The railroading will be televised
http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/03/the-railroading-will-be-televised/
VIDEO(S) AT SOURCE
Lately, it seems the 'War on Drugs' debate has been everywhere. And to think, the volume on this discussion was turned up 10 notches by a troublesome Olympian who was photographed with his mouth to a water-pipe.
Then came the California legalization bill, news that Oregon is considering a socialization of medical marijuana and, most recently, Rep. Barney Frank saying he plans to introduce federal legislation to eliminate penalties for possessing small amounts of marijuana.
Frank, who announced his intent on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, said he plans to call it the "Make room for serious criminals act."
And even President Obama, who flippantly dismissed a question on legalizing pot as not a "good strategy" for economic recovery, was quietly encouraging Sen. Jim Webb to move forward with legislation that would form a committee to study prison reforms and retool existing drug criminalization.
At the very least, one can say Obama's position on marijuana policy has been consistent. He has never once said he supports legalization. Let's flash-back to Jan. 21, 2004 ...
If his most recent statements sound like double-speak to you, get familiar with "Chicago politics." It's not 'say one thing but do another.' It's 'confuse your opponents by touching on common ground while your friends and associates work other avenues.' For drug law reform advocates, that's not such a bad thing. He's not a blunt progressive (no pun intended) and a second term is definitely on his mind, even this early in the game.
And let's not forget, Attorney General Eric Holder has said the only time a marijuana caregivers club will experience a DEA raid is if they're suspected to be in violation of state and federal law. After the announcement that random assaults on dispensaries would stop, California's medical marijuana patients breathed a sign of relief. But the news was followed by the feds smashing through a San Francisco dispensary. However, even here, the DOJ's argument was consistent: they were suspected of breaking state law, which likely means the DOJ thinks there was some back-door distribution going on.
And then, there's Congressman Ron Paul, the most kindly, grandfatherly elder statesman to ever advocate for the peoples' right to get stoned. (Or have unfettered access to medicine, depending on your purview and present bill of health.)
In spite of the recent string of high-profile victories for the legalization crowd, Paul's appearance on CNN yesterday, debating the 'War on Drugs' with former Congressman Earnest Istook, was not one of them.
After watching this, the first word out of my mouth was "railroaded." See for yourself:
This video is from CNN's Campbell Brown, broadcast Mar. 26, 2009.
Download video via RawReplay.com
What I want to know from you ... Was CNN's Campbell Brown fair? Did she intervene enough (or too much) when Istook continually spoke over Rep. Paul? And what's with those wonky Rand Corporation "facts"?
Furthermore, Obama seems to be playing a complex game of behind-the-scenes chess on this issue. His flippant dismissal of legalization made older conservatives feel all warm and authoritarian inside, but his mere acknowledgement of the public's growing will to see it happen may have actually amplified the discussion even further. Do you think he's changed his mind on decriminalization?
And what do you make of Rep. Paul's position that the 'War on Drugs' is unconstitutional and should be done away with? How would an all-drugs-are-legal America function?
Enlighten us.
-- Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story video by David Edwards
This entry was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Friday, March 27, 2009
UK population must fall to 30m, says Porritt
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5950442.ece
Jonathan Leake and Brendan Montague
JONATHON PORRITT, one of Gordon Brown’s leading green advisers, is to warn that Britain must drastically reduce its population if it is to build a sustainable society.
Porritt’s call will come at this week’s annual conference of the Optimum Population Trust (OPT), of which he is patron.
The trust will release research suggesting UK population must be cut to 30m if the country wants to feed itself sustainably.
Porritt said: “Population growth, plus economic growth, is putting the world under terrible pressure.
“Each person in Britain has far more impact on the environment than those in developing countries so cutting our population is one way to reduce that impact.”
Population growth is one of the most politically sensitive environmental problems. The issues it raises, including religion, culture and immigration policy, have proved too toxic for most green groups.
However, Porritt is winning scientific backing. Professor Chris Rapley, director of the Science Museum, will use the OPT conference, to be held at the Royal Statistical Society, to warn that population growth could help derail attempts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Rapley, who formerly ran the British Antarctic Survey, said humanity was emitting the equivalent of 50 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year.
“We have to cut this by 80%, and population growth is going to make that much harder,” he said.
Such views on population have split the green movement. George Monbiot, a prominent writer on green issues, has criticised population campaigners, arguing that “relentless” economic growth is a greater threat.
Many experts believe that, since Europeans and Americans have such a lopsided impact on the environment, the world would benefit more from reducing their populations than by making cuts in developing countries.
This is part of the thinking behind the OPT’s call for Britain to cut population to 30m — roughly what it was in late Victorian times.
Britain’s population is expected to grow from 61m now to 71m by 2031. Some politicians support a reduction.
Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, said: “You can’t have sustainability with an increase in population.”
The Tory leader, David Cameron, has also suggested Britain needs a “coherent strategy” on population growth.
Despite these comments, however, government and Conservative spokesmen this weekend both distanced themselves from any population policy. ”
Jonathan Leake and Brendan Montague
JONATHON PORRITT, one of Gordon Brown’s leading green advisers, is to warn that Britain must drastically reduce its population if it is to build a sustainable society.
Porritt’s call will come at this week’s annual conference of the Optimum Population Trust (OPT), of which he is patron.
The trust will release research suggesting UK population must be cut to 30m if the country wants to feed itself sustainably.
Porritt said: “Population growth, plus economic growth, is putting the world under terrible pressure.
“Each person in Britain has far more impact on the environment than those in developing countries so cutting our population is one way to reduce that impact.”
Population growth is one of the most politically sensitive environmental problems. The issues it raises, including religion, culture and immigration policy, have proved too toxic for most green groups.
However, Porritt is winning scientific backing. Professor Chris Rapley, director of the Science Museum, will use the OPT conference, to be held at the Royal Statistical Society, to warn that population growth could help derail attempts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Rapley, who formerly ran the British Antarctic Survey, said humanity was emitting the equivalent of 50 billion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year.
“We have to cut this by 80%, and population growth is going to make that much harder,” he said.
Such views on population have split the green movement. George Monbiot, a prominent writer on green issues, has criticised population campaigners, arguing that “relentless” economic growth is a greater threat.
Many experts believe that, since Europeans and Americans have such a lopsided impact on the environment, the world would benefit more from reducing their populations than by making cuts in developing countries.
This is part of the thinking behind the OPT’s call for Britain to cut population to 30m — roughly what it was in late Victorian times.
Britain’s population is expected to grow from 61m now to 71m by 2031. Some politicians support a reduction.
Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, said: “You can’t have sustainability with an increase in population.”
The Tory leader, David Cameron, has also suggested Britain needs a “coherent strategy” on population growth.
Despite these comments, however, government and Conservative spokesmen this weekend both distanced themselves from any population policy. ”
US backing for world currency stuns markets
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...ns-markets.html
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 8:18AM GMT 26 Mar 2009
The dollar plunged instantly against the euro, yen, and sterling as the comments flashed across trading screens. David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC, said the apparent policy shift amounts to an earthquake in geo-finance.
"The mere fact that the US Treasury Secretary is even entertaining thoughts that the dollar may cease being the anchor of the global monetary system has caused consternation," he said.
Mr Geithner later qualified his remarks, insisting that the dollar would remain the "world's dominant reserve currency ... for a long period of time" but the seeds of doubt have been sown.
