HISD says focus on Neil Bush's software didn't violate policy |
| by Jennifer Radcliffe |
| As Barbara Bush spent two hours championing her son's software company at a Houston middle school Thursday morning, a watchdog group questioned whether the former first lady should be allowed to channel a donation to Neil Bush's Ignite Learning company through Houston's Hurricane Katrina relief fund. "It's strange that the former first lady would want to do this. If her son's having a rough time of it, couldn't she write him a check?" said Daniel Borochoff, founder of the American Institute of Philanthropy, a Chicago-based charity watchdog group. "Maybe she isn't aware that people could frown upon this." Some critics said donations to a tax-deductible charitable fund shouldn't benefit the Bush family. Others questioned whether the Houston Independent School District violated district policy by allowing the company to host a promotional event on campus. HISD officials said the event at Fleming Middle School, where Bush met with 40 educators and business leaders, did not violate policy. The school is among eight area campuses that received Ignite "Curriculum On Wheels" systems because of Bush's donation of an undisclosed amount to the Bush-Clinton Houston Hurricane Relief Fund. She gave specific instructions that part of the money be sent to the Scottish Space School Foundation. She asked that group, in turn, to use the money to buy eight Ignite systems — valued at $3,800 each — for Harris County schools with large numbers of Hurricane Katrina evacuees, according to Bush and fund officials. "I said to George one day: 'Maybe it's sort of selfish of me, but I'd like to give something that I could see the results of,' " she told the crowd. "The thing I knew about was the COW." She said she hopes the donation will encourage other companies and individuals to give both time and money to public schools strapped by Hurricane Katrina. Bush said her son's company could not have afforded the donation on its own. "They gave a lot. They couldn't give more," she said. "They'd love to give more, but they're a little, small company." Steve Maislin, president of the Greater Houston Community Foundation, which is administering the $979,000 relief fund that Bush donated to, said the donation was made legally and properly. "Mrs. Bush wanted to support the local hurricane effort," he said. "She could have done it directly. She chose to do it through here to get the word out about the fund." Fleming rolled out the red carpet for Bush. Colorguard members from Wheatley High School and band members from Kashmere High School performed. Three Hurricane Katrina evacuees who now attend Fleming spoke about why they enjoy using the Curriculum on Wheels. "It makes me laugh," said Bryson Smith, a 15-year-old Fleming student. "I really do enjoy the COW." While HISD has a policy that prevents the district and its schools from endorsing or promoting the "merit of a brand name or trademarked products," Houston officials defended the event. "HISD employees talk about the value of instructional products all the time. Fleming Middle School thanked former first lady Barbara Bush for helping provide an instructional program that they found of benefit," deputy press secretary Adriana Villarreal said. "Students had the learning opportunity of confidently standing up at a podium, speaking articulately and explaining to former first lady Barbara Bush what they learned from the instructional program." Nancy Lomax, a longtime parent activist in HISD, said the district shouldn't have allowed the event to be held during school hours. "HISD as a matter of policy does not endorse products. I think they're getting way off course, their own moral course," she said. "I can understand that HISD is in an awkward position to accept a gift from a powerful person, but at the same time to turn it around and make it a dog and pony show is disgusting." Ignite, which currently says it does businesses with 81 districts in 13 states, has been under scrutiny since its inception in 1999. Reports show that the company received funding from foreign oil sources, computer magnates and friends of the Republican family. The Austin-based company got its foot in the door in HISD in 2003, when Neil Bush and the HISD Foundation agreed to raise $115,000 in private donations to foot half of the bill for the software. Susan Ohanian, a former public school teacher and Vermont-based author who tracks educational issues, said she was stunned by Bush's donation. "The public has a very hard time understanding that some money is not worth it," she said. "I've never heard of anything like this so blatant: Pull at your heart strings with Katrina victims and then make sure your son profits from it." An HISD-funded external evaluation of Ignite Learning in 2004 found that teachers gave an older version of the product generally positive marks. "Teachers also found it to be effective in improving student understanding of history, engaging students in the learning process, and to a lesser degree, helping students pass the (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills)," the study said. It's currently used on 15 HISD campuses, officials said. Teachers raved about the software Thursday. The purple machine displays science and history lessons to the class through a projector. They touted its graphics and music. "It enhances learning. It excites the children," said Kathie Guillory, chairwoman of Fleming's science department. "They grasp more, and they retain it longer." Officials at Fleming and other area schools said they plan to buy more COW units. "I'm doing everything I can to get them in every class in our district," said Brett Schiewer, a science specialist in the Katy school district. Schiewer said he understands some of the concerns about the donation. "That was one of my thoughts, but, truly a quality product speaks for itself," he said. "It still benefits kids, which is why we are here." |
25.3.06
Katrina Donation Ignites Debate
Impeach! The Shot Heard ‘Round the World
NEWFANE — As patriots go, Dan DeWalt looks the part. With his ponytail and winter beard, a pair of breeches and a musket would put him right into character in 1775.
 Dan DeWalt (Photo by Sarah R. Lavigne) |
DeWalt, 49, is as mystified as anybody at his international star status as the author of a town meeting resolution, which Newfane voters passed 121-29, calling for the impeachment of Pres. George Bush, in part because he “used falsehoods to lead our nation to war unsupported by international law.”
Other cities and towns have passed similar measures, including San Francisco. Newfane was the first of five Vermont towns to do so — Brattleboro was expected to take it up at representative town meeting on Saturday. At least six Vermont Democratic County Committees have also voted in favor of impeachment proceedings.But it has been DeWalt — a carpenter and musician with no television, who reads history books, trolls international shortwave radio broadcasts for news, and until this month had never seen film footage from 9/11 — who has captured international attention from of the likes of The Economist, the U.K. Guardian and The Toronto Star.
