and even removed it from its Web site.

Network news operations ignored the unmasking of this last-minute Bush Pentagon cover-up, as they had the original Barstow articles — surely not because they had been patsies for the Bush P.R. machine. But the story is actually far larger than this one particular incident. If the Pentagon inspector general’s office could whitewash this scandal, what else did it whitewash?

In 2005, to take just one example, the same office released a report on how Boeing colluded with low-level Pentagon bad apples on an inflated (and ultimately canceled) $30 billion air-tanker deal. At the time, even John Warner, then the go-to Republican senator on military affairs, didn’t buy the heavily redacted report’s claim that Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, were ignorant of what Warner called “the most significant defense procurement mismanagement in contemporary history.” The Pentagon inspector general who presided over that exoneration soon fled to become an executive at the parent company of another Pentagon contractor, Blackwater.

But the new administration doesn’t want to revisit this history any more than it wants to dwell on torture. Once the inspector general’s report on the military analysts was rescinded, the Obama Pentagon declared the matter closed. The White House seems to be taking its cues from the Reagan-Bush 41 speechwriter Peggy Noonan. “Sometimes I think just keep walking,” she said on ABC’s “This Week” as the torture memos surfaced. “Some of life has to be mysterious.” Imagine if she’d been at Nuremberg!

The administration can’t “just keep walking” because it is losing control of the story. The Beltway punditocracy keeps repeating the cliché that only the A.C.L.U. and the president’s “left-wing base” want accountability, but that’s not the case. Americans know that the Iraq war is not over. A key revelation in last month’s Senate Armed Services Committee report on detainees — that torture was used to try to coerce prisoners into “confirming” a bogus Al Qaeda-Saddam Hussein link to sell that war — is finally attracting attention. The more we learn piecemeal of this history, the more bipartisan and voluble the call for full transparency has become.

And I do mean bipartisan. Both Dick Cheney, hoping to prove that torture “worked,” and Nancy Pelosi, fending off accusations of hypocrisy on torture, have now asked for classified C.I.A. documents to be made public. When a duo this unlikely, however inadvertently, is on the same side of an issue, the wave is rising too fast for any White House to control. Court cases, including appeals by the “bad apples” made scapegoats for Abu Ghraib, will yank more secrets into the daylight and enlist more anxious past and present officials into the Cheney-Pelosi demands for disclosure.

It will soon be every man for himself. “Did President Bush know everything you knew?” Bob Schieffer asked Cheney on “Face the Nation” last Sunday. The former vice president’s uncharacteristically stumbling and qualified answer — “I certainly, yeah, have every reason to believe he knew...” — suggests that the Bush White House’s once-united front is starting to crack under pressure.

I’m not a fan of Washington’s blue-ribbon commissions, where political compromises can trump the truth. But the 9/11 investigation did illuminate how, a month after Bush received an intelligence brief titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.,” 3,000 Americans were slaughtered on his and Cheney’s watch. If the Obama administration really wants to move on from the dark Bush era, it will need a new commission, backed up by serious law enforcement, to shed light on where every body is buried.

Republican lawmakers back carbon tax (yes, that's right)

2009-05-13T19:06:00.000-07:00

Featured Topics:

By James Rosen, McClatchy Newspapers James Rosen, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Wed May 13, 7:06 pm ET

WASHINGTON — Reps. Bob Inglis of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona on Wednesday became the first Republican lawmakers to introduce legislation imposing a carbon tax on producers and distributors of fossil fuels.

The bill, co-sponsored by Democratic Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois , would set a tax of $15 a ton of carbon dioxide produced in its first year in effect, with the tax rising to $100 a ton over three decades.

"The first axiom of economics is if you want less of something, you tax it," said Flake, a leading fiscal conservative, in an interview. "Obviously, we want less carbon, so we tax it."

Inglis noted that several prominent conservatives support a direct carbon tax: Arthur Laffer , a former economic adviser to President Ronald Reagan , and Gregory Mankiw , who advised President George W. Bush and is now a Harvard University economics professor.

The three lawmakers offer their measure as an alternative to a massive climate change bill backed by President Barack Obama and now before the House Energy and Commerce Committee .

That cap-and-trade legislation would set a national limit on total carbon dioxide emissions and attempt to lower them over time through the sale and trading of carbon "allowances," or credits, among the government, factories, utilities, automakers and other sources of pollution.

Inglis and Flake call their measure "tax neutral" because it would reduce payroll taxes by however much revenue the carbon tax raises, with employers and employees splitting the payroll tax cut equally.

The impact of such a direct carbon tax, however, would vary widely in different regions of the country.

Businesses and homeowners who rely heavily on coal for electric power — such as those in Kentucky and Missouri — would face significantly steeper price increases because coal produces much more carbon dioxide.

Such disparities, Flake said, would be an unavoidable outcome of trying to reduce global warming and wean the nation's dependence on foreign oil, some of it from unfriendly governments.

"There's no way you can compensate or have a perfect outcome in which everyone pays the same rates," Flake said. "If you try to do that, then you take away the incentive to change."

The bill puts the two lawmakers at odds with Republican congressional leaders, who've criticized the Democrats' cap-and-trade plans as carbon taxes in disguise.

"Cap and trade is code for increasing taxes, killing American jobs and raising energy costs for consumers," House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said. "The so-called 'cap and trade' proposal amounts to a carbon tax, plain and simple."

Tom Williams , corporate vice president for federal issues with Duke Energy , said his Charlotte, N.C. , utility is the nation's third-largest carbon emitter.

A cap-and-trade system is better than a direct carbon tax, Williams said, because it enables Duke Energy and other large polluters to transition away from fossil fuel gradually.

"A carbon tax is effective in many respects, but we consider it more of a blunt instrument," he said. "Cap and trade is designed to be more surgical."

Inglis, whose district around Greenville, S.C. , is among the most conservative in the country, acknowledged that it's a huge political risk for him, as a Republican, to propose a new tax.

Inglis said some of his GOP colleagues have pointed out the risk to him.

"They say, 'Inglis, why are you doing this?'" he said. "My answer is because the reward for the country is huge. If you're not here to do courageous things, then go home."

Inglis and Flake oppose the cap-and-trade measure, saying it would create a huge federal bureaucracy to regulate the sale and trade of carbon credits — on the heels of catastrophic financial services failures because of lax government oversight.

"We stand a chance of being a significant possible replacement of cap and trade when cap and trade fails," Inglis said. "It's a carbon-credit trading scheme similar to the Wall Street fiasco we've just seen, complete with a Federal Reserve Board of Carbon Credits."

The cap-and-trade measure would establish an oversight agency, but it doesn't name it.

WHO'S AFFECTED

The new carbon tax bill by Reps. Bob Inglis , Jeff Flake and Dan Lipinski would raise the cost of fossil fuels for consumers.

The measure would initially impose a tax of $15 a ton of carbon dioxide on the producers and distributors of gasoline, natural gas and coal, with the tax rising to $100 a ton over three decades.

The tax increases would be offset by equivalent cuts in payroll taxes, with employers and employees sharing the reductions equally.

The lawmakers acknowledge that users of coal-fueled power would see much bigger cost increases — 83.5 percent in the first year — than the 6 percent price increases for drivers buying gasoline, or consumers of power from natural gas, or the 14.3 percent price increase for users of oil-based power.