The markets appear baffled by the confused statements emanating from Washington. President Barack Obama told a new conference hours earlier that there was no threat to the reserve status of the dollar.
"I don't believe that there is a need for a global currency. The reason the dollar is strong right now is because investors consider the United States the strongest economy in the world with the most stable political system in the world," he said.
The Chinese proposal, outlined this week by central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan, calls for a "super-sovereign reserve currency" under IMF management, turning the Fund into a sort of world central bank.
The idea is that the IMF should activate its dormant powers to issue Special Drawing Rights. These SDRs would expand their role over time, becoming a "widely-accepted means of payments".
Mr Bloom said that any switch towards use of SDRs has direct implications for the currency markets. At the moment, 65pc of the world's $6.8 trillion stash of foreign reserves is held in dollars. But the dollar makes up just 42pc of the basket weighting of SDRs. So any SDR purchase under current rules must favour the euro, yen and sterling.
Beijing has the backing of Russia and a clutch of emerging powers in Asia and Latin America. Economists have toyed with such schemes before but the issue has vaulted to the top of the political agenda as creditor states around the world takes fright at the extreme measures now being adopted by the Federal Reserve, especially the decision to buy US government debt directly with printed money.
Mr Bloom said the US is discovering that the sensitivities of creditors cannot be ignored. "China holds almost 30pc of the world's entire reserves. What they say matters," he said.
Mr Geithner's friendly comments about the SDR plan seem intended to soothe Chinese feelings after a spat in January over alleged currency manipulation by Beijing, but he will now have to explain his own categorical assurance to Congress on Tuesday that he would not countenance any moves towards a world currency.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 8:18AM GMT 26 Mar 2009
The dollar plunged instantly against the euro, yen, and sterling as the comments flashed across trading screens. David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC, said the apparent policy shift amounts to an earthquake in geo-finance.
"The mere fact that the US Treasury Secretary is even entertaining thoughts that the dollar may cease being the anchor of the global monetary system has caused consternation," he said.
Mr Geithner later qualified his remarks, insisting that the dollar would remain the "world's dominant reserve currency ... for a long period of time" but the seeds of doubt have been sown.
The markets appear baffled by the confused statements emanating from Washington. President Barack Obama told a new conference hours earlier that there was no threat to the reserve status of the dollar.
"I don't believe that there is a need for a global currency. The reason the dollar is strong right now is because investors consider the United States the strongest economy in the world with the most stable political system in the world," he said.
The Chinese proposal, outlined this week by central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan, calls for a "super-sovereign reserve currency" under IMF management, turning the Fund into a sort of world central bank.
The idea is that the IMF should activate its dormant powers to issue Special Drawing Rights. These SDRs would expand their role over time, becoming a "widely-accepted means of payments".
Mr Bloom said that any switch towards use of SDRs has direct implications for the currency markets. At the moment, 65pc of the world's $6.8 trillion stash of foreign reserves is held in dollars. But the dollar makes up just 42pc of the basket weighting of SDRs. So any SDR purchase under current rules must favour the euro, yen and sterling.
Beijing has the backing of Russia and a clutch of emerging powers in Asia and Latin America. Economists have toyed with such schemes before but the issue has vaulted to the top of the political agenda as creditor states around the world takes fright at the extreme measures now being adopted by the Federal Reserve, especially the decision to buy US government debt directly with printed money.
Mr Bloom said the US is discovering that the sensitivities of creditors cannot be ignored. "China holds almost 30pc of the world's entire reserves. What they say matters," he said.
Mr Geithner's friendly comments about the SDR plan seem intended to soothe Chinese feelings after a spat in January over alleged currency manipulation by Beijing, but he will now have to explain his own categorical assurance to Congress on Tuesday that he would not countenance any moves towards a world currency.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
'Global War On Terror' Is Given New Name
Bush's Phrase Is Out, Pentagon Says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...d=moreheadlines
By Scott Wilson and Al Kamen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 25, 2009; Page A04
The Obama administration appears to be backing away from the phrase "global war on terror," a signature rhetorical legacy of its predecessor.
In a memo e-mailed this week to Pentagon staff members, the Defense Department's office of security review noted that "this administration prefers to avoid using the term 'Long War' or 'Global War on Terror' [GWOT.] Please use 'Overseas Contingency Operation.' "
The memo said the direction came from the Office of Management and Budget, the executive-branch agency that reviews the public testimony of administration officials before it is delivered.
Not so, said Kenneth Baer, an OMB spokesman.
"There was no memo, no guidance," Baer said yesterday. "This is the opinion of a career civil servant."
Coincidentally or not, senior administration officials had been publicly using the phrase "overseas contingency operations" in a war context for roughly a month before the e-mail was sent.
Peter Orszag, the OMB director, turned to it Feb. 26 when discussing Obama's budget proposal at a news conference: "The budget shows the combined cost of operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and any other overseas contingency operations that may be necessary."
And in congressional testimony last week, Craig W. Duehring, assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower, said, "Key battlefield monetary incentives has allowed the Air Force to meet the demands of overseas contingency operations even as requirements continue to grow."
Monday's Pentagon e-mail was prompted by congressional testimony that Lt. Gen. John W. Bergman, head of the Marine Forces Reserve, intends to give today. The memo advised Pentagon personnel to "please pass this onto your speechwriters and try to catch this change before statements make it to OMB."
Baer said, "I have no reason to believe that ['global war on terror'] would be stricken" from future congressional testimony.
The Bush administration adopted the phrase soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to capture the scope of the threat it perceived and the military operations that would be required to confront it.
In an address to Congress nine days after the attacks, President George W. Bush said, "Our war on terror will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated."
But critics abroad and at home, including some within the U.S. military, said the terminology mischaracterized the nature of the enemy and its abilities. Some military officers said, for example, that classifying al-Qaeda and other anti-American militant groups as part of a single movement overstated their strength.
Early in Bush's second term, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld promoted a change in wording to "global struggle against violent extremism," or GSAVE. Bush rejected the shift and never softened his position that "global war" accurately describes the conflict that the United States is fighting.
Last month, the International Commission of Jurists urged the Obama administration to drop the phrase "war on terror." The commission said the term had given the Bush administration "spurious justification to a range of human rights and humanitarian law violations," including detention practices and interrogation methods that the International Committee of the Red Cross has described as torture.
John A. Nagl, the former Army officer who helped write the military's latest counterinsurgency field manual, said the phrase "was enormously unfortunate because I think it pulled together disparate organizations and insurgencies."
"Our strategy should be to divide and conquer rather than make of enemies more than they are," said Nagl, now president of the Center for a New American Security, a defense policy think tank in Washington. "We are facing a number of different insurgencies around the globe -- some have local causes, some of them are transnational. Viewing them all through one lens distorts the picture and magnifies the enemy."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...d=moreheadlines
By Scott Wilson and Al Kamen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 25, 2009; Page A04
The Obama administration appears to be backing away from the phrase "global war on terror," a signature rhetorical legacy of its predecessor.
In a memo e-mailed this week to Pentagon staff members, the Defense Department's office of security review noted that "this administration prefers to avoid using the term 'Long War' or 'Global War on Terror' [GWOT.] Please use 'Overseas Contingency Operation.' "
The memo said the direction came from the Office of Management and Budget, the executive-branch agency that reviews the public testimony of administration officials before it is delivered.