The story of his challenge to Bush has been posted on websites in Australia, South Africa, the Basque region of Spain, and covered throughout the United States, from The Dallas Morning News to CNN and USA Today. By the time the Vermont Guardian caught up with him, he been interviewed 25 times. Reuters had just left and The Boston Globe’s photographer was on the way up.
He has also been lambasted and lampooned. The conservative Washington Times saw fit to report his annual income, his marital status, and even his choice of footwear (Birkenstocks). The Associated Press story was posted on “The Terrorism Knowledge Base,” a self-proclaimed “comprehensive databank of global terrorist incidents and organizations.”
No sooner did the Newfane news hit the wire than reactions started pouring in. Accustomed to companionable leaf-peepers and endorphin-jazzed skiers, postcard-perfect Newfane was suddenly in the midst of political controversy.
Lenore Salzbrunn, the president of the Newfane Business Association who at town meeting had tearfully defended the president, later fretted about tourism cancellations and told a reporter: “We need to stop adding to the negative news about Vermont.”
Lisa Thomas, assistant innkeeper at Four Columns Inn, said the colonial bed and breakfast had gotten calls from some regular guests who said they wouldn’t be back. “But we also got a lot of new guests who said they would come and stay.”
Among the e-mails that arrived at Newfane town hall was one last week from a pair of U.S. missionaries in Tanzania, who sent their congratulations for a vote “in the great American tradition.”
“You have set an example for the entire country,” wrote Graham and Dory Hutchins. “It is unfortunate that so many find your actions reprehensible and do not understand the value in the process in which you all engaged. It demonstrates that far too many people have forgotten, or were never taught, the basics of the republic in which they live. Those traditions that you abide by are in grave danger from an imperial orientation that values power over liberty, deception over truth.”
DeWalt is the darling of the liberal blogsphere as well. “Norman Rockwell would be proud of you, Dan DeWalt!” enthused one blogger on a Portland indy media site. “Let’s all send a dollar so that Newfane Selectboard member Dan DeWalt can stay elected a good long term,” urged another on Daily Kos, one of the most widely read blogs in the country.
DeWalt would likely be ambivalent about that. When he’s not building furniture or helping to start a new nonprofit newspaper, he’s busy teaching music and playing in several bands. He was recruited into local politics only last year, while collecting signatures for a town meeting resolution on the Iraq War. But in fact, road graders and town budgets are not really his thing.
Instead, he loses sleep over issues like warrantless wiretaps and the war. A large plywood sign on the dirt road at the end of his driveway in Williamsville keeps a running tally of the death toll in Iraq.
Every day since town meeting, when he checks his e-mail the in-basket is virtually overflowing. Some are predictable, like the thank you message signed “Osama bin Laden.” But the vast majority have offered congratulations and support, or sought information about how to get a resolution passed in their towns. So many that DeWalt has crafted a form “how-to” response offering them sample petitions and resources, and urging support for Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold’s motion for censure, and Michigan Democratic congressman John Conyers’ bill, which would require a congressional investigation into whether Bush committed impeachable offenses.
Despite those measures in Congress, impeachment remains a decidedly grassroots movement. As Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson noted: “It’s all over the blogosphere. It’s the cover story in the current Harper’s. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has passed an impeachment resolution. Antiwar activists, civil libertarians, all the usual-suspect constituencies have growing impeachment tendencies. But it’s reaching beyond the usual suspects.”
Several polls have shown that a majority of Democrats, most independents, and a majority of citizens overall support impeachment, according to columnist David Swanson. “And people don’t just support impeachment,” he wrote last week in a column entitled “Republicans for impeachment,” “they’re passionate about it. Bush is the least liked president on record, excepting only Nixon, and Bush is on track to break Nixon’s record this spring. Nothing will energize people to vote against Republicans like talk of impeaching Bush and Cheney. Few other issues can provide the dramatic motivation to turn out voters in an off-year election.”
But inside the Washington Beltway, there is little taste for it. Even Vermont’s rogue congressman, independent Bernie Sanders, resisted the town meeting directives calling on him to begin impeachment proceedings. Acknowledging that Bush may have acted illegally, Sanders said in a March 7 statement that Republican control of Congress makes it “impractical” to talk about impeachment.
The next week, however, Sanders changed his mind and signed onto the House bill. “We felt it appropriate, based on what Vermonters were telling us,” Sanders’ spokesman, Jeff Weaver, told a reporter. “This is really an example of grassroots democracy in action.”
DeWalt was unforgiving, accusing Sanders of making “a beeline for the middle of the road” in his bid for a Senate seat. “We would have expected that Rep. Sanders might not have waited until two days after the town meeting vote to join Democrats who in December sponsored legislation … to initiate such action,” he wrote to local papers.
“It remains to be seen if other U.S. citizens will join us in our quest to put the brakes on this renegade administration,” he continued. “If they do, let us hope that their representatives choose to follow, rather than throw cold water on their efforts.”
Democratic strategists agree with Sanders that given the GOP lock on Congress, impeachment proceedings would be an exercise in futility. Some even speculate it could backfire, giving Bush a lift in his flagging popularity ratings as the public rallied behind him. But that doesn’t dissuade DeWalt.
“People seem to think the notion of impeachment was somehow cheapened with Bill Clinton. But what can be more real than abrogation of the Constitution, breaking U.S. law, international law, breaking moral law with torture, lying — and the consequences of all these actions being the deaths of tens of thousands of people?” he asks.
So what does he hope to achieve by advocating for impeachment? A new president? A Democrat in 2008? DeWalt laughs long and low.
“If we get a Democrat, so what? If we get Hillary Clinton she’ll increase troop strength. We have been somnambulant as a people probably since the 50s. War World II is over, everyone breathes a great sigh of relief and goes shopping; 9/11 comes and Bush says go shopping. … My hope is not electing some Democrats, my hope is in the people finally going, ‘Oh my god, while I’ve been shopping everything has been falling apart around me. I need to do something.’