The payroll tax cuts would be distributed equally around the country. That means the carbon tax would hit people especially hard in states that rely heavily on coal-based power:

Top 10 states most reliant on coal power

State ........... % of power from coal

West Virginia .......... 97 percent

Indiana ........... 95 percent

Wyoming ............ 95 percent

North Dakota ......... 94 percent

Kentucky ........... 92 percent

Utah ................. 89 percent

Ohio ................ 86 percent

Missouri ............... 85 percent

New Mexico ........ 80 percent

Iowa ................ 76 percent

Other states

Kansas ............... 73 percent

Georgia ............... 63 percent

North Carolina ............... 60 percent

Pennsylvania ............... 56 percent

Illinois ............... 48 percent

South Carolina .............. 40 percent

Mississippi ............... 39 percent

Texas ............... 37 percent

Florida ............... 29 percent

Alaska ...............9 percent

Washington ............... 6 percent

California ...............1 percent

Idaho ............... 1 percent

Source: American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity

Obama seeks to block release of abuse photos

2009-05-13T08:19:00.000-07:00

By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven, Ap White House Correspondent – 1 hr 38 mins ago

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama declared Wednesday he would try to block the court-ordered release of photos showing U.S. troops abusing prisoners, abruptly reversing his position out of concern the pictures would "further inflame anti-American opinion" and endanger U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama's turnabout set off immediate reactions from bloggers, both liberals who decried that he was buckling to political pressure and conservatives who agreed with the decision but said it proved the president was a flip-flopper.

The White House had said last month it would not oppose the release of dozens of photos from military investigations of alleged misconduct. But American commanders in the war zones expressed deep concern about fresh damage the photos might do, especially as the U.S. tries to wind down the Iraq war and step up operations against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

When photos emerged in 2004 from the infamous U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, showing grinning American soldiers posing with detainees — some of the prisoners naked, some being held on leashes — the pictures caused a huge anti-American backlash around the globe, particularly in the Muslim world.

Obama, realizing how high emotions run on detainee treatment during the Bush administration and now, made it a point to personally explain his change of heart, stopping to address TV cameras late in the day as he left the White House for a flight to Arizona.

He said the photos had already served their purpose in investigations of "a small number of individuals." Those cases were all concluded by 2004, and the president said "the individuals who were involved have been identified, and appropriate actions have been taken."

The Pentagon conducted 200 investigations into alleged abuse connected with the photos that are now in question. The administration did not provide an immediate accounting of how they turned out.

"This is not a situation in which the Pentagon has concealed or sought to justify inappropriate action," Obama said of the photos. "In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger."

The Justice Department immediately filed a notice with the court of its new position on the release, including that it was considering an appeal with the Supreme Court. The government has until June 9 to do so.

Obama said, "I want to emphasize that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib."

Still, he said he had made it newly clear: "Any abuse of detainees is unacceptable. It is against our values. It endangers our security. It will not be tolerated."

The effort to keep the photos from becoming public represented for many a sharp reversal from Obama's repeated pledges for open government, and in particular from his promise to be forthcoming with information that courts have ruled should be publicly available.

As such, it invited criticism from the more liberal segments of the Democratic Party, which want a full accounting — and even redress — for what they see as the misdeeds of the Bush administration.

"The decision to not release the photographs makes a mockery of President Obama's promise of transparency and accountability," said ACLU attorney Amrit Singh, who had argued and won the case in question before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. "It is essential that these photographs be released so that the public can examine for itself the full scale and scope of prisoner abuse that was conducted in its name."

Human Rights Watch called the decision a blow to transparency and accountability.

One Huffington Post blogger called the decision "a terrible mistake" and declared that Obama had buckled under pressure from former Vice President Dick Cheney.

On Capitol Hill, Republicans welcomed the change, however. A military group also said it was relieved.

"These photos represent isolated incidents where the offending servicemen and women have already been prosecuted," said Brian Wise, executive director of Military Families United.

The reactions were a reverse of what happened after Obama's decision last month to voluntarily release documents that detailed brutal interrogation techniques used by the CIA against terror suspects. Those also came out in response to an ACLU lawsuit, and his decision then brought harsh and still-continuing criticism from Republicans.

This time he's kicking the decision back into court, where his administration still may be forced into releasing the photos.

Indeed, there is some evidence that the administration has little case left.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president instructed administration lawyers to challenge the photos' release based on national security implications. He said the argument was not used before in "the most effective" way.

But the Bush administration already argued against the release on national security grounds — and lost.

"It is plainly insufficient to claim that releasing documents could reasonably be expected to endanger some unspecified member of a group so vast as to encompass all United States troops, coalition forces, and civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan," the three-judge appeals panel wrote in September 2008.

The Justice Department concluded after that that further appeal would probably be fruitless, and last month, Gibbs said the administration felt "compelled" to act on that conclusion. Thus, the administration assured a federal judge that it would turn over the material by May 28, including one batch of 21 photos and another of 23 images. The government also told the judge it was "processing for release a substantial number of other images," for a total expected to be in the hundreds.

White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said Wednesday that Obama always felt uncomfortable with that outcome and pressed his team to find other recourse. After first believing all avenues were shut, they concluded there were other options — both in the amount of time left and the legal arguments — and that led to the decision the White House announced, Emanuel said.

But the lower court also has already rejected another argument the president and his spokesman made, that the photos add little of value to the public's understanding of the issue. "This contention disregards FOIA's central purpose of furthering governmental accountability," the appeals court panel concluded in the same decision.

Obama's own Jan. 21 memorandum on honoring the Freedom of Information Act also takes a different line. "The government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears," it said.

The president informed Gen. Ray Odierno, commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, of his decision during a White House meeting on Tuesday.

Gen. David Petraeus, the senior commander for both wars, had also weighed in against the release, as had Gen. David McKiernan, the outgoing top general in Afghanistan.

Military commanders' concerns were most intense with respect to Afghanistan. The release would coincide with the spring thaw that usually heralds the year's toughest fighting there — and as thousands of new U.S. troops head into Afghanistan's volatile south.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he had once held the view that it might be best to "go through the pain once" and release a large batch of images now, since so many are at issue in multiple lawsuits. But he — and the president — changed their minds when Odierno and McKiernan expressed "very great worry that release of these photographs will cost American lives," Gates said before the House Armed Services Committee.

"That's all it took for me," Gates said.

___

Associated Press writers Anne Gearan, Devlin Barrett, Lara Jakes and Pauline Jelinek contributed to this report.

Ideological Manipulation

2009-05-09T18:00:00.000-07:00

By RACHEL DONADIO
Published: May 9, 2009

AMMAN, Jordan — Visiting a mosque on the second day of his closely watched first visit to the Holy Land, Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday denounced the “ideological manipulation of religion” and called for greater understanding between the Christian and Muslim faiths.

Pope Benedict XVI waves to the faithful during mass at St. George Victorious Cathedral in Amman, Jordan, on Saturday.

Speaking outside Al-Hussein bin-Talal mosque in Amman, Benedict said that because of “the burden of our common history so often marked by misunderstanding,” Christians and Muslims alike should “strive to be seen” as faithful worshipers of God.

In a speech that also touched on a central theme of his papacy and thought, the tension between faith and reason, Benedict said that “the ideological manipulation of religion, sometimes for political ends,” was often “the real catalyst for tension and division, and at times even violence in society.”