Not so, said Kenneth Baer, an OMB spokesman.
"There was no memo, no guidance," Baer said yesterday. "This is the opinion of a career civil servant."
Coincidentally or not, senior administration officials had been publicly using the phrase "overseas contingency operations" in a war context for roughly a month before the e-mail was sent.
Peter Orszag, the OMB director, turned to it Feb. 26 when discussing Obama's budget proposal at a news conference: "The budget shows the combined cost of operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and any other overseas contingency operations that may be necessary."
And in congressional testimony last week, Craig W. Duehring, assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower, said, "Key battlefield monetary incentives has allowed the Air Force to meet the demands of overseas contingency operations even as requirements continue to grow."
Monday's Pentagon e-mail was prompted by congressional testimony that Lt. Gen. John W. Bergman, head of the Marine Forces Reserve, intends to give today. The memo advised Pentagon personnel to "please pass this onto your speechwriters and try to catch this change before statements make it to OMB."
Baer said, "I have no reason to believe that ['global war on terror'] would be stricken" from future congressional testimony.
The Bush administration adopted the phrase soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to capture the scope of the threat it perceived and the military operations that would be required to confront it.
In an address to Congress nine days after the attacks, President George W. Bush said, "Our war on terror will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated."
But critics abroad and at home, including some within the U.S. military, said the terminology mischaracterized the nature of the enemy and its abilities. Some military officers said, for example, that classifying al-Qaeda and other anti-American militant groups as part of a single movement overstated their strength.
Early in Bush's second term, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld promoted a change in wording to "global struggle against violent extremism," or GSAVE. Bush rejected the shift and never softened his position that "global war" accurately describes the conflict that the United States is fighting.
Last month, the International Commission of Jurists urged the Obama administration to drop the phrase "war on terror." The commission said the term had given the Bush administration "spurious justification to a range of human rights and humanitarian law violations," including detention practices and interrogation methods that the International Committee of the Red Cross has described as torture.
John A. Nagl, the former Army officer who helped write the military's latest counterinsurgency field manual, said the phrase "was enormously unfortunate because I think it pulled together disparate organizations and insurgencies."
"Our strategy should be to divide and conquer rather than make of enemies more than they are," said Nagl, now president of the Center for a New American Security, a defense policy think tank in Washington. "We are facing a number of different insurgencies around the globe -- some have local causes, some of them are transnational. Viewing them all through one lens distorts the picture and magnifies the enemy."
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Kucinich Calls For Congressional Investigation Into Cheney “Assassination Unit”
http://www.thealexjonesshow.com/articles/2009/march/031609-kucinich-calls.html
Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has called for a formal Congressional probe into allegations by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh that former Vice-President Dick Cheney had his own SS-style political assassination unit.
Kucinich made the call Friday in a letter to Chairman Edolphus Towns of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee which has been published on the Congressman’s website.
Kucinich explains in the letter that, “Mr. Hersh made the allegation before an audience at the University of Minnesota on Tuesday, March 10, 2009. He stated, ‘Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving… It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. . .Congress has no oversight of it.’”
“If true, these operations violate longstanding U.S. policy regarding covert actions and illegally bypass Congressional oversight,” Kucinich adds. “Hersh is within a year or more of releasing a book that is said to include evidence of this allegation. However, we cannot wait a year or more to establish the truth.”
The claims were made by the Award-winning New Yorker writer last Tuesday when he told a University of Minnesota audience “After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet.”
Hersh then went on to describe how the Joint Special Operations Command was an executive assassination unit that carried out political`assassinations abroad. . “It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently,” he explained. “They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. … Congress has no oversight of it.”
In our exclusive story last weekend we detailed how the assassination unit was not a creation of the Bush administration or Dick Cheney. The Joint Special Operations Command, has in fact been active for decades, has been deployed domestically in the U.S., has killed U.S. citizens, and continues as an integral part of Barack Obama’s expanded wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Kucinich has previously targeted the former Vice President, when in April 2007, he filed an impeachment resolution against Cheney charging manipulation of evidence regarding Iraq’s weapons capabilities prior to the invasion of 2003.
The measure was blocked by the Democratic leadership, as were articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush in June 2008.
The full text of Kucinich’s letter follows:
March 13, 2009
The Honorable Edolphus Towns
Chairman
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chairman Towns:
As you may already be aware, recent media reports indicate that investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, while answering questions before a public audience at the University of Minnesota divulged information about what he calls an “executive assassination ring” operating under the George W. Bush Administration.
If substantiated, the allegation would have far reaching implications for the United States. Such an assertion from someone of Hersh’s credibility that has a long and proven track record of dependability on these issues merits attention. Mr. Hersh is within a year or more of releasing a book that is said to include evidence of this allegation. However, we cannot wait a year or more to establish the truth. As such, I request that the Full Committee immediately begin an investigation to determine the facts in this matter.
Mr. Hersh made the allegation before an audience at the University of Minnesota on Tuesday, March 10, 2009. He stated, “Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving.”
Mr. Hersh continued, “It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently,” he explained. “They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. . .Congress has no oversight of it.”
If true, these operations violate longstanding U.S. policy regarding covert actions and illegally bypass Congressional oversight. Current statute governing covert action (50 U.S.C. 413b) requires a presidential finding and notification to the appropriate congressional committees. Additionally, Executive Order 12333 clearly states that “[n]o person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in or conspire to engage in assassination.”
I urge the Committee to explore Mr. Hersh’s allegation. Please do not hesitate to call on me or my staff if we can be of assistance.
Sincerely,
Dennis J. Kucinich
Member of Congress
Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) has called for a formal Congressional probe into allegations by investigative reporter Seymour Hersh that former Vice-President Dick Cheney had his own SS-style political assassination unit.
Kucinich made the call Friday in a letter to Chairman Edolphus Towns of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee which has been published on the Congressman’s website.
Kucinich explains in the letter that, “Mr. Hersh made the allegation before an audience at the University of Minnesota on Tuesday, March 10, 2009. He stated, ‘Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving… It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. . .Congress has no oversight of it.’”
“If true, these operations violate longstanding U.S. policy regarding covert actions and illegally bypass Congressional oversight,” Kucinich adds. “Hersh is within a year or more of releasing a book that is said to include evidence of this allegation. However, we cannot wait a year or more to establish the truth.”
The claims were made by the Award-winning New Yorker writer last Tuesday when he told a University of Minnesota audience “After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet.”
Hersh then went on to describe how the Joint Special Operations Command was an executive assassination unit that carried out political`assassinations abroad. . “It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently,” he explained. “They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. … Congress has no oversight of it.”
In our exclusive story last weekend we detailed how the assassination unit was not a creation of the Bush administration or Dick Cheney. The Joint Special Operations Command, has in fact been active for decades, has been deployed domestically in the U.S., has killed U.S. citizens, and continues as an integral part of Barack Obama’s expanded wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Kucinich has previously targeted the former Vice President, when in April 2007, he filed an impeachment resolution against Cheney charging manipulation of evidence regarding Iraq’s weapons capabilities prior to the invasion of 2003.
The measure was blocked by the Democratic leadership, as were articles of impeachment against President George W. Bush in June 2008.