“Luckily, our politicians are spineless enough that if the people really spoke with one voice, they’d listen. So I really have my hope in the population of the United States taking a moral stand on what’s right and what’s wrong.”
DeWalt predicts that just hearing the word impeachment will be a wakeup call. “People are going to hear the word, and for the first 20 or 30 times they will think that’s drastic, but after while they’ll say let’s impeach this bastard.”
In this, Democrats smell blood. At least six of Vermont’s 13 Democratic county committees have passed the so-called Rutland resolution, named after the first county committee that passed it, said Rutland County Committee member Jeffrey Taylor, a Clarendon attorney.
In Bennington, the measure passed 71-0. Chittenden was expected to take it up on March 23.
Vermont Democrats hope that grassroots support will propel at least one member in both chambers of the state Legislature to introduce a resolution of charges against Bush. Taylor said Section 603 of the Manual for House Rules provides that state legislatures can file charges with the U.S. House. If just one congressman or woman agrees to use that as a basis for a privileged motion for impeachment, it would go to directly the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, where impeachment proceedings are initiated.
“I’m not self-delusional, thinking that this would be a success with the current Congress,” Taylor notes. “If it were to be launched with the 109th Congress it would be dead on arrival, tabled by the Republican majority. That does not, however, prevent individual citizens from making clear their displeasure at the current course of this government and an interest in having Bush essentially stand trial for his crimes and misdemeanors against the American people, against the Constitution.”
What’s more, Taylor said, such a measure would be a threshold for the 110th Congress. “If power changes, then the chances for some action to correct the constant, continuing problems that we have become much higher.”
In the meantime, DeWalt is hoping that a crescendo of popular support for impeachment will help stall the numbers on his war-dead tally board.
“If we mount pressure between now and November, and [Bush] wants to do some ridiculous new adventure — if the American people are crying for some kind of justice, or a move for impeachment — [Congress] is not going to be willing to jump on his next adventure wagon. If the lawmakers calculate a political liability in supporting his next bone-headed move, they’re not going to do it.”
Ever the populist, DeWalt adds: “Anything we as citizens can do is important because it makes those courageous congressmen take pause even that much longer before they are willing to go along with him. We’re at a tipping point.”
If that’s the case, historians might one day trace it to a subtle shift at an amicable town meeting in Newfane.
The resolution that roared
Whereas George W. Bush has:
- Misled the nation about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction;
- Misled the nation about ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda;
- Used these falsehoods to lead our nation into war unsupported by international law;
- Not told the truth about American policy with respect to the use of torture; and
- Has directed the government to engage in domestic spying, in direct contravention of U.S. law.
Therefore, the voters of the town of Newfane ask that our representative to the U.S. House of Representatives file articles of impeachment to remove him from office.
23.3.06
Rebuilding America's defenses?
http://www.reopen911.org/docs/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf
Update 16: U.S., British Troops Rescue Iraq Hostages - Forbes.com
03.23.2006, 03:29 PM
U.S. and British forces stormed a house and freed three Christian peace activists Thursday without firing a shot, ending a four-month hostage ordeal that saw an American in the group killed and dumped along a railroad track.
The U.S. ambassador and the top American military spokesman held out hope the operation on the outskirts of Baghdad could lead to a break in the captivity of American reporter Jill Carroll, a freelance writer for The Christian Science Monitor who was abducted Jan. 7.
The military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, said the 8 a.m. rescue of the Briton and two Canadians from a "kidnapping cell" was based on information divulged by man during interrogation only three hours earlier. That man was captured by U.S. forces on Wednesday night.
A senior Iraqi military officer told The Associated Press, however, that the operation had been under way for two days in the Abu Ghraib suburb west of Baghdad, site of the notorious prison. The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his position, said U.S. and British forces refused to give him other details.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canadian forces also took part in the rescue operation, although their role was unclear.
No kidnappers were present when the troops broke into the house, where the captives were discovered with their hands tied, Lynch said.
"They were bound, they were together, there were no kidnappers in the areas," he told a news briefing.
The freed men were Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, and Briton Norman Kember, 74. The men - members of the Chicago-based Christian Peacemaker Teams - were kidnapped Nov. 26 along with an American colleague, Tom Fox, 54.
Fox's body was found this month, shot and dumped in western Baghdad.
"We remember with tears Tom Fox," group co-director Doug Pritchard said in Toronto. "We had longed for the day when all four men would be released together. Our gladness today is bittersweet by the fact that Tom is not alive to join his colleagues in the celebration."
The three freed members of Christian Peacemaker Teams were taken to a hospital for observation in Baghdad but were released in good condition, the organization said from the Iraqi capital.
British Embassy spokeswoman Lisa Glover said the men would be flown out of Baghdad in the next few days. She said Kember was in "reasonable condition" and spent the day "relaxing and talking to British authorities."
Loney's brother, Ed, told CBC television that his mother had spoken with James on the phone and that he sounded "fantastic" though "he's lost quite a bit of weight."
"He's alert and he was asking how we were doing and said he was sorry for the whole situation," Ed Loney said. "My mom said, 'Don't worry about it - just get home and we'll talk about all that stuff when you get here.' "
He told CNN that he later spoke directly with his brother, who was "having a lovely chicken dinner with potatoes and a nice soup" and "told me about being rescued and seeing the light of day and smelling the outside air."
Ed Loney also said his brother told him he was well taken care of.
"He was always warm and always fed and things like that. He was more worried about boredom. ... I think that was probably the worst part of it, from what he said."
The Christian Peacemaker Teams volunteers have been in Iraq since October 2002, investigating allegations of abuse against Iraqi detainees by coalition forces.