Relations between the Vatican and Muslims were strained in 2006 when, in a speech in Regensburg, Germany, Benedict quoted a Byzantine emperor who said Islam had brought things “evil and inhuman.”

After violence erupted in some parts of the Muslim world, Benedict said the remarks did not represent his own thinking.

Welcoming the pope at the mosque on Saturday, Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal of Jordan, a cousin and the principal religious adviser of King Abdullah II, thanked Benedict for having expressed “regret” over the remarks and for clarifying that they had been a citation in an academic speech.

Islamist groups in Jordan have protested the pope’s visit, saying he has not apologized for the 2006 speech.

In a news conference on Saturday, the Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said that the pope had not prayed inside the mosque but offered “a respectful reflection.”

He also said the pope had not been asked to remove his shoes upon entering the mosque, as is customary. Benedict had visited mosques twice before as pope.

Prince Ghazi, a Western-educated scholar who has helped foster a Vatican-Muslim dialogue called the Common Word initiative, praised Benedict for “a reign marked by the moral courage to do and speak your conscience, no matter what the vogue of the day.”

He also singled out the pope’s efforts to “refacilitate” the use of the traditional Tridentine Mass, sometimes called the Latin Mass, which has been optional since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s.

That rite includes a Good Friday prayer calling for the conversion of the Jews.

Benedict is expected to travel to Israel on Monday.

In Jerusalem, he is expected to visit the Western Wall, holy to Jews, as well as the religious compound in the Old City known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount.

On Saturday, on a visit to Mount Nebo, the hill in Jordan from which Moses is believed to have looked out on the Promised Land, Benedict spoke of “the inseparable bond between the church and the Jewish people.”

Gentlemen Cows in Prime Time

2009-05-02T23:00:00.000-07:00

By ADAM FREEDMAN
Published: May 2, 2009

LAST Tuesday, the Supreme Court upheld the Federal Communications Commission’s crackdown on the use of dirty words on the airwaves.

That the justices managed to do this without actually uttering either of the words at issue — one refers to a sexual act, the other to a bodily function — exemplifies both the court’s tact and its lack of connection with contemporary English usage.

The case, Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, was a test of the commission’s zero-tolerance policy toward isolated curses, or “fleeting expletives,” as the F.C.C. calls them. The commission put in place the so-called Bono Rule, named for the U2 singer (and contributing columnist for this page) who used an expletive during an NBC broadcast of the Golden Globe Awards in 2003. That same year, Fox Television broadcast a routine by Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie in which both the vulgarities considered by the court were used.

In response to these incidents, in which children of tender years were doubtless exposed to salty language, the F.C.C. decided that prime-time TV must be sodium-free, as it were. Departing from a 30-year policy of going after only repetitive usage of swear words, the Bono Rule gave the F.C.C. the power to punish a single utterance of a vulgarity.

In 2007, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan, struck down the Bono Rule, holding that it had no rational basis. But the Supreme Court disagreed. Writing for the majority last week, Justice Antonin Scalia stated that it was “entirely rational” for the F.C.C. to conclude, as it did, that one particular curse “invariably invokes a coarse sexual image.”

Does it? The evidence is mixed. Jesse Sheidlower, editor at large of the Oxford English Dictionary and the author of a book on swearing, described the F.C.C.’s argument as “rubbish.” Although the word in question originally referred to a sexual act, Mr. Sheidlower argued, it has now taken on an independent “emotional” sense. The nonsexual use of the word can be seen in countless contemporary examples, as when Vice President Dick Cheney used it in 2004 to recommend that Senator Patrick Leahy do something that is, strictly speaking, anatomically impossible.

The counterargument is that the very power of the word as a nonliteral intensifier derives from its underlying sexual meaning. Or, as Ruth Wajnryb, an Australian linguist, explained in her book “Expletive Deleted,” the word is taboo “because of its referential function.”

Ultimately, the Fox Television case raises a dichotomy well known to linguists: descriptivism versus prescriptivism — that is, whether to yield to the reality of how language is actually used (descriptivism) or fight to maintain objective standards (prescriptivism). Descriptivists happily accept “impact” as a verb and “my bad” as a form of apology; prescriptivists resist such innovations.

At oral argument, Fox’s lawyer urged a descriptivist approach, arguing that the common slang term for sexual intercourse is no longer indecent because Americans “are significantly more tolerant” of the word than they were when the high court first upheld the F.C.C.’s multiple-expletive rule in a 1978 case involving the comedian George Carlin’s “filthy words” monologue (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation). After all, we live in an age, for better or worse, when children are exposed to profanity on cable and satellite TV and the Internet. Justice Scalia, however, insisted that the proliferation of swear words made the prescriptivist case all the more urgent: parents should be able to consider broadcast TV a “relatively safe haven” for children.

As much as one sympathizes with language prescriptivism in general (please, let us all resist “c u l8r”), censorship is necessarily a descriptivist endeavor. Indecency laws are tied to evolving community standards. In 1623, the English Parliament passed legislation to prohibit “profane swearing and cursing.” Under that law, people could be fined for uttering oaths like “upon my life” or “on my troth.” In the Victorian era, the word “bull” was considered too strong for mixed company; instead, one referred to “gentlemen cows.” Times change, notwithstanding the fervent wishes of prescriptivists to keep dirty words dirty.

The F.C.C. may have won this round, but the bluenoses can’t declare victory just yet. The next test of the F.C.C.’s regime will come soon enough, as the Supreme Court has agreed to review the commission’s $550,000 fine against CBS for a nine-sixteenths-of-a-second exposure of Janet Jackson’s breast during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. Perhaps the F.C.C.’s disproportionate response to that incident will be recognized for what it was: a regulatory malfunction.

Adam Freedman, a lawyer, is the author of “The Party of the First Part: The Curious World of Legalese.”

Plan to Cut Weapons Programs Disputed

2009-04-28T23:00:00.001-07:00

Defense Supporters Say 100,000 Jobs Are in Jeopardy

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Some of the nation's largest defense contractors, labor unions and trade groups are banding together to argue that the Obama administration is putting 100,000 or more jobs at risk by proposing deep cuts in weapons programs.

The defense industry and its supporters argue that the proposals by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates will increase unemployment during a historic economic crisis. Why, they ask, would President Obama push hundreds of billions in stimulus spending to create jobs only to propose weapons cuts that would eliminate tens of thousands of them?

"It doesn't make sense that our government is looking at trying to save or create jobs at the same time it's talking about cutting something like this," said Jeff Goen, president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers chapter in Marietta, Ga., where Lockheed Martin does final assembly on the F-22 Raptor fighter jet, which is slated to be cut.

Lockheed and other contractors predict that up to 95,000 direct and indirect jobs are at risk because of Gates's plan to halt production of the F-22, which is built and assembled across 48 states but which has never been used in combat. Boeing says thousands more positions could be lost if the Pentagon halts production on other programs such as the C-17 cargo plane, which is assembled at a 5,000-worker plant in Long Beach, Calif.

The clash poses a nettlesome political challenge for Obama, who relied heavily on Democratic union support during his presidential campaign but who is backing the ambitious efforts of his GOP defense secretary to remake the Pentagon budget. Opposition on Capitol Hill is being led by Republicans who hope to enlist the support of union-friendly Democrats to quash many of the proposed cuts.