The full text of Kucinich’s letter follows:
March 13, 2009
The Honorable Edolphus Towns
Chairman
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chairman Towns:
As you may already be aware, recent media reports indicate that investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, while answering questions before a public audience at the University of Minnesota divulged information about what he calls an “executive assassination ring” operating under the George W. Bush Administration.
If substantiated, the allegation would have far reaching implications for the United States. Such an assertion from someone of Hersh’s credibility that has a long and proven track record of dependability on these issues merits attention. Mr. Hersh is within a year or more of releasing a book that is said to include evidence of this allegation. However, we cannot wait a year or more to establish the truth. As such, I request that the Full Committee immediately begin an investigation to determine the facts in this matter.
Mr. Hersh made the allegation before an audience at the University of Minnesota on Tuesday, March 10, 2009. He stated, “Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving.”
Mr. Hersh continued, “It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently,” he explained. “They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. . .Congress has no oversight of it.”
If true, these operations violate longstanding U.S. policy regarding covert actions and illegally bypass Congressional oversight. Current statute governing covert action (50 U.S.C. 413b) requires a presidential finding and notification to the appropriate congressional committees. Additionally, Executive Order 12333 clearly states that “[n]o person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in or conspire to engage in assassination.”
I urge the Committee to explore Mr. Hersh’s allegation. Please do not hesitate to call on me or my staff if we can be of assistance.
Sincerely,
Dennis J. Kucinich
Member of Congress
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
China's top banker proposes new world currency
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Chine...world_0323.html
Stephen C. Webster
Published: Monday March 23, 2009
UPDATE (at bottom): Moscow supports IMF super-currency
In an essay published Monday, the head of China's central bank proposed a plan to displace the American dollar as the world's standard and replace it with a global reserve currency operated from the International Monetary Fund.
"Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, argued that what he called a super-sovereign reserve currency would not only eliminate the risks inherent in currencies such as the dollar, which are backed only by the credit of the issuing country and not by gold or silver, but would also make it possible to manage global liquidity," reported the Times Online.
"But that's unlikely to happen, says Robert Scott, senior international economist with the Economic Policy Institute," reported Forbes. "'It's partly posturing, it's partly buyer's remorse,' he said, noting China, at some point, is going to have to let its yuan currency rise in value relative to the dollar's current price – likely by upwards of 30.0%. That means China's investments in U.S. dollars, via Treasuries, would lose a third of their value in yuan terms.
"'hey're getting hammered,' Scott said. Chinese leaders' heavy investment in the U.S. economy has exposed them to domestic criticism."
"Zhou made his call in an essay that appeared on the website of People's Bank of China, China's central bank, on Monday," reported the Washington Post. "It was clearly timed to make a splash in the run-up to the G20 meeting that starts in London on April 2.
"Calling the use of the dollar as the world's benchmark currency 'a rare special case in history,' Zhou urged the 'creative reform of the existing international monetary system towards an international reserve currency.' Zhou said the reserve currency, managed by the IMF, should be 'disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run.'"
The IMF would operate such a currency via its "Special Drawing Right," created in 1969 with "the potential to act as a super-sovereign reserve currency," reported Times Online.
"The role of the SDR has not been put into full play due to limitations on its allocation and the scope of its uses. However, it serves as the light in the tunnel for the reform of the international monetary system," Zhou wrote in his essay.
He also emphasized his hope for the IMF currency's supremacy over other dominant world benchmarks, such as the euro and the yen.
The technical and political hurdles to implementing the proposal are enormous, so even if backed by other nations, the proposal is unlikely to change the dollar's role in the short term.
"'The re-establishment of a new and widely accepted reserve currency with a stable valuation benchmark may take a long time,' Mr. Zhou said" in a report by the Wall St. Journal. "In remarks earlier Monday, one of Mr. Zhou's deputies, Hu Xiaolian, also said that the dollar's dominant position in international trade and investment is unlikely to change in the near future. Ms. Hu is in charge of reserve management as the head of China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
"A spokeswoman for the U.S. Treasury declined to comment on Mr. Zhou's views."
UPDATE: Moscow supports IMF currency
In a little-circulated March 16 statement, the Kremlin said it will propose the IMF-based currency at April's G20 meeting in London.
"The International Monetary Fund should investigate the possible creation of a new reserve currency, widening the list of reserve currencies or using its already existing Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, as a 'superreserve currency accepted by the whole of the international community,' the Kremlin said in a statement issued on its web site," reported the Moscow Times.
"Russia also called for countries whose currencies currently have reserve status to adopt international rules on fiscal and macroeconomic discipline," noted Reuters.
Stephen C. Webster
Published: Monday March 23, 2009
UPDATE (at bottom): Moscow supports IMF super-currency
In an essay published Monday, the head of China's central bank proposed a plan to displace the American dollar as the world's standard and replace it with a global reserve currency operated from the International Monetary Fund.
"Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, argued that what he called a super-sovereign reserve currency would not only eliminate the risks inherent in currencies such as the dollar, which are backed only by the credit of the issuing country and not by gold or silver, but would also make it possible to manage global liquidity," reported the Times Online.
"But that's unlikely to happen, says Robert Scott, senior international economist with the Economic Policy Institute," reported Forbes. "'It's partly posturing, it's partly buyer's remorse,' he said, noting China, at some point, is going to have to let its yuan currency rise in value relative to the dollar's current price – likely by upwards of 30.0%. That means China's investments in U.S. dollars, via Treasuries, would lose a third of their value in yuan terms.
"'hey're getting hammered,' Scott said. Chinese leaders' heavy investment in the U.S. economy has exposed them to domestic criticism."
"Zhou made his call in an essay that appeared on the website of People's Bank of China, China's central bank, on Monday," reported the Washington Post. "It was clearly timed to make a splash in the run-up to the G20 meeting that starts in London on April 2.
"Calling the use of the dollar as the world's benchmark currency 'a rare special case in history,' Zhou urged the 'creative reform of the existing international monetary system towards an international reserve currency.' Zhou said the reserve currency, managed by the IMF, should be 'disconnected from individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run.'"
The IMF would operate such a currency via its "Special Drawing Right," created in 1969 with "the potential to act as a super-sovereign reserve currency," reported Times Online.
"The role of the SDR has not been put into full play due to limitations on its allocation and the scope of its uses. However, it serves as the light in the tunnel for the reform of the international monetary system," Zhou wrote in his essay.
He also emphasized his hope for the IMF currency's supremacy over other dominant world benchmarks, such as the euro and the yen.
The technical and political hurdles to implementing the proposal are enormous, so even if backed by other nations, the proposal is unlikely to change the dollar's role in the short term.
"'The re-establishment of a new and widely accepted reserve currency with a stable valuation benchmark may take a long time,' Mr. Zhou said" in a report by the Wall St. Journal. "In remarks earlier Monday, one of Mr. Zhou's deputies, Hu Xiaolian, also said that the dollar's dominant position in international trade and investment is unlikely to change in the near future. Ms. Hu is in charge of reserve management as the head of China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
"A spokeswoman for the U.S. Treasury declined to comment on Mr. Zhou's views."
UPDATE: Moscow supports IMF currency
In a little-circulated March 16 statement, the Kremlin said it will propose the IMF-based currency at April's G20 meeting in London.