The kidnapped men were shown as prisoners in several videos, the most recent a silent clip dated Feb. 28 in which Loney, Kember and Sooden appeared without Fox, whose body was found March 10.
The previously unknown Swords of Righteousness Brigades claimed responsibility for the kidnappings.
"As we study who could conduct these kinds of operations there seems to be a kidnapping cell that has been robust over the last several months in conducting these kind of kidnappings," Lynch said.
While many insurgent groups and the al-Qaida in Iraq terrorist organization have kidnapped and often killed foreigners in Iraq, there also is a heavy criminal element involved in such crimes. Thousands of Iraqis have been kidnapped for ransom and some Westerners are believed to have been grabbed by those criminal gangs as well.
Often, it is believed, kidnappers take hostages only for the purposes of selling them into captivity to larger, more organized criminal gangs or insurgent organizations.
The last hostage to be freed in a military operation was Douglas Wood, an Australian rescued in west Baghdad by U.S. and Iraqi forces on June 15, 2005, after 47 days in captivity.
Lynch said there was no new information on Carroll that "I can discuss at this time." But, he said: "There are other operations that continue probably as a result of what we're finding at this time. So you've got to give us the opportunity to work through that."
Carroll has appeared in three videotapes delivered by her kidnappers to Arab television stations, and the deadline her captors set for killing her passed weeks ago without word about her fate.
"My expectation and hope is that the released hostages and the associated activities, in terms of information gathered, could help us bring about her release as well," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said in an interview with Fox News.
Truthdig - Ear to the Ground - Bush's Purple Heart
Posted on Mar. 23, 2006
 |
| Mike Luckovich |
What’s going on in this cartoon? See below:
Media Matters:
In his March 22 Media Notes column, Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz wrote about an exchange President Bush had with Helen Thomas, a syndicated columnist with Hearst Newspapers, during Bush’s March 21 White House news conference, in which he claimed that by calling on Thomas “for the first time in three years,” Bush found “a useful foil” that allowed him “not only to punch back but to show the country that he’s up against a left-wing press corps.”
From Bush’s March 21 White House news conference:
THOMAS: I’d like to ask you, Mr. President, your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is: Why did you really want to go to war? From the moment you stepped into the White House, from your Cabinet—your Cabinet officers, intelligence people, and so forth—what was your real reason? You have said it wasn’t oil—quest for oil, it hasn’t been Israel, or anything else. What was it?
BUSH: I think your premise—in all due respect to your question and to you as a lifelong journalist—is that, you know, I didn’t want war. To assume I wanted war is just—is just flat wrong, Helen, in all due respect --
THOMAS: Everything --
BUSH: Hold on for a second, please.
THOMAS: Everything I’ve heard --
BUSH: Let me—excuse me, excuse me. No president wants war. Everything you may have heard is that, but it’s just simply not true. I—my attitude about the defense of this country changed on September the 11th. We—when we got attacked, I vowed then and there to use every asset at my disposal to protect the American people. Our foreign policy changed on that day, Helen. You know, we used to think we were secure because of oceans and previous diplomacy. But we realized on September the 11th, 2001, that killers could destroy innocent life. And I’m never going to forget it. And I’m never going to forget the vow I made to the American people that we will do everything in our power to protect our people.
Exxon Exxposed
YAWN
The WSJ reports that ExxonMobil is the key funder of a front group called Public Interest Watch which has been pushing the IRS to audit Greenpeace.
Greenpeace says an IRS auditor told it that the PIW letter triggered the audit.
"PIW's most recent federal tax filing, covering August 2003 to July 2004, states that $120,000 of the $124,094 the group received in contributions during that period came from Exxon Mobil."
ExxonMobil has not only been one of the biggest funders of climate change denialists and other cigarette scientists , but also been one of the biggest funders of the American Enterprise Institute -- you know, the neocon think tank that pushed the war that has nothing to do with oil. I guess I'm not surprised that the Journal says Michael J. Hardiman, a Washington-based lobbyist and public-relations consultant who worked at PIW "left in February 2004 to work in Iraq as a civilian employee of the Defense Department." Shocked. And awed.
But why is it that so few -- with the exception of Michael Klare, Chalmers Johnson and Kevin Phillips -- are willing to confront the phenomenon of American "petroimperialism" head on?
Anyway, the Journal reports that Greenpeace was given a clean bill of health. So it can go back to doing what it does best -- exposing Exxon's campaign to wage war on the truth about global warming.
But what about Exxon?
How much did Exxon pay in taxes last year -- when it rendered an extraordinary profit of $36 billion from ordinary Americans, mostly by constraining refining capacity to drive up prices.
That's before they got another windfall from Bush's $14.5 BILLION in tax breaks and incentives for the energy industry.
Trickle up economics is working in Dallas, or as they say at the Times, a rising tide lifts all bonuses (and few cries of "windfall tax" in Congress): Energy industry CEOs' (the same guys who wouldn't be sworn in before Congress) median compensation has been jacked up 215 percent since 2002.
For Exxon CEO Lee Raymond the take in 2005 was a total of $25.8 million in compensation.
What else makes me think the IRS might wanna audit Exxon?
Well, gee. ExxonMobil has 7 subsidiaries incorporated in the Bahamas and one in the Caymans.
How much oil is there?
How much money did Exxon park in these offshore havens and claim they were reinvesting in oil and gas exploration to get some obscure tax deduction or deferment before Congress passed a tax amnesty for corporations that want to repatriate their profits? Was any of it used to pay bribe in places like Kazakhstan? Oh no, couldn't be, after all, companies that participate in corrupted dealings do themselves no favors.
Oh, and what about ExxonMobil's reserve reports? Are they accurate. After all, Dow Jones reported last year that of the large oil companies, ExxonMobil put up the greatest resistance to a new rule that changed accounting policy for reported reserves.
I could go on and on for days and account for about bejillionth of the hot air that Exxon puts out each year.