Gates and other Obama administration officials argue that job-loss fears are overstated, and note that the Pentagon's overall budget would increase by $20 billion, to $534 billion, under the plan released this month. Proclaiming the need to "reshape the priorities of America's defense establishment," Gates called for halting or cutting a host of programs that have been plagued by delays, cost overruns or performance problems, including the F-22, the C-17, a fleet of new presidential helicopters and the Future Combat Systems program.

But Gates and his generals have also tailored the budget to include growth in other programs that may lower the intensity of opposition, and has successfully brought Air Force generals in line on cutting back the F-22 and other programs that the service has historically championed. Although Maine would lose some jobs with the shuttering of the F-22 program, for example, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) praised Gates for planning to build three DDG-1000 destroyers at General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works.

"A lot of people are ascribing real cleverness to Gates in the way he has structured this," said Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute think tank. "He has spread things out in a way aimed at dividing and weakening opposition."

The approach has already muffled criticism from Lockheed, the nation's largest defense contractor. The Bethesda-based company would gain from an expanded order for F-35 Lightning II stealth fighters that would help make up for the end of production on the F-22. Bruce Tanner, Lockheed's chief financial officer, told Wall Street investors last week that, on the F-22 at least, the company has accepted defeat.

"We've had our chance to lobby this matter," Tanner said.

The defense sector is a major Washington powerbroker, giving nearly $26 million to congressional candidates last year and spending $150 million on lobbying, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Even before Gates's final proposal came out, the machinists' union joined forces with Lockheed, Boeing and 11 other contractors to produce a slick Web site and ad campaign asserting that the F-22 program "provides jobs, a paycheck and economic security." Boeing is running full-color newspaper ads extolling the virtues of the C-17, which Obama singles out for praise on the White House Web site, even though it is one of the biggest targets on Gates's list.

In another ad campaign, the Aerospace Industries Association proclaimed: "Aerospace and defense is a powerful economic engine. We must keep the industry strong." Marion Blakey, the group's president and CEO, said the employment issue is "a compelling argument. . . . These are high-paying jobs."

The machinists, meanwhile, are targeting Democratic lawmakers in areas with defense-related jobs, union officials said. The group's 700,000 active and retired members will be asked to bombard lawmakers with phone calls, e-mails and letters. "It's going to be about jobs at the end of the day, but not in a selfish way," said Rich Michalski, the union's political director.

The criticism of Gates on Capitol Hill has been led by fellow Republicans, most of whom opposed Obama's stimulus plan but contend that defense spending is different. "At a time of economic difficulty, it makes no sense to take a strategically important weapons system and cap it and cost 95,000 jobs in a relatively short period of time," said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.).

Key Democrats, including Sen. Carl Levin (Mich.) and Rep. Ike Skelton (Mo.), the chairmen of the armed services committees, have generally withheld judgment on Gates's proposals so far.

Gates told reporters this month that the changes will help create some jobs. He pointed to the F-22 as an example, saying that while 24,000 people are directly employed on that project, the F-35 already employs 38,000 and is projected to employ 84,000 by 2011.

"We cannot be oblivious to the consequences of these decisions," Gates said. "But nonetheless, we have to make them as a whole in terms of what's in the best interest of the country."

Specter Switches Parties; More Heft for Democrats

2009-04-28T23:00:00.000-07:00

By CARL HULSE and ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: April 28, 2009

WASHINGTON — In an unexpected turnabout in political loyalties, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania announced on Tuesday that he was leaving the Republican Party to become a Democrat, bolstering President Obama at a pivotal moment for his policy agenda and further marginalizing Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Senator Arlen Specter was surrounded by reporters on Tuesday after it was announced that he will switch parties.

Mr. Specter acknowledged that the surprise decision was driven by his intense desire to win a sixth term next year. It came after he and his political advisers concluded over the weekend that he could not win a Republican primary against a conservative challenger, particularly in light of his vote for the president’s economic stimulus package.

“I am not prepared to have my 29-year record in the United States Senate decided by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate — not prepared to have that record decided by that jury,” said Mr. Specter, 79, a moderate who has long been known for breaking with his party.

Republicans were knocked off stride by the announcement, and many had no warning from Mr. Specter, who met a polite but chilly reception when he entered a party luncheon to inform his colleagues. They immediately labeled it, in the words of Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who heads the party’s campaign arm, a naked act of “political self-preservation,” and they sought to portray it as an isolated case growing out of Pennsylvania’s political environment.

The defection of Mr. Specter creates the potential for Democrats to control 60 votes in the Senate if Al Franken prevails this summer in the court fight over last November’s Minnesota Senate election, a prospect that appears increasingly likely.

If Democrats could hold those votes together, Republicans would be unable to mount filibusters as Congress moves into the critical phase of acting on Mr. Obama’s ambitious agenda on health care and energy. A last line of defense against a Democratic-controlled Congress and White House would thereby be eliminated.

“This is transformative,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon. “It’s game-changing.”

Democrats warned that it would remain a formidable challenge to keep their ranks together. Mr. Specter said he would not be an automatic Democratic vote, though he will be pulled in that direction since he now faces the prospect of running in a Democratic primary.

Mr. Specter was one of just three Republican senators to vote in favor of the stimulus package this year. He is a supporter of abortion rights and expanded embryonic stem cell research, and he opposed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. But he also voted to authorize the war in Iraq, backed President George W. Bush’s Supreme Court nominees, favors school vouchers and has taken many other positions that put him at odds with most Democrats.

Mr. Specter said he had received commitments from Mr. Obama and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, to support him in any primary, backing intended to deter Democratic challengers. Mr. Obama is scheduled to endorse Mr. Specter on Wednesday morning at a joint appearance.

Administration officials said Mr. Obama was handed a note from an aide at 10:25 a.m. Tuesday in his daily economic briefing. The note, said a senior administration official, read, “Specter is announcing he is changing parties.” Seven minutes later, Mr. Obama reached Mr. Specter by telephone.

In a brief conversation, the president said, “You have my full support,” said the official, who heard the phone call. The president added that Democrats were “thrilled to have you.”

White House officials said Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had been at the center of the effort to persuade Mr. Specter to change parties. They said a switch had been the subject of years of bantering and discussion between the two men, who often sat together while riding the Amtrak train home. But the conversation turned more earnest after Mr. Biden lobbied Mr. Specter to vote with the White House on the stimulus bill this year.

One adviser to Mr. Biden said that since that day 10 weeks ago, Mr. Biden and Mr. Specter had spoken 14 times — six times in person and eight in telephone conversations. In each case, White House officials said, Mr. Biden argued that the Republican Party had increasingly drifted away from Mr. Specter since the election and that ideologically, he was closer to the Democratic Party.

White House officials said that there was no realistic way to guarantee that Mr. Specter would not face a primary race for the Democratic nomination, but noted that there was no Democrat in a position to resist the state’s political machine and make a serious challenge. More than that, White House officials said they had assured Mr. Specter that Mr. Obama would campaign for him and raise money for him if necessary.

“The president’s appreciative of this decision and particularly appreciative of the support that he gave on a number of things, the stimulus package being one of them,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser. “And the president will do whatever he can do to help.”

Some Republicans bade good riddance to Mr. Specter, who was badly trailing in polls against former Representative Patrick J. Toomey, who also once led the Club for Growth, a group of fiscal conservatives who have financed primary challenges against Republicans they consider to have strayed too far from conservative principles.

Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, did not mince words, saying Mr. Specter “left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record.”

But Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, a Republican who also supported the administration’s economic stimulus plan, said Mr. Specter’s view that the party had shifted too far to the right reflected the increasingly inhospitable climate for moderates in the Republican Party.

Ms. Snowe said national Republican leaders were not grasping that “political diversity makes a party stronger, and ultimately we are heading to having the smallest political tent in history.”

Other Republicans said Democrats were on the verge of unchecked power in Washington, a theme Republicans have pushed in an effort to turn political weakness into a strength.

“The danger of that for the country,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, “is that there won’t automatically be an ability to restrain the excess that is typically associated with big majorities and single-party rule.”

Mr. Specter, who sat on the Democratic side of the dais during a committee hearing Tuesday afternoon, said he had been assured that his seniority would be recognized by his new party, which would put him in line to jump over some Democrats for subcommittee chairmanships after the 2010 midterm elections.

Mr. Specter has suffered from a variety of serious illnesses over the years, but said on Tuesday that he was “full of vim, vigor and vitality.”

He has angered many Democrats over the years with his positions, particularly his support of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. But he said that with his record of 10,000 votes cast over almost 30 years, he had done something to anger virtually everyone.

“I don’t expect everybody to agree with all my votes,” he said. “I don’t agree with them all myself at this point.”

Reporting was contributed by David M. Herszenhorn, Robert Pear and Jeff Zeleny from Washington, and Katharine Q. Seelye from New York.

CIA reportedly declined to closely evaluate harsh interrogations

2009-04-26T23:00:00.000-07:00

Current and former U.S. officials say the failure to carefully examine the value of 'enhanced' methods like waterboarding -- despite calls to do so as early as 2003 -- was part of a broader trend.

By Greg Miller
April 26, 2009

Reporting from Washington — The CIA used an arsenal of severe interrogation techniques on alleged Al Qaeda prisoners for nearly seven years without ever seeking a rigorous assessment of whether the methods were effective or necessary, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The failure to conduct a comprehensive examination occurred despite calls to do so as early as 2003. That year, the agency's inspector general circulated drafts of a report that raised deep concerns about waterboarding and other methods, and recommended a study by outside experts on whether they worked.

That inspector general report described in broad terms the volume of intelligence that the interrogation program was producing, a point echoed in smaller studies later commissioned by then-CIA Director Porter J. Goss.

But neither the inspector general's report nor the other audits examined the effectiveness of interrogation techniques in detail, or sought to scrutinize the assertions of CIA counter-terrorism officials that so-called enhanced methods were essential to the program's results. One report by a former government official -- not an interrogation expert -- was about 10 pages long and amounted to a glowing review of interrogation efforts.

"Nobody with expertise or experience in interrogation ever took a rigorous, systematic review of the various techniques -- enhanced or otherwise -- to see what resulted in the best information," said a senior U.S. intelligence official involved in overseeing the interrogation program.

As a result, there was never a determination of "what you could do without the use of enhanced techniques," said the official, who like others described internal discussions on condition of anonymity.

Former Bush administration officials said the failure to conduct such an examination was part of a broader reluctance to reexamine decisions made shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Defense Department, Justice Department and CIA "all insisted on sticking with their original policies and were not open to revisiting them, even as the damage of these policies became apparent," said John B. Bellinger III, who was legal advisor to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, referring to burgeoning international outrage.

"We had gridlock," Bellinger said, calling the failure to consider other approaches "the greatest tragedy of the Bush administration's handling of detainee matters."

The limited resources spent examining whether the interrogation measures worked were in stark contrast to the energy the CIA devoted to collecting memos declaring the program legal.

Justice Department memos released this month show that the CIA repeatedly sought new opinions on the legality of depriving prisoners of sleep for up to seven days, throwing them against walls, forcing them into tiny boxes and subjecting them to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding.

How well those methods worked is facing independent scrutiny for the first time only now, three months after President Obama banned the CIA from using them.

As part of an executive order shutting down the CIA's secret prisons, the White House has set up a task force to examine the effectiveness of various interrogation approaches.

The Senate Intelligence Committee launched a similar review, and began combing through classified CIA cables that describe daily developments in the agency's interrogations of Al Qaeda prisoners.

"To the best of our knowledge, such a review has not been done before," said a Senate aide involved in the probe.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano declined to comment on the reviews, saying their contents remain classified.

A U.S. intelligence official who defended CIA interrogation practices said that "productivity was an obvious and important measure of the program's effectiveness. The techniques themselves were not designed to elicit specific pieces of information, but to condition hardened terrorists to answer questions about Al Qaeda's plans and intentions.

"By that yardstick -- the generation of reporting that was true and useful, that led even to other captures -- it worked."

Obama has described the agency's activities as "a dark and painful chapter in our history," and senior members of his administration, including Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr., have called the techniques torture.

Defenders of the program, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, have accused Obama of dismantling a capability that was critical to keeping the country safe. Cheney also has called for the release of classified documents that he said would show how effective the program was.

Officials said that Cheney was probably referring to memos that were drafted by leaders of the CIA's counter-terrorism center to serve as talking points on the program to use in briefings for members of Congress and White House officials.

Is Cheney Winning the Torture Debate?

2009-04-23T17:00:00.000-07:00

April 23, 2009 , 4:04 pm
By Eric Etheridge

At the Plum Line, Greg Sargent says that an article in today’s issue of The Times — originally titled “At Core of Detainee Fight: Did Methods Stop Attacks?” — is proof that Cheney & Co. are effectively “shifting the torture debate on to the narrow question of whether torture has ‘worked.’ ”

The Bushies want this question — “did torture stave off terror attacks and save lives?” — hovering in the air. There’s plenty of evidence that torture hasn’t worked at all and has done more harm than good. Even some former Bush administration officials have conceded it hasn’t done anything to stop terror attacks.

But it’s easy for the Cheney camp to muddy the waters and turn this into a matter of debate by citing unspecified classified info that supposedly supports the claim that it has saved lives — info that we’ll never see. Having the debate focused this way also lays the groundwork for the Cheney camp to say “I told you so” in the event of another terror attack.

Indeed, the question of effectiveness is “now on the front burner,” writes Michael Tomasky at The Guardian, as it has been pretty much both online and off since Cheney said in his Fox interview Monday night there were classified documents that proved the value of his approach. Former Bush speechwriter Marc A. Thiessen made the “it works” argument in a Washington Post op-ed Tuesday, and his facts and analysis were quickly engaged by Slate’s Timothy Noah, Tapped’s Adam Serwer and others.

Today a former F.B.I. interrogator who questioned Abu Zubaydah writes in a Times op-ed “there was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics.” (At Firedoglake, Marcy Wheeler says the important thing about the op-ed is that it is an “on-the-record refutation of the very cornerstone of the Bybee Memo–and with it the entire torture regime.”)

And Sargent himself just this morning linked to a December 2008 interview of F.B.I. director Robert Mueller in Vanity Fair, in which Mueller said “he believed” no terror incidents had been prevented by information from enhanced interrogations.

If “it works” is the primary line of defense, there are secondary lines being argued as well — primarily “criminalizing policy differences” and “which Democrats should we also indict?”