"The International Monetary Fund should investigate the possible creation of a new reserve currency, widening the list of reserve currencies or using its already existing Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, as a 'superreserve currency accepted by the whole of the international community,' the Kremlin said in a statement issued on its web site," reported the Moscow Times.
"Russia also called for countries whose currencies currently have reserve status to adopt international rules on fiscal and macroeconomic discipline," noted Reuters.
Commentary: Legalize drugs to stop violence
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03...rugs/index.html
3/25/2009
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Over the past two years, drug violence in Mexico has become a fixture of the daily news. Some of this violence pits drug cartels against one another; some involves confrontations between law enforcement and traffickers.
Recent estimates suggest thousands have lost their lives in this "war on drugs."
The U.S. and Mexican responses to this violence have been predictable: more troops and police, greater border controls and expanded enforcement of every kind. Escalation is the wrong response, however; drug prohibition is the cause of the violence.
Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.
Violence was common in the alcohol industry when it was banned during Prohibition, but not before or after.
Violence is the norm in illicit gambling markets but not in legal ones. Violence is routine when prostitution is banned but not when it's permitted. Violence results from policies that create black markets, not from the characteristics of the good or activity in question.
The only way to reduce violence, therefore, is to legalize drugs. Fortuitously, legalization is the right policy for a slew of other reasons.
Prohibition of drugs corrupts politicians and law enforcement by putting police, prosecutors, judges and politicians in the position to threaten the profits of an illicit trade. This is why bribery, threats and kidnapping are common for prohibited industries but rare otherwise. Mexico's recent history illustrates this dramatically.
Prohibition erodes protections against unreasonable search and seizure because neither party to a drug transaction has an incentive to report the activity to the police. Thus, enforcement requires intrusive tactics such as warrantless searches or undercover buys. The victimless nature of this so-called crime also encourages police to engage in racial profiling.
Prohibition has disastrous implications for national security. By eradicating coca plants in Colombia or poppy fields in Afghanistan, prohibition breeds resentment of the United States. By enriching those who produce and supply drugs, prohibition supports terrorists who sell protection services to drug traffickers.
Prohibition harms the public health. Patients suffering from cancer, glaucoma and other conditions cannot use marijuana under the laws of most states or the federal government despite abundant evidence of its efficacy. Terminally ill patients cannot always get adequate pain medication because doctors may fear prosecution by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Drug users face restrictions on clean syringes that cause them to share contaminated needles, thereby spreading HIV, hepatitis and other blood-borne diseases.
Prohibitions breed disrespect for the law because despite draconian penalties and extensive enforcement, huge numbers of people still violate prohibition. This means those who break the law, and those who do not, learn that obeying laws is for suckers.
Prohibition is a drain on the public purse. Federal, state and local governments spend roughly $44 billion per year to enforce drug prohibition. These same governments forego roughly $33 billion per year in tax revenue they could collect from legalized drugs, assuming these were taxed at rates similar to those on alcohol and tobacco. Under prohibition, these revenues accrue to traffickers as increased profits.
The right policy, therefore, is to legalize drugs while using regulation and taxation to dampen irresponsible behavior related to drug use, such as driving under the influence. This makes more sense than prohibition because it avoids creation of a black market. This approach also allows those who believe they benefit from drug use to do so, as long as they do not harm others.
Legalization is desirable for all drugs, not just marijuana. The health risks of marijuana are lower than those of many other drugs, but that is not the crucial issue. Much of the traffic from Mexico or Colombia is for cocaine, heroin and other drugs, while marijuana production is increasingly domestic. Legalizing only marijuana would therefore fail to achieve many benefits of broader legalization.
It is impossible to reconcile respect for individual liberty with drug prohibition. The U.S. has been at the forefront of this puritanical policy for almost a century, with disastrous consequences at home and abroad.
The U.S. repealed Prohibition of alcohol at the height of the Great Depression, in part because of increasing violence and in part because of diminishing tax revenues. Similar concerns apply today, and Attorney General Eric Holder's recent announcement that the Drug Enforcement Administration will not raid medical marijuana distributors in California suggests an openness in the Obama administration to rethinking current practice.
Perhaps history will repeat itself, and the U.S. will abandon one of its most disastrous policy experiments.
3/25/2009
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Over the past two years, drug violence in Mexico has become a fixture of the daily news. Some of this violence pits drug cartels against one another; some involves confrontations between law enforcement and traffickers.
Recent estimates suggest thousands have lost their lives in this "war on drugs."
The U.S. and Mexican responses to this violence have been predictable: more troops and police, greater border controls and expanded enforcement of every kind. Escalation is the wrong response, however; drug prohibition is the cause of the violence.
Prohibition creates violence because it drives the drug market underground. This means buyers and sellers cannot resolve their disputes with lawsuits, arbitration or advertising, so they resort to violence instead.
Violence was common in the alcohol industry when it was banned during Prohibition, but not before or after.
Violence is the norm in illicit gambling markets but not in legal ones. Violence is routine when prostitution is banned but not when it's permitted. Violence results from policies that create black markets, not from the characteristics of the good or activity in question.
The only way to reduce violence, therefore, is to legalize drugs. Fortuitously, legalization is the right policy for a slew of other reasons.
Prohibition of drugs corrupts politicians and law enforcement by putting police, prosecutors, judges and politicians in the position to threaten the profits of an illicit trade. This is why bribery, threats and kidnapping are common for prohibited industries but rare otherwise. Mexico's recent history illustrates this dramatically.
Prohibition erodes protections against unreasonable search and seizure because neither party to a drug transaction has an incentive to report the activity to the police. Thus, enforcement requires intrusive tactics such as warrantless searches or undercover buys. The victimless nature of this so-called crime also encourages police to engage in racial profiling.
Prohibition has disastrous implications for national security. By eradicating coca plants in Colombia or poppy fields in Afghanistan, prohibition breeds resentment of the United States. By enriching those who produce and supply drugs, prohibition supports terrorists who sell protection services to drug traffickers.
Prohibition harms the public health. Patients suffering from cancer, glaucoma and other conditions cannot use marijuana under the laws of most states or the federal government despite abundant evidence of its efficacy. Terminally ill patients cannot always get adequate pain medication because doctors may fear prosecution by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Drug users face restrictions on clean syringes that cause them to share contaminated needles, thereby spreading HIV, hepatitis and other blood-borne diseases.
Prohibitions breed disrespect for the law because despite draconian penalties and extensive enforcement, huge numbers of people still violate prohibition. This means those who break the law, and those who do not, learn that obeying laws is for suckers.
Prohibition is a drain on the public purse. Federal, state and local governments spend roughly $44 billion per year to enforce drug prohibition. These same governments forego roughly $33 billion per year in tax revenue they could collect from legalized drugs, assuming these were taxed at rates similar to those on alcohol and tobacco. Under prohibition, these revenues accrue to traffickers as increased profits.
The right policy, therefore, is to legalize drugs while using regulation and taxation to dampen irresponsible behavior related to drug use, such as driving under the influence. This makes more sense than prohibition because it avoids creation of a black market. This approach also allows those who believe they benefit from drug use to do so, as long as they do not harm others.
Legalization is desirable for all drugs, not just marijuana. The health risks of marijuana are lower than those of many other drugs, but that is not the crucial issue. Much of the traffic from Mexico or Colombia is for cocaine, heroin and other drugs, while marijuana production is increasingly domestic. Legalizing only marijuana would therefore fail to achieve many benefits of broader legalization.