E.g. everyone see the 60 Minutes story about how Exxon was behind the White House quashing of NASA's top climate scientist?
It had a great clincher:
"For months, 60 Minutes had been trying to talk with the president's science advisor. 60 Minutes was finally told he would never be available. Phil Cooney, the editor at the Council on Environmental Quality didn't return 60 Minutes' calls. In June, he left the White House and went to work for Exxon Mobil."
Another Bush Cheney crony with no respect for the truth leaves government to go to work for Exxon. Gee, somebody hook up a generator to that well-oiled revolving door.
Better yet, maybe it's time someone did something serious.
You know, like Oil Change's proposal to force a separation between oil and state.
Charlie Cray is the director of the Center for Corporate Policy in Washington, DC. He helped establish Halliburton Watch, and is co-author of "The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy" (Berrett-Koehler), and is a former associate editor of Multinational Monitor magazine.
Enough of the D.C. Dems
Mah fellow progressives, now is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the party. I don’t know about you, but I have had it with the D.C. Democrats, had it with the DLC Democrats, had it with every calculating, equivocating, triangulating, straddling, hair-splitting son of a bitch up there, and that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton.
I will not be supporting Senator Clinton because: a) she has no clear stand on the war and b) Terri Schiavo and flag-burning are not issues where you reach out to the other side and try to split the difference. You want to talk about lowering abortion rates through cooperation on sex education and contraception, fine, but don’t jack with stuff that is pure rightwing firewater.
I can’t see a damn soul in D.C. except Russ Feingold who is even worth considering for President. The rest of them seem to me so poisonously in hock to this system of legalized bribery they can’t even see straight.
Look at their reaction to this Abramoff scandal. They’re talking about “a lobby reform package.” We don’t need a lobby reform package, you dimwits, we need full public financing of campaigns, and every single one of you who spends half your time whoring after special interest contributions knows it. The Abramoff scandal is a once in a lifetime gift—a perfect lesson on what’s wrong with the system being laid out for people to see. Run with it, don’t mess around with little patches, and fix the system.
As usual, the Democrats have forty good issues on their side and want to run on thirty-nine of them. Here are three they should stick to:
- Iraq is making terrorism worse; it’s a breeding ground. We need to extricate ourselves as soon as possible. We are not helping the Iraqis by staying.
- Full public financing of campaigns so as to drive the moneylenders from the halls of Washington.
- Single-payer health insurance.
Every Democrat I talk to is appalled at the sheer gutlessness and spinelessness of the Democratic performance. The party is still cringing at the thought of being called, ooh-ooh, “unpatriotic” by a bunch of rightwingers.
Take “unpatriotic” and shove it. How dare they do this to our country? “Unpatriotic”? These people have ruined the American military! Not to mention the economy, the middle class, and our reputation in the world. Everything they touch turns to dirt, including Medicare prescription drugs and hurricane relief.
This is not a time for a candidate who will offend no one; it is time for a candidate who takes clear stands and kicks ass.
Who are these idiots talking about Warner of Virginia? Being anodyne is not sufficient qualification for being President. And if there’s nobody in Washington and we can’t find a Democratic governor, let’s run Bill Moyers, or Oprah, or some university president with ethics and charisma.
What happens now is not up to the has-beens in Washington who run this party. It is up to us. So let’s get off our butts and start building a progressive movement that can block the nomination of Hillary Clinton or any other candidate who supposedly has “all the money sewed up.”
I am tired of having the party nomination decided before the first primary vote is cast, tired of having the party beholden to the same old Establishment money.
We can raise our own money on the Internet, and we know it. Howard Dean raised $42 million, largely on the web, with a late start when he was running for President, and that ain’t chicken feed. If we double it, it gives us the lock on the nomination. So let’s go find a good candidate early and organize the shit out of our side.
Molly Ivins writes in this space every month. Her latest book is “Who Let the Dogs In?”
Groups Demand Water Rights, Cite Millions of Deaths
CARACAS - The right to safe water must be enshrined in international law and policed by the United Nations if millions of people are to be spared death from want of water or from water-borne diseases, activists told governments and business at international talks ending Wednesday.
A coalition of groups opposed to efforts to give private enterprise control over water resources and distribution systems called on governments attending the Fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City to agree a formal declaration at the nascent UN Human Rights Council that would stiffen their commitment to ensuring basic water rights.
 A Bangladeshi girl collects drinking water from a hole in the ground in Dhaka. Officials from 140 countries were set to issue a broad declaration on World Water Day, but will stop short of declaring a universal right to the precious resource for which two thirds of humanity face uncertain supplies.(AFP/Shariq Alam) |
They blamed violations of those rights for a UN-reported annual toll of three million deaths from diseases related to dirty or unsafe water. The world body also reported that 2.6 billion people--about 40 percent of the world's population--lack access to toilets or latrines.
Activists further pressed governments to establish an international mechanism to monitor countries' efforts to guarantee the right to water. Possibilities included a UN Special Rapporteur or advisor to the UN Secretary General.
Such measures are necessary because ''billions of people are unable to hold governments, corporations and international organizations accountable when they deliberately neglect the poor, such as people living in informal settlements, and when they violate the right of water users to participate in decision making on how their services are managed, as has been seen in many enforced privatizations of water services,'' said Scott Leckie, executive director of the Geneva-based Center on Housing Rights and Evictions, a coalition member.
The right to water already is enshrined in international covenants and UN resolutions but the United States, Canada, and other influential countries have shunned the documents, activists said, adding that in recent years, rather than strengthen public provision of water, numerous governments have favored efforts to privatize water systems.
That has proven controversial. Popular protest and government pressure in Argentina, Uruguay, and Bolivia, have pushed out private owners of water distribution facilities widely viewed as inhibiting public access to water by charging too much for the resource.