The Wall Street Journal editorialized about the former this morning, invoking the specter of third-world politics:

[A]t least until now, the U.S. political system has avoided the spectacle of a new Administration prosecuting its predecessor for policy disagreements. This is what happens in Argentina, Malaysia or Peru, countries where the law is treated merely as an extension of political power.

The editorial echoed comments yesterday from senators Arlen Spector, who used the phrase “banana republic,” and John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman, who wrote in a letter to the president that they did not believe that “legal analysis should be criminalized.” Also pounding this line online yesterday were John Podhoretz and David Frum, who wrote:

After the 9/11 attacks, President Bush drew a curtain of oblivion against all the errors and mistakes that had led up to the attacks. There was accusation and counter-accusation in the media, but at the official level there was no recrimination against President Clinton’s decision not to kill bin Laden when he had the chance, no action against those who had failed to stop the 9/11 hijackers from entering the country.

If Obama proceeds to take legal action against those who did what they thought was right to defend the country, all that will change. Prosecutions launched by Obama will not stop when Obama declares “game over.” If overzealousness under Bush becomes a crime under Obama, underzealousness under Obama will become a crime under the next Republican president. . . .

It’s a nightmare future. Let’s banish the possibility now.

The other defense — “Which Democrats should be indicted?” — also invokes a scorched-earth, post-apocalyptic scenario, primarily aimed at Congressional Democrats: if anyone gets indicted for torture, so will you. Peter Hoekstra advances this case this morning, also in The Journal, and gets right to the point:

I have asked [Director of National Intelligence Dennis] Blair to provide me with a list of the dates, locations and names of all members of Congress who attended briefings on enhanced interrogation techniques.

Or as Ari Fleischer asked Paul Begala yesterday on Anderson Cooper: “Which Democrat members of Congress who sat in on the briefings . . . would you say need to be prosecuted?”

The battle lines will likely continue to shift as more documents are, or are not, released. And it’s hard to see torture opponents refusing to engage detail-for-detail on the issue of effectiveness, when they have so much evidence to argue from. Still, the simple case against torture — it’s wrong — is being made. Most famously and profanely yesterday on, of all places, Fox News, where Shephard Smith burst forth with an emphatic and impassioned: “We are America! We do not torture!”

That’s the cleaned-up version of what he said, actually. And it’s all I can share with you here, this being a family media outlet and all. But if you don’t mind a bit of saltiness, the video is worth seeking out.

The Cold War at Home

2009-04-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

United States History

Not only did the Cold War shape U.S. foreign policy, it also had a profound effect on domestic affairs. Americans had long feared radical subversion, and during the Red Scare of 1919-1920, the government had attempted to remove perceived threats to American society. Even stronger efforts were made after World War II to root out communism within the United States.

Foreign events and espionage scandals contributed to the anti-communist hysteria of the period. In 1949 the Soviet Union exploded its own atomic device, which shocked Americans into believing that the United States would be the target of a Soviet attack. In 1948 Alger Hiss, who had been an assistant secretary of state and an adviser to Roosevelt at Yalta, was accused of being a communist spy by Whitaker Chambers, a former Soviet agent. Hiss denied the accusation, but in 1950 he was convicted of perjury. Finally, in 1950, the government uncovered a British-American spy network that transferred to the Soviet Union materials about the development of the atomic bomb. The capture and trial of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for revealing atomic secrets furthered the perception of a domestic communist danger. Attorney General J. Howard McGrath declared there were many American communists, each bearing "the germ of death for society."

When Republicans were victorious in the midterm congressional elections of 1946 and appeared ready to investigate subversive activity, the president established a Federal Employee Loyalty Program. Workers challenged about past and present associations often had little chance to fight back.

Congress, meanwhile, embarked upon its own loyalty program. In 1947 the House Committee on Un-American Activities investigated the motion-picture industry to determine whether communist sentiments were being reflected in popular films. When some writers refused to testify, they were cited for contempt and sent to prison. In response, Hollywood capitulated and refused to hire anyone with a marginally questionable past.

But the most vigorous anti-communist warrior was Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, a Republican from Wisconsin. He gained national attention in 1950 by claiming that he had a list of 205 known communists in the State Department. Though McCarthy subsequently changed this figure several times and failed to substantiate any of his charges, he struck a responsive public chord.

McCarthy gained power when the Republican Party won control of the Senate in 1952. As a committee chairman, he now had a forum for his crusade. Relying on extensive press and television coverage, he continued to charge top-level officials with treachery. Playing on his tough reputation, he often used vulgarity to characterize the "vile and scurrilous" objects of his attack.

But McCarthy went too far. Though polls showed half the public behind him, McCarthy overstepped himself by challenging the United States Army when one of his assistants was drafted. Television "in its infancy" brought the hearings into millions of homes. Many Americans saw McCarthy's savage tactics for the first time, and as public support began to wane, the Senate finally condemned him for his conduct.

Until then, however, McCarthy exerted enormous power in the United States. He offered scapegoats to those worried about the stalemate in Korea or about communist gains. He heightened fears aroused by the Truman administration's own anti-communist effort and legitimized tactics that were often used against innocent people. In short, McCarthy represented the worst domestic excesses of the Cold War.

The American Eleven: A Values-Led Plan for Victory in November

2009-04-19T05:51:00.000-07:00

The American Eleven: A Values-Led Plan for Victory in November
by Newt Gingrich
09/05/2006

Welcome to a special 2006 election edition of "Winning the Future."

The fall 2006 elections are now just two months away. Although the conventional wisdom is that Republicans will have a tough time this fall, I believe that we can still win -- but not without substantial changes.

In this edition of "Winning the Future," I outline 11 values-led policies that are both morally right and that enjoy (not coincidentally) the overwhelming support of the American people. These are the values and the policies that Republicans should embrace this fall.

Here's the key:

Republican victory in 2006 depends on a return to the American values that twice elected Ronald Reagan and returned the House to a Republican majority with the Contract with America.

Republicans in 2006 must return to the pattern that allowed the center-right majority to win decisive elections for President Reagan in 1980 and 1984 and win with the Contract with America in 1994.

President Ronald Reagan was successful because as governor, as a candidate and as President he spoke for and advocated the values of the overwhelming majority of Americans.

The Contract with America succeeded because its core solutions (standing on President Reagan's shoulders) reflected deeply held American values. It is vital that Republican leaders understand these were American values not Republican values.

* 92% of the American people favored welfare reform.
* 88% of the people on welfare favored welfare reform.
* 83% of the American people favored a balanced budget.

On issue after issue the Contract with America represented the values of the American people. The left was defeated in 1994 because it had lost touch with the American people.

The Reagan-Contract Rule: Change Starts With the People

For the last few years, Republicans in Washington have forgotten the Reagan-Contract rule that successful change starts with the American people. There is a real danger that Republicans will lose the House and the Senate this fall because they have strayed from this core principle of starting first with the concerns and values of the American people and then developing effective policies.

Consultants are working overtime to convince the American people to favor Republican policies. This is exactly backwards.

What really works is what happens when Republicans identify themselves with the American people and against the values of the left-wing establishment that dominates the media, the bureaucracies and the lobbying community.

11 Ways to Say: "We're Not Nancy Pelosi"

Republicans should spend the next two months focused on 11 straightforward, morally grounded issues about which the American people have clearly defined beliefs.