It is impossible to reconcile respect for individual liberty with drug prohibition. The U.S. has been at the forefront of this puritanical policy for almost a century, with disastrous consequences at home and abroad.
The U.S. repealed Prohibition of alcohol at the height of the Great Depression, in part because of increasing violence and in part because of diminishing tax revenues. Similar concerns apply today, and Attorney General Eric Holder's recent announcement that the Drug Enforcement Administration will not raid medical marijuana distributors in California suggests an openness in the Obama administration to rethinking current practice.
Perhaps history will repeat itself, and the U.S. will abandon one of its most disastrous policy experiments.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Protesters march to Pentagon, call to end Iraq war
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...bzhSAgD972IV900
By NAFEESA SYEED – 4 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hundreds of war protesters from across the country gathered in Washington on Saturday to mark the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.
Organizers from the ANSWER Coalition said more than 1,000 groups sponsored the protest to call for an end to the Iraq war. Holding signs that read "We need jobs and schools, not war" and "Stop the war!" they rallied around noon across the street from the Lincoln Memorial and by 1:30 p.m., were beginning to march across the Memorial Bridge to the Pentagon.
Protesters demanded that President Barack Obama immediately withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq, saying thousands of Iraqis have died and thousands of American troops have been wounded or killed.
Protesters lined up about 100 cardboard coffins on the ground draped with flags, including the American flag, representing countries where the U.S. has taken military action.
Anti-war activists said even though former President George W. Bush is out of power, they are disappointed with what they see as stalled action from Obama. Several of them said they supported Obama during his campaign, but that his administration has let them down by not ending the war sooner.
"Obama seems to be led somewhat by the bureaucracies. I want him to follow up on his promise to end the war," said 66-year-old Perry Parks of Rockingham, N.C., who served in the Army for nearly 30 years, including in Vietnam. "But the longer it goes, the more it seems like he's stalling."
Obama has said he plans to withdraw roughly 100,000 troops by the summer of 2010. He promises to pull the last of the U.S. troops by the end of 2011, which is in accord with a deal Iraqis signed with Bush.
A small group of veterans and parents of soldiers holding American flags gathered near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for a counter protest. Ron Kirby, of Alexandria, Va., was one of them.
"We're for victory. When our president and Congress send our men and women to war, they send them there to win or else don't send them at all," said Kirby, a Vietnam veteran.
Kirby said he thought the anti-war protest was sending the wrong message, and added that the country would not be at war unless the government believed it would be victorious. He added that he supported Obama's plan for a gradual withdrawal of troops, because an immediate withdrawal would thwart efforts to restore freedom in Iraq, he said.
James Circello disagreed.
Circello of Washington served in the Army from March 2003 until April 2004, when he said he deserted before his unit was deployed to Afghanistan. Circello, 30, said he left because of what he called the destruction the U.S. caused in Iraq.
"I was forced to remove people from their homes," he said. Circello turned himself in to authorities in 2007 and was administratively discharged, he said.
He said he participated in the Saturday protest to show his solidarity with the troops and the Iraqi people.
"We want to show the Iraqi people that we are not in line with the government, whether Bush or Obama, and we want immediate withdrawal of troops," he said. "Just because a new popular president comes into power, it's not going to stop us from demonstrating."
Among other concerns protesters raised, they criticized continued troop presence in Afghanistan and called for an end to U.S. support of Israel's military.
Taxpayer dollars should be used not for war but for domestic job-creation, health care, housing and education, demonstrators said.
This year, the protest was held on a weekend — a few days after the March 19 anniversary of the war, which began in 2003. Last year's weekday protest was marked by lower turnout than in previous years.
Protests also were held in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
By NAFEESA SYEED – 4 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hundreds of war protesters from across the country gathered in Washington on Saturday to mark the sixth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.
Organizers from the ANSWER Coalition said more than 1,000 groups sponsored the protest to call for an end to the Iraq war. Holding signs that read "We need jobs and schools, not war" and "Stop the war!" they rallied around noon across the street from the Lincoln Memorial and by 1:30 p.m., were beginning to march across the Memorial Bridge to the Pentagon.
Protesters demanded that President Barack Obama immediately withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq, saying thousands of Iraqis have died and thousands of American troops have been wounded or killed.
Protesters lined up about 100 cardboard coffins on the ground draped with flags, including the American flag, representing countries where the U.S. has taken military action.
Anti-war activists said even though former President George W. Bush is out of power, they are disappointed with what they see as stalled action from Obama. Several of them said they supported Obama during his campaign, but that his administration has let them down by not ending the war sooner.
"Obama seems to be led somewhat by the bureaucracies. I want him to follow up on his promise to end the war," said 66-year-old Perry Parks of Rockingham, N.C., who served in the Army for nearly 30 years, including in Vietnam. "But the longer it goes, the more it seems like he's stalling."
Obama has said he plans to withdraw roughly 100,000 troops by the summer of 2010. He promises to pull the last of the U.S. troops by the end of 2011, which is in accord with a deal Iraqis signed with Bush.
A small group of veterans and parents of soldiers holding American flags gathered near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for a counter protest. Ron Kirby, of Alexandria, Va., was one of them.
"We're for victory. When our president and Congress send our men and women to war, they send them there to win or else don't send them at all," said Kirby, a Vietnam veteran.
Kirby said he thought the anti-war protest was sending the wrong message, and added that the country would not be at war unless the government believed it would be victorious. He added that he supported Obama's plan for a gradual withdrawal of troops, because an immediate withdrawal would thwart efforts to restore freedom in Iraq, he said.
James Circello disagreed.
Circello of Washington served in the Army from March 2003 until April 2004, when he said he deserted before his unit was deployed to Afghanistan. Circello, 30, said he left because of what he called the destruction the U.S. caused in Iraq.
"I was forced to remove people from their homes," he said. Circello turned himself in to authorities in 2007 and was administratively discharged, he said.
He said he participated in the Saturday protest to show his solidarity with the troops and the Iraqi people.
"We want to show the Iraqi people that we are not in line with the government, whether Bush or Obama, and we want immediate withdrawal of troops," he said. "Just because a new popular president comes into power, it's not going to stop us from demonstrating."
Among other concerns protesters raised, they criticized continued troop presence in Afghanistan and called for an end to U.S. support of Israel's military.
Taxpayer dollars should be used not for war but for domestic job-creation, health care, housing and education, demonstrators said.
This year, the protest was held on a weekend — a few days after the March 19 anniversary of the war, which began in 2003. Last year's weekday protest was marked by lower turnout than in previous years.
Protests also were held in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Army probes domestic use of troops in Alabama
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Army_..._in _0318.html
Rachel Oswald
Published: Wednesday March 18, 2009
Though the strained Samson Police Department was no doubt glad to have U.S. Army military police on hand to direct traffic during last week's tragic shooting spree, it appears that the troops were deployed without the proper authorization and in possible violation of federal law.
An inquiry by the U.S. Army has been opened to find out how and why 22 active duty troops from Fort Rucker, Ala. were placed on the streets of the town of Samson during the shooting spree, which took the lives of 11 people on March 10, reported CNSNews.com on Wednesday.
Harvey Perritt, spokesman for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va., told CNSNews.com on Monday that the military police soldiers, along with the provost marshal were sent to Samson.