Delegates at the weeklong talks in Mexico City got a demonstration of the intensity of opposition to privatization when activists mobilized massive street protests.
Several advocacy groups urged stepped up grassroots efforts to wrest control over water.
''There is a silent holocaust occurring around the world caused by lack of water and sanitation. People are dying because the international aid community and national governments are not listening to the poor or looking at the overwhelming evidence,'' said Barbara Frost, chief executive of international charity WaterAid.
''Pressure must continue on donor and recipient governments, but we also need to encourage bottom-up solutions. If service providers are not held to account, the poor and the socially excluded will never achieve their water and sanitation rights. The groundwork has been laid. Citizens' action needs to become a movement,'' Frost added.
According to her organization, such a movement would prove essential in achieving the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving, by 2015, the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
WaterAid, in a report released at the conference, touted several community projects it carried out with partners in Africa and Asia that it said succeeded in increasing public access to clean water. Citizen pressure in Kathmandu, Nepal, forced authorities there to reduce water charges and to cut the connection tariff by 84 percent, for example.
As part of a WaterAid project in Kampala, Uganda, community members in impoverished areas mapped rubbish dumps, water points, drainage channels, and latrines in a bid to help the government there carry out projects to improve water supply and sanitation.
The March 16-22 forum in Mexico City attracted some 11,000 participants from more than 100 countries, said organizers at the World Water Council, a France-based umbrella group for multinational water companies and other businesses, universities, and non-governmental organizations.
North Korea Says US Does Not Have Monopoly on Pre-emptive Strike
North Korea suggested Tuesday it had the ability to launch a pre-emptive attack on the United States, according to the North's official news agency. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said the North had built atomic weapons to counter the U.S. nuclear threat.
"As we declared, our strong revolutionary might put in place all measures to counter possible U.S. pre-emptive strike," the spokesman said, according to the Korean Central News Agency. "Pre-emptive strike is not the monopoly of the United States."
The United States urged North Korea to return to international nuclear negotiations instead of making inflammatory statements. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States has no plans to invade or attack North Korea. 
Last week, the communist country warned that it had the right to launch a pre-emptive strike, saying it would strengthen its war footing before joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises scheduled for this weekend.
The North's spokesman said it would be a "wise" step for the United States to cooperate on nuclear issues with North Korea in the same way it does with India.
Earlier this month, President Bush signed an accord in India that would open some of its atomic reactors to international inspections in exchange for U.S. nuclear know-how and atomic fuel.
The accord was reached even though New Delhi has not signed the international Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. North Korea has withdrawn from the treaty and condemned the United States for giving India "preferential" treatment.
"If the U.S. is truly interested in finding a realistic way of resolving the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, it would be wise for it to come out on the path of nuclear cooperation with us," the North Korean spokesman said.
The North's announcement that it has a nuclear arsenal risked escalating tensions in the prolonged standoff over its program and threatened the prospect of resuming six-nation talks on the dispute.
"We have built nuclear weapons for no other purpose than to counter U.S. nuclear threats," the Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
It is rare for North Korea to mention its nuclear capabilities in such an explicit manner. The communist state usually refers to its "nuclear deterrent force."
North Korea first declared last year that it has nuclear weapons, although the claim could not be confirmed independently. Experts believe the North has extracted enough plutonium from its main nuclear reactor for at least a half-dozen weapons.
Six-nation talks have been stalled since November over a dispute surrounding financial restrictions the United States imposed on North Korea for its alleged currency counterfeiting and money laundering. Those talks involve the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.
Pyongyang says it will not return to the negotiating table unless the restrictions are lifted. But Washington demands that the North come to the talks without preconditions, saying the two issues are separate.
The North's spokesman said his country had shown "maximum flexibility" in trying to resolve the financial dispute, proposing possible solutions during a meeting in New York earlier this month. The meeting produced no breakthrough.
"The Bush administration talks about six-party talks, but it actually is paying no attention to the talks," the spokesman said, according to KCNA.
McCormack said South Korea's new nuclear envoy, Chun Young-woo, will meet later this week with top State Department officials. No date has been set for a resumption of the nuclear talks, McCormack said.
The North Korean spokesman also disputed last week's U.S. national security report that, among other things, said North Korea posed a serious nuclear proliferation challenge.
"In a word, it is a robbery-like declaration of war," the spokesman said. "Through this document, the Bush administration declared to the world that it is a group of war fanatics."
No you made a lot of enemies a**hole.
Bush Says U.S. Troops Will Stay in Iraq Past '08
I despise this man.
He has no one to blame but himself and his own selfish actions.
GOP Unrest Dismissed As Sign of Election Year
Wednesday, March 22, 2006; Page A01
President Bush acknowledged yesterday that the war in Iraq is dominating nearly every aspect of his presidency, and he served notice for the first time that he expects the decision on when all U.S. troops come home to fall on his successors.
In an hour-long news conference, Bush said the "trauma" of war has left the public and even some lawmakers in his own party understandably shaken and skeptical of his vow that the United States will prevail.
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"Nobody likes war," Bush said. "It creates a sense of uncertainty in the country."
With a series of polls showing Bush and the war less popular than ever, he rejected calls to change the U.S. military strategy or shake up the White House staff and war cabinet. "I am happy with the people I surrounded myself with," he said. But Bush did not rule out bringing aboard a veteran Washington operative to help soothe relations with an increasingly restive Republican Congress, a move that aides said may happen soon.
"I'm not going to announce it right now," Bush said, noting that he has had conversations with congressional allies. "Look. They got some ideas that I like and some I don't like, put it that way."
Bush dismissed the rising chorus of Republican criticism as election-year jitters. "There's a certain unease as you head into an election year," he said.