Some of these issues will make Republican elitists uncomfortable, but these were the same elitists who were uncomfortable with President Reagan and who scoffed at the Contract with America and rejected its bold proposals.

A Republican majority in the House that spent the next two months on these eleven issues would go a long way toward clarifying the choice between the San Francisco values of Nancy Pelosi and those of a GOP majority. This refreshing approach would reject the "incumbentitis" of relying on pork-barrel spending for reelection and return to the basic populist conservative values which gave us a majority in the first place.

These 11 issues are all clear and all doable.

1. Make English the Official Language of Government. The House should pass a bill making English the official language of government, abolishing multilingual ballots and reaffirming that new citizens should be required to pass a test on American history in English. The Rasmussen poll reported that support for English as the official language was 85%. The Zogby poll had it at 84%. Why do Republican leaders find it so hard to side with more than four out of every five Americans? How many liberal Democrats who currently assume they are unbeatable would suddenly have a hard time explaining a series of votes against English to their constituents? Remember, at 85%, there are no anti-English congressional districts no matter what the elite media says.

2. Control the Borders. The House should pass a narrowly focused bill to ensure that the United States can control the border. The current Senate bill is a disaster. It is impossible to pass a "comprehensive" immigration bill in the next two months. The American people overwhelmingly want the borders controlled and every act of terrorism reminds us that having the borders uncontrolled makes us more vulnerable to attack. The House should immediately pass a border-control bill and conservative Republican senators should move every day to bring it up in the Senate. Let Democrats and elitist Republicans block controlling the border and make that a referendum test for Election Day.

3. Keep God in the Pledge. Congress should take two steps to preserve the right to say "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, a right which is supported by 91% of all Americans. The American people feel deeply that our Declaration of Independence is correct in saying that each of us is endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights. Beginning with the Supreme Court's 1963 decision outlawing school prayer, the courts have waged a 43-year assault on the core values of American liberty. It is time to return to a balanced Constitutional system. There is no Constitutional case for five lawyers' on the court being a floating majority for a permanent Constitutional Convention.

The American people would rally to the elected branches' taking steps to rebalance the Constitution. First, the House should pass a bill suspending the recent federal district court decision in California outlawing the words "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. Second, the House should pass a law blocking the Supreme Court from reviewing the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance (a power of the Congress expressly granted in the Constitution).

4. Require a Voter ID Card. The American people overwhelmingly support (85% in one poll) having a voter id card so we can be sure only legal citizens are voting. Passing a bill to require this in all federal elections would be a big step toward more honest elections.

5. Repeal the Death Tax, for Good. The American people have consistently supported the total repeal of the death tax and the House should simply pass it once a week and attach it to various Senate bills to force the Senate to deal with it again and again. Let liberals explain why they oppose something that more than 70% of the country favors.

6. Restore Property Rights. The American people are deeply opposed to local politicians' being able to seize a citizen's home or business. The Supreme Court's Kelo decision on eminent domain is one of the most unpopular in recent years and is also one of the most dangerous. Anyone who knows the history of local government corruption in America knows it will not be long before some corrupt developers engage some corrupt politicians and this power is exploited at the cost of most Americans. Members of the Black Caucus have been among the most vocal in pointing out that it is poor people who will be the most victimized so rich developers and greedy politicians can make the money off their homes and businesses. The House should pass a powerful bill returning the constitutional law to the pre-Kelo rules and blocking the Supreme Court from reviewing it.

7. Achieve Sustainable Energy Independence. The country is eager for a straightforward new energy strategy for national security, environmental and economic reasons. The combination of $3 gasoline, watching Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Russia get more of our money, and concerns about the environment come together to require real change. The House should meet that need. Starting with Rep. Jim Nussle's (R-Iowa) bill on renewable fuels, adding to it clean nuclear power using new technologies that are safe and produce little waste, developing more clean coal solutions, investing in a conversion to a hydrogen economy, incentivizing conservation, providing tax credits so the auto industry can invest in the new technology and new manufacturing equipment needed to produce revolutionary new vehicles, creating the tax incentives to build the distribution system for biofuels, hybrids, and hydrogen, providing deeper tax incentives for radically better cars (imagine a substantial tax credit for cars exceeding 200 miles to the gallon of petroleum through a combination of E-85 or biodiesel, hybrid use of electricity and hydrogen), and a bill to create state flexibility in exploring off shore with a 50% split in revenue so state legislatures and governors would have an incentive to develop environmentally sound methods of exploration and production.

8. Control Spending and Balance the Budget. The House should pass new budget legislation to control spending, leading to a balanced budget in seven years (the length of time we gave ourselves in the Contract with America and which led to the first four balanced budgets since the 1920s), with special focus on programs liberals will fight to increase spending. Let the country see who is really committed to smaller government with lower taxes and who is committed to bigger government with higher taxes.

9. Tie Education Funding to Teacher Accountability. A major result of the No Child Left Behind legislation has been the clear revelation that a number of schools systems are crippling and destroying children. When the Detroit school system only graduates 21% of entering freshman on time, it is clear the children are being cheated. The American people strongly support reforms designed to save the children. The first step would be to insist that federal funds only go to school systems which require teacher competency and accountability. A clear choice between those who want to save the children and those who want to save the bureaucrats would mobilize the country in favor of dramatic education reform.

10. Defend America From the Irreconcilable Wing of Islam. Terrorism is a real threat. Congress should hold hearings on the recent terrorist activities in Canada, the U.K. and Morocco. The House should move bills that strengthen our security from terrorists with increased powers for surveillance, an overruling of the disastrous Hamdan decision and a series of other steps.

11. Focus on Iran and North Korea. The American people are very prepared to believe we face extraordinary threats from a nuclear North Korea and an Iranian regime actively seeking to develop nuclear weapons. Any actions in Iraq need to be recast in terms of their impact on Iran. A weak America in Iraq will be unable to stop Iran. Stopping Iran is potentially literally a matter of life and death. Congress should hold hearings on the scale of the Iranian and North Korean threat, the statements of their key leaders and the requirements for action to replace these dictatorships before they succeed in killing millions of Americans. The Santorum Iranian democracy bill should be forced out of the Senate in the context of these threats. Everything about Iraq should be debated within this larger and much more dangerous context.

These eleven steps focus on the House because Republicans have practical control of the House and can move legislation in the House in a timely manner.

The Senate is so hard to manage and the confusion in the Senate is so great that it is impossible to imagine a clear message coming from the Senate.

The House of Representatives, however, has the opportunity to set the agenda for the fall and to define the issues in terms which will have overwhelming support from the American people.

House Republicans have two months to change history. They can go one of two ways.

They can continue to ignore the lessons of history, and forget the fact that real change must begin with the American people, not the media or Washington elite.

Or House Republicans can learn from history. They can listen to the American people and return to the center-right populist majority which President Reagan and the Contract with America gave them. The choice is theirs -- and ours.

Your friend,

Newt Gingrich

Mr. Gingrich is the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and author of "Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works" and "Winning the Future" (published by Regnery, a HUMAN EVENTS sister company).
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How Dems Can Win the Midterm Elections

2009-04-19T05:46:00.000-07:00

How Dems Can Win the Midterm Elections
By Eleanor Clift
Newsweek

Friday 08 September 2006

What the Democrats should do to win the midterms - and the '08 race for the White House.