“The purpose for sending the military police, the authority for doing so, and what duties they performed is the subject of an ongoing commander’s inquiry--directed by the commanding general of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command," Perritt said. “In addition to determining the facts, this inquiry will also determine whether law, regulation and policy were followed.”
Jim Stromenger, a dispatcher at the Samson Police Depatrment, told CNSNews.com that the troops “came in to help with traffic control and to secure the crime scene” and that the department was glad for the help. “They weren’t here to police, let me make that clear. They were here to help with traffic and to control the crime scene--so people wouldn’t trample all over (it).”
As Samson only has a five-man police department, the assistance provided by the military police was badly needed during the shooting spree. Though calls for police assistance had gone out to surrounding areas, Stromenger said it wasn't the Samson Police Department that requested the soldiers' presence.
The Associated Press reports that state officials said the deployment of the soldiers "was requested neither by Republican Gov. Bob Riley nor the White House, which typically is required by law for soldiers to operate on U.S. soil."
Gov. Riley's press secretary Jeff Emerson told The AP that the governor wasn't concerned with the possibility that the military overstepped its bounds by deploying in a civilian setting without the proper legal authorization.
"From what I understand it was a few folks who came to direct traffic or help where they could," Emerson said. "If it had been more than what it was there might be a reason for concern, but these folks just came to see if they could help and left."
The White House press office has not yet responded to media requests for comment on the Army inquiry.
CNSNews.com reports that the wrongful use of federal troops inside U.S. borders "is a violation of several federal laws, including one known as the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878."
“Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both,” the law states.
Rachel Oswald
Published: Wednesday March 18, 2009
Though the strained Samson Police Department was no doubt glad to have U.S. Army military police on hand to direct traffic during last week's tragic shooting spree, it appears that the troops were deployed without the proper authorization and in possible violation of federal law.
An inquiry by the U.S. Army has been opened to find out how and why 22 active duty troops from Fort Rucker, Ala. were placed on the streets of the town of Samson during the shooting spree, which took the lives of 11 people on March 10, reported CNSNews.com on Wednesday.
Harvey Perritt, spokesman for the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va., told CNSNews.com on Monday that the military police soldiers, along with the provost marshal were sent to Samson.
“The purpose for sending the military police, the authority for doing so, and what duties they performed is the subject of an ongoing commander’s inquiry--directed by the commanding general of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command," Perritt said. “In addition to determining the facts, this inquiry will also determine whether law, regulation and policy were followed.”
Jim Stromenger, a dispatcher at the Samson Police Depatrment, told CNSNews.com that the troops “came in to help with traffic control and to secure the crime scene” and that the department was glad for the help. “They weren’t here to police, let me make that clear. They were here to help with traffic and to control the crime scene--so people wouldn’t trample all over (it).”
As Samson only has a five-man police department, the assistance provided by the military police was badly needed during the shooting spree. Though calls for police assistance had gone out to surrounding areas, Stromenger said it wasn't the Samson Police Department that requested the soldiers' presence.
The Associated Press reports that state officials said the deployment of the soldiers "was requested neither by Republican Gov. Bob Riley nor the White House, which typically is required by law for soldiers to operate on U.S. soil."
Gov. Riley's press secretary Jeff Emerson told The AP that the governor wasn't concerned with the possibility that the military overstepped its bounds by deploying in a civilian setting without the proper legal authorization.
"From what I understand it was a few folks who came to direct traffic or help where they could," Emerson said. "If it had been more than what it was there might be a reason for concern, but these folks just came to see if they could help and left."
The White House press office has not yet responded to media requests for comment on the Army inquiry.
CNSNews.com reports that the wrongful use of federal troops inside U.S. borders "is a violation of several federal laws, including one known as the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878."
“Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both,” the law states.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Hersh: 'Executive assassination ring' reported directly to Cheney
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Hersh...utive_0311.html
Muriel Kane
Published: Wednesday March 11, 2009
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh dropped a bombshell on Tuesday when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that the military was running an "executive assassination ring" throughout the Bush years which reported directly to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
The remark came out seemingly inadvertently when Hersh was asked by the moderator of a public discussion of "America's Constitutional Crisis" whether abuses of executive power, like those which occurred under Richard Nixon, continue to this day.
Hersh replied, "After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet."
Hersh then went on to describe a second area of extra-legal operations: the Joint Special Operations Command. "It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently," he explained. "They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. ... Congress has no oversight of it."
"It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on," Hersh stated. "Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us."
Hersh told MinnPost.com blogger Eric Black in an email exchange after the event that the subject was "not something I wanted to dwell about in public." He is looking into it for a book, but he believes it may be a year or two before he has enough evidence "for even the most skeptical."
Stories have been coming out about covert Pentagon assassination squads for the last several years. In 2003, Hersh himself reported on Task Force 121, which operated chiefly out of the Joint Special Operations Command. Others stories spoke of a proposed Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group.
As Hersh noted in Minnesota, the New York Times on Monday described the Joint Special Operations Command as overseeing the secret commando units in Afghanistan whose missions were temporarily ordered halted last month because of growing concerns over excessive civilian deaths.
However, it appears that Hersh is now on the trail of some fresh revelation about these squads and their connection to Vice-President Cheney that goes well beyond anything that has previously been reported.
Eric Black's blog posting, which includes an hour-long audio recording of the full University of Minnesota colloquy, is available here.
Muriel Kane
Published: Wednesday March 11, 2009
Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh dropped a bombshell on Tuesday when he told an audience at the University of Minnesota that the military was running an "executive assassination ring" throughout the Bush years which reported directly to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
The remark came out seemingly inadvertently when Hersh was asked by the moderator of a public discussion of "America's Constitutional Crisis" whether abuses of executive power, like those which occurred under Richard Nixon, continue to this day.
Hersh replied, "After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet."
Hersh then went on to describe a second area of extra-legal operations: the Joint Special Operations Command. "It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently," he explained. "They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. ... Congress has no oversight of it."
"It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on," Hersh stated. "Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us."
Hersh told MinnPost.com blogger Eric Black in an email exchange after the event that the subject was "not something I wanted to dwell about in public." He is looking into it for a book, but he believes it may be a year or two before he has enough evidence "for even the most skeptical."
Stories have been coming out about covert Pentagon assassination squads for the last several years. In 2003, Hersh himself reported on Task Force 121, which operated chiefly out of the Joint Special Operations Command. Others stories spoke of a proposed Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group.
As Hersh noted in Minnesota, the New York Times on Monday described the Joint Special Operations Command as overseeing the secret commando units in Afghanistan whose missions were temporarily ordered halted last month because of growing concerns over excessive civilian deaths.
However, it appears that Hersh is now on the trail of some fresh revelation about these squads and their connection to Vice-President Cheney that goes well beyond anything that has previously been reported.
Eric Black's blog posting, which includes an hour-long audio recording of the full University of Minnesota colloquy, is available here.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Hey Washington D.C., Let's Get This Show On The Road!!!
http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20423
Jon Gold
3/10/2009
"I was just in the hospital for 8 days with respiratory & coronary problems. Then I come out to find out that the insurance carrier decided at the last minute to appeal my award from workmans comp that was just given to me after waiting 7 1/2 years."