The chief aim of the White House news conference, Bush's second this year, was to make his case again that Iraq is progressing toward a viable democracy despite daily images of car bombings and sectarian violence. It was part of a White House campaign to confront public anxieties about his leadership, the war and the future of his presidency, aides said. The offensive comes as a string of polls have shown that less than 40 percent of Americans approve of the Bush presidency and that a growing number no longer trust him.
"I understand people being disheartened when they turn on their TV screen," Bush said, adding that "nobody likes beheadings" and other grim images.
Bush said he disagrees with former Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi, a man who had been handpicked by his administration, and others who say that the country is already engaged in a civil war in which dozens of people are killed each day. "The way I look at the situation," Bush said, "the Iraqis took a look and decided not to go to civil war." If a civil war erupts, he said, Iraqi forces will be in charge of ending it, with assistance from U.S. troops.
As the debate over whether a civil war is at hand has shown, Bush's optimistic assessments are often contradicted by Iraqi and other U.S. officials and sometimes by the conditions on the ground three years after the invasion. But Bush rejected the notion that his Iraq policy is based on wishful thinking. "I say that I am talking realistically to people," he said.
Moments later, he said the reason U.S. forces went to Iraq was to "make sure we didn't allow people to provide safe haven to an enemy." Since the invasion, Bush has emphasized different rationales for the Iraq invasion, such as the need to topple a dangerous dictator and to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, which have yet to be found.
Bush said he would call home the 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq if he was not confident about his victory plan. U.S. commanders in Iraq will determine when troop levels can be lowered, he said, suggesting that some will remain beyond January 2009. Asked if a day will come when there are no U.S. troops there, Bush said "that will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq."
Throughout the news conference, Bush steered the conversation back to Iraq, including when he was asked why a growing number of Americans are telling pollsters that they no longer trust him. In a rarity for Bush, he even took a question from Helen Thomas, a liberal columnist and unabashed critic of Bush and the war who frequently accuses the White House of lying about the conflict. Thomas jokingly told Bush that he would "be sorry" for calling on her, then repeatedly tried to interrupt his response to her question about his shifting rationales for the war. "I really didn't regret it," he said. "I kind of semi-regretted it."
The news conference was vintage Bush, a mix of playful banter, stern glares and defiant assertions. He dismissed as "needless partisanship" calls by Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) to censure the president for authorizing the secret National Security Agency spying program, which involves eavesdropping on U.S. citizens. Telegraphing the GOP's election plan to portray Democrats as weak on terrorism, Bush dared his opponents to campaign in the 2006 elections on a platform that includes eliminating the spying program.
"They ought to take their message to the people and say, 'Vote for me, I promise we're not going to have a terrorist surveillance program,' " he said. Bush also taunted those Democrats who opposed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act, the law that provides the government with broad surveillance powers: "If that's what the party believes, they ought to go around the country saying we shouldn't give the people on the front line of protecting us the tools necessary to do so." No Democrat has made such a statement.
With the stock market up and unemployment down, Bush repeatedly said the economy is strong, despite concerns about rising inflation. He blamed the federal debt, which has ballooned from $5.7 trillion when he took office to more than $8.2 trillion under his watch, on mandatory government spending for entitlement programs such as Medicare. He did not mention that his prescription drug plan for Medicare is projected to add hundreds of billions of dollars to the debt, or that federal spending has grown by more than 25 percent since he took office.
Bush said he remains committed to cutting the annual deficit in half by 2009. Still, a president who had promised big ideas and big changes on multiple fronts at the start of his second term 14 months ago suggested that this has now become essentially a one-issue presidency. In November 2004, he bragged about spending his political capital to restructure the Social Security system.
Yesterday, he said: "I'm spending that capital on the war." BASTARD.
What about the innocent people who's lives you have destroyed?
Extended Presence of U.S. in Iraq Looms Large
$1 billion for construction of American military bases and no public plans.
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq - The concrete goes on forever, vanishing into the noonday glare, 2 million cubic feet of it, a mile-long slab that’s now the home of up to 120 U.S. helicopters, a “heli-park” as good as any back in the States.
At another giant base, al-Asad in Iraq’s western desert, the 17,000 troops and workers come and go in a kind of bustling American town, with a Burger King, Pizza Hut and a car dealership, stop signs, traffic regulations and young bikers clogging the roads.
At a third hub down south, Tallil, they’re planning a new mess hall, one that will seat 6,000 hungry airmen and soldiers for chow.
Are the Americans here to stay? Air Force mechanic Josh Remy is sure of it as he looks around Balad.
“I think we’ll be here forever,” the 19-year-old airman from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., told a visitor to his base.
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Future of U.S. in Iraq
The question of America’s future in Iraq looms larger as the U.S. military enters the fourth year of its war here, waged first to oust President Saddam Hussein, and now to crush an Iraqi insurgency.
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, interim prime minister, has said he opposes permanent foreign bases. A wide range of American opinion is against them as well. Such bases would be a “stupid” provocation, says Gen. Anthony Zinni, former U.S. Mideast commander and a critic of the original U.S. invasion.
But events, in explosive situations like Iraq’s, can turn “no” into “maybe” and even “yes.”
The Shiite Muslims, ascendant in Baghdad, might decide they need long-term U.S. protection against insurgent Sunni Muslims. Washington might take the political risks to gain a strategic edge — in its confrontation with next-door Iran, for example.
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, and other U.S. officials disavow any desire for permanent bases. But long-term access, as at other U.S. bases abroad, is different from “permanent,” and the official U.S. position is carefully worded.
Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a Pentagon spokesman on international security, told The Associated Press it would be “inappropriate” to discuss future basing until a new Iraqi government is in place, expected in the coming weeks.
‘Permanent duty stations’
Less formally, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asked about “permanent duty stations” by a Marine during an Iraq visit in December, allowed that it was “an interesting question.” He said it would have to be raised by the incoming Baghdad government, if “they have an interest in our assisting them for some period over time.”