Let the talking heads and the lawyers debate the new U.S. Army field-manual rules about interrogation. Democrats should play rope-a-dope, absorb the blows and put the spotlight on President Bush's empty rhetoric about winning the war against terrorism. Five years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is still on the loose and Americans don't think the Iraq war is making them safer.

What Bush did in his speeches this week is the national-security version of the perp walk. By rolling out a rogue's gallery of scary-looking Middle Eastern men, Bush transformed a debate about a ruinous war in Iraq into hand-to-hand political combat over which party has captured more bad guys.

Given Bush's sorry record and all the other conversations the media could be having, the renewed emphasis on terrorism is good news for Republicans. Democrats can't change the channel. They've got to win on the ground that Bush has established. That means thinking like Karl Rove and going after the opposition's strength until it becomes a vulnerability. Iraq is a quagmire. Whether U.S. troops withdraw next year or in 10 years, they will leave behind a country fractured by civil war and an oil-rich theocratic government dominated by Iran - hardly the democratic beacon to transform the region.

Democrats have no power. It's not up to them to draft the exit strategy. But if they're going to win back at least one house of Congress in November, they need to raise the comfort level among the American people with their party. Republican pollster Bill McInturff says it doesn't take long in focus groups to get people talking about whether Democrats are resolved and tough enough. Republicans are trying to "seduce Democrats into a debate about the future as opposed to a judgment on the past," says Thomas Mann, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution. Democrats should keep from "getting snookered" into offering a detailed plan of their own. "There's no good alternative in Iraq," he says. "We've going to have to settle for the least-worst option as we extricate ourselves."

Just as the November election will be a referendum on the war, the '08 presidential race will turn on national security. A Fox News poll last month found former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. John McCain the top choices on the Republican side among registered voters nationwide, with Giuliani holding a slight edge on McCain, and both men beating Hillary Clinton and every other likely Democratic nominee. Not everybody is convinced Giuliani will run. He's not working at it like McCain, who is in a fever to lock up traditional support and run like Bush did in 2000. Maybe Giuliani is keeping hope alive to build his speaking fees. But if '06 is a heavy Democratic year, Republicans will be hungry in '08, and ideological conservatives have no one candidate to rally around. They're all flawed on the right, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney less so because he's really smart and mediawise, but a Mormon from Massachusetts may be a bridge too far for party activists.

A Republican insider talking off the record sketched a scenario that might get Giuliani the nomination. First, conservatives don't trust McCain. They think he's a snake because he voted against tax cuts, promotes global warming and hangs around with Hillary and Ted Kennedy. He's to conservatives what Joe Lieberman is to liberals, finger nails on a blackboard, an irritant. Second, Giuliani's heroism on 9/11 shows no sign of fading. He's got charisma and presence that is unmatched. He's pro-choice and pro gay rights, but that can be finessed if the Republicans want to win bad enough. Giuliani can placate the right by making a deal on judges, promising to name judges in the Scalia-Thomas-Roberts-Alito mold. It was the dilemma faced by Alan Alda's character, a pro-choice Republican presidential candidate, Sen. Arnold Vinick, in the final season of "The West Wing." Senator Vinick refused to sell out; he also lost the election. Giuliani would have to reassure the right that as president he wouldn't make a major sift on social issues. And he'd have to name a strong conservative as his running mate and political heir to seal the deal with the right.

For all the problems with his "New York lifestyle," buzzwords for his multiple marriages, Republicans can't dismiss a candidate like Giuliani. Very few people can say they transformed a major city and that they led the nation when the president was absent from the airwaves in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. There's a reason why Giuliani has appeal right now. He reacted instinctively and well on 9/11, and he governed a city that works - and right now even Republicans are talking about competence. Giuliani and McCain too look like they are people who get things done. In the end, primary elections among Republicans come back to abortion, the gun issue and gay marriage. Ideology matters, but if Bush's legacy is a failed war in Iraq and a lot of empty rhetoric, ideology might not matter so much in '08.

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Former C.I.A. Director Defends Interrogation

2009-04-19T01:00:00.000-07:00

By JOSHUA BRUSTEIN
Published: April 19, 2009

Gen. Michael V. Hayden, who served as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency during the last two years of George W. Bush’s presidency, said Sunday that the Obama administration’s recent release of memos detailing harsh interrogation techniques would limit the agency’s ability to pursue terrorists in the future.

The C.I.A. used harsh techniques like waterboarding on detainees from 2002 through 2005, before General Hayden became director. He told a Congressional committee in 2008 that the technique was explicitly dropped from the agency’s authorized methods in 2006 and that he believed its use was likely to have been illegal.

But speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” General Hayden said that the descriptions gave Al Qaeda a tactical advantage by allowing them to prepare for specific practices used by the C.I.A., even if those practices are not in use now.

“It describes the box within which Americans will not go beyond,” General Hayden said. “To me, that’s very useful for our enemies, even if, as a policy matter, this president at this time had decided not to use one, any, or all of those techniques.”

The detailed memos released Thursday by the Justice Department describe techniques that were used by the C.I.A. between 2002 and 2005. The Obama administration outlawed harsh interrogations and ordered the C.I.A.’s secret prisons closed on his second day in office. The president has said that the use of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” amounted to a dark chapter in American history.

Senator John Ensign, a Republican from Nevada, also criticized the administration on Sunday, saying that the disclosure would limit future options against terrorism.

“The harm is that if we ever return to those policies, one is they can train against them now,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “Do we really think that having advanced interrogation techniques is something we don’t want to use if we find Osama bin Laden?”

The Obama administration has said that it opposes prosecuting agents involved in interrogations using techniques that they had been told were legal, although some Democrats have raised the prospect of prosecuting senior Bush administration officials and Justice Department lawyers who authorized the harsh interrogations.

Mr. Ensign and Gen. Hayden also argued that the prospect of prosecution would give C.I.A. agents pause when accepting legal advice about the practices they use.

“The basic foundation of the legitimacy of the agency’s action has shifted from some durability of law to a product of the American political process,” he said. “That puts agency officers in a horrible position.”

Democrats on Sunday played down the importance of the release of the documents, saying that most of the information was already public. David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Obama, said there was “no legal rationale for keeping them classified.”

Mr. Axelrod said that the president’s ban on enhanced interrogation techniques was more important that the release of the C.I.A.’s memos.

“We’re moving past all of that,” Mr. Axelrod said on “Face the Nation.” “And to revisit it again and again and again isn’t, in the president’s view, in the country’s interest.”

Mr. Axelrod reiterated that harsh interrogation techniques are ineffective. This view was bolstered by the disclosure in the memos released last week of a debate within the C.I.A. about whether the brutal treatment of Abu Zubaydah, a detainee captured in Pakistan in 2002, yielded any real intelligence. According to the documents and former intelligence officials, the first use of waterboarding and other rough treatment against Abu Zubaydah was ordered despite the belief of interrogators that he had already told them all he knew. The harsh treatment led to no breakthroughs, according to one intelligence official with knowledge of the case.

Gen. Hayden on Sunday questioned this account, saying that Abu Zubaydah had “clammed up,” but then gave up information that led to the arrest of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who was later charged with helping coordinate the Sept. 11 attacks.

In an opinion column in Friday’s Wall Street Journal, Gen. Hayden and former U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey wrote that “fully half” of the government’s information about Al Qaeda’s structures and activities came from interrogation when “coercive interrogation” was used.