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Right now what is heard is the pouring of concrete.Image: U.S. soldiers
In 2005-06, Washington has authorized or proposed almost $1 billion for U.S. military construction in Iraq, as American forces consolidate at Balad, known as Anaconda, and a handful of other installations, big bases under the old regime.
They have already pulled out of 34 of the 110 bases they were holding last March, said Maj. Lee English of the U.S. command’s Base Working Group, planning the consolidation.
“The coalition forces are moving outside the cities while continuing to provide security support to the Iraqi security forces,” English said.
The move away from cities, perhaps eventually accompanied by U.S. force reductions, will lower the profile of U.S. troops, frequent targets of roadside bombs on city streets. Officers at Al-Asad Air Base, 10 desert miles from the nearest town, say it hasn’t been hit by insurgent mortar or rocket fire since October.
Building in no-man’s land
Al-Asad will become even more isolated. The proposed 2006 supplemental budget for Iraq operations would provide $7.4 million to extend the no-man’s-land and build new security fencing around the base, which at 19 square miles is so large that many assigned there take the Yellow or Blue bus routes to get around the base, or buy bicycles at a PX jammed with customers.
The latest budget also allots $39 million for new airfield lighting, air traffic control systems and upgrades allowing al-Asad to plug into the Iraqi electricity grid — a typical sign of a long-term base.
At Tallil, besides the new $14 million dining facility, Ali Air Base is to get, for $22 million, a double perimeter security fence with high-tech gate controls, guard towers and a moat — in military parlance, a “vehicle entrapment ditch with berm.”
Here at Balad, the former Iraqi air force academy 40 miles north of Baghdad, the two 12,000-foot runways have become the logistics hub for all U.S. military operations in Iraq, and major upgrades began last year.
Army engineers say 31,000 truckloads of sand and gravel fed nine concrete-mixing plants on Balad, as contractors laid a $16 million ramp to park the Air Force’s huge C-5 cargo planes; an $18 million ramp for workhorse C-130 transports; and the vast, $28 million main helicopter ramp, the length of 13 football fields, filled with attack, transport and reconnaissance helicopters.
Turkish builders are pouring tons more concrete for a fourth ramp beside the runways, for medical-evacuation and other aircraft on alert. And $25 million was approved for other “pavement projects,” from a special road for munitions trucks to a compound for special forces.
The chief Air Force engineer here, Lt. Col. Scott Hoover, is also overseeing two crucial projects to add to Balad’s longevity: equipping the two runways with new permanent lighting, and replacing a weak 3,500-foot section of one runway.
Once that’s fixed, “we’re good for as long as we need to run it,” Hoover said. Ten years? he was asked. “I’d say so.”
Life improves for personnel
Away from the flight lines, among traffic jams and freshly planted palms, life improves on 14-square-mile Balad for its estimated 25,000 personnel, including several thousand American and other civilians.
They’ve inherited an Olympic-sized pool and a chandeliered cinema from the Iraqis. They can order their favorite Baskin-Robbins flavor at ice cream counters in five dining halls, and cut-rate Fords, Chevys or Harley-Davidsons, for delivery at home, at a PX-run “dealership.” On one recent evening, not far from a big 24-hour gym, airmen hustled up and down two full-length, lighted outdoor basketball courts as F-16 fighters thundered home overhead.
“Balad’s a fantastic base,” Brig. Gen. Frank Gorenc, the Air Force’s tactical commander in Iraq, said in an interview at his headquarters here.
Could it host a long-term U.S. presence?
“Eventually it could,” said Gorenc, commander of the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing. “But there’s no commitment to any of the bases we operate, until somebody tells me that.”
A strategic advantage
In the counterinsurgency fight, Balad’s central location enables strike aircraft to reach targets in minutes. And in the broader context of reinforcing the U.S. presence in the oil-rich Mideast, Iraq bases are preferable to aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf, said a longtime defense analyst.
“Carriers don’t have the punch,” said Gordon Adams of Washington’s George Washington University. “There’s a huge advantage to land-based infrastructure. At the level of strategy it makes total sense to have Iraq bases.”
A U.S. congressional study cited another, less discussed use for possible Iraq bases: to install anti-ballistic defenses in case Iran fires missiles.
‘Inviting trouble’
American bases next door could either deter or provoke Iran, noted Paul D. Hughes, a key planner in the early U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Overall, however, this retired Army colonel says American troops are unwanted in the Middle East. With long-term bases in Iraq, “We’d be inviting trouble,” Hughes said.
“It’s a stupid idea and clearly politically unacceptable,” Zinni, a former Central Command chief, said in a Washington interview. “It would damage our image in the region, where people would decide that this” — seizing bases — “was our original intent.”
‘People don’t like bases’
Among Iraqis, the subject is almost too sensitive to discuss.
“People don’t like bases,” veteran politician Adnan Pachachi, a member of the new Parliament, told the AP. “If bases are absolutely necessary, if there’s a perceived threat ... but I don’t think even Iran will be a threat.”
If long-term basing is, indeed, on the horizon, “the politics back here and the politics in the region say, ‘Don’t announce it,”’ Adams said in Washington. That’s what’s done elsewhere, as with the quiet U.S. basing of spy planes and other aircraft in the United Arab Emirates.
Army and Air Force engineers, with little notice, have worked to give U.S. commanders solid installations in Iraq, and to give policymakers options. From the start, in 2003, the first Army engineers rolling into Balad took the long view, laying out a 10-year plan envisioning a move from tents to today’s living quarters in air-conditioned trailers, to concrete-and-brick barracks by 2008.
In early 2006, no one’s confirming such next steps, but a Balad “master plan,” details undisclosed, is nearing completion, a possible model for al-Asad, Tallil and a fourth major base, al-Qayyarah in Iraq’s north.