This was just told to me by 9/11 First Responder Charlie Giles. Charlie was an EMT that went into the North Tower to try and help people, and got caught when the building collapsed. He was pulled out of the rubble, and has had to deal with serious medical problems ever since.
Charlie is but one of thousands with similar problems. It has almost been 8 years since that horrid day, and for the most part, the 9/11 First Responders and the people of New York living around Ground Zero have been neglected. Neglected by those who were more than willing to use their images to sell two wars, take away our civil liberties, and practically destroy this country.
It is LONG past due that these individuals receive the help they so DESPERATELY need and deserve.
On February 4th, 2009, Reps. Maloney, Nadler, King, and McMahon reintroduced the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. Since that time, it has been sitting in limbo, just waiting to be voted on.
To our elected officials sitting in the House of Representatives. You could spend more money in Iraq or Afghanistan. You could spend more money on health care. You could spend more money bailing out the financial industry. You could do a lot of things, and in the past, you have shown us that when you want to, you can pass legislation faster than a speeding bullet.
I am asking you now to put all of those other things aside, and spend some money on what's right, and to do it NOW. Give them the help that they need. It is long past due.
Jon Gold
3/10/2009
"I was just in the hospital for 8 days with respiratory & coronary problems. Then I come out to find out that the insurance carrier decided at the last minute to appeal my award from workmans comp that was just given to me after waiting 7 1/2 years."
This was just told to me by 9/11 First Responder Charlie Giles. Charlie was an EMT that went into the North Tower to try and help people, and got caught when the building collapsed. He was pulled out of the rubble, and has had to deal with serious medical problems ever since.
Charlie is but one of thousands with similar problems. It has almost been 8 years since that horrid day, and for the most part, the 9/11 First Responders and the people of New York living around Ground Zero have been neglected. Neglected by those who were more than willing to use their images to sell two wars, take away our civil liberties, and practically destroy this country.
It is LONG past due that these individuals receive the help they so DESPERATELY need and deserve.
On February 4th, 2009, Reps. Maloney, Nadler, King, and McMahon reintroduced the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. Since that time, it has been sitting in limbo, just waiting to be voted on.
To our elected officials sitting in the House of Representatives. You could spend more money in Iraq or Afghanistan. You could spend more money on health care. You could spend more money bailing out the financial industry. You could do a lot of things, and in the past, you have shown us that when you want to, you can pass legislation faster than a speeding bullet.
I am asking you now to put all of those other things aside, and spend some money on what's right, and to do it NOW. Give them the help that they need. It is long past due.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
NKorea puts troops on alert, warns of war danger
http://www.breitbart.com/article.ph...&show_article=1
3/9/2009
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea put its troops on alert and cut the last hot line to Seoul on Monday as the American and South Korean militaries began joint maneuvers. The communist regime warned that even the slightest provocation could trigger war.
The North stressed that provocation would include any attempt to interfere with its impending launch of a satellite into orbit. U.S. and Japanese officials fear the launch could be a cover for a test of a long-range attack missile and have suggested they might move to intercept the rocket.
"Shooting our satellite for peaceful purposes will precisely mean a war," North Korea's military threatened in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. Any interception attempt will draw "a just, retaliatory strike," it said.
The North has been on a steady retreat from reconciliation since President Lee Myung-bak took office in the South a year ago. After Lee said the North must continue dismantling its nuclear program if it wants aid, Pyongyang cut ties, suspended joint projects and stepped up its belligerence rhetoric.
"The danger of a military conflict is further increasing than ever before on the Korean peninsula because of the saber rattling which involves armed forces huge enough to fight a war," the North's news agency warned as Pyongyang put its armed forces on standby for combat.
Allied commanders say the exercises are nothing more than the annual drills the two nations have held for years, while the North has been condemning them as a rehearsal for invasion.
"Our military exercises with the Republic of Korea are not a threat to the North," U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Monday, using South Korea's official name. "What is a threat to the region is this bellicose rhetoric coming out of the North."
Analysts say North Korea's heated words are designed to grab President Barack Obama's attention. With South Korea cutting off aid, the impoverished North is angling for a diplomatic coup of establishing direct ties with the U.S., said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University.
For weeks, the North has said it is forging ahead with plans to send a communications satellite into space—a launch that U.S. and Japanese officials say would violate a U.N. Security Council resolution banning the North from testing ballistic missiles. That decree came after the North test-fired a long-range missile and conducted an underground nuclear weapon test in 2006.
Analysts say the launch could occur late this month or in early April, around the time North Korea's new parliament, elected Sunday, convenes its first session with leader Kim Jong Il at its helm.
Kim, 67, was among legislators unanimously elected to a five-year term, the North's state media said. Elections in North Korea are largely a formality, with the ruling Workers' Party hand-picking one candidate for each district and voters endorsing the sole nominee.
Observers were watching the results for signs of a shift in policy—or hints that Kim, who reportedly suffered a stroke last August, might be grooming a son to succeed him. None of his three sons appeared on a list of lawmakers announced on state TV late Monday.
In Seoul, Obama's special envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, urged Pyongyang not to fire a missile, which he said would be an "extremely ill-advised" move.
"Whether they describe it as a satellite launch or something else makes no difference," Bosworth said after talks with his South Korean counterpart on drawing Pyongyang back to international talks on the North's nuclear disarmament.
South Korea's Defense Ministry spokesman, Won Tae-jae, played down the North's threats as "rhetoric," but added that the country's military was ready to deal with any contingencies.
Hundreds of South Koreans were stranded overnight in the northern border town of Kaesong after Pyongyang severed the last communications link between the two governments to protest the U.S.-South Korean military exercises that began Monday.
North Korea banned nearly all cross-border traffic in December amid deteriorating relations with Seoul but has allowed a skeleton staff of South Koreans to work at a joint industrial zone in Kaesong that is a crucial source of hard currency for the isolated communist regime.
The two Koreas use the hot line to coordinate the passage of people and goods through the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone, and its suspension shut down traffic Monday and stranded about 570 South Koreans north of the border.
The North agreed Tuesday to reopen the border to South Korea's Kaesong employees, Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said in Seoul.
Cutting the hot line for the duration of the 12-day U.S.-South Korean maneuvers leaves the two Koreas without any means of quick, direct communication at a time of high tension, when even an accidental skirmish could trigger fighting.
North and South Korea technically remain in a state of war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are massed on each side of the DMZ.
The United States, which has about 28,000 military personnel in South Korea, routinely holds joint military exercises with the South.
Last week, the North threatened danger to South Korean passenger planes flying near its airspace if the maneuvers went ahead, and several airlines rerouted their flights as a precaution.
Gen. Walter Sharp, the U.S. commander, said the joint exercises—involving some 26,000 U.S. troops, an unspecified number of South Korean soldiers and a U.S. aircraft carrier—are "not tied in any way to any political or real world event."
3/9/2009
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea put its troops on alert and cut the last hot line to Seoul on Monday as the American and South Korean militaries began joint maneuvers. The communist regime warned that even the slightest provocation could trigger war.
The North stressed that provocation would include any attempt to interfere with its impending launch of a satellite into orbit. U.S. and Japanese officials fear the launch could be a cover for a test of a long-range attack missile and have suggested they might move to intercept the rocket.
"Shooting our satellite for peaceful purposes will precisely mean a war," North Korea's military threatened in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. Any interception attempt will draw "a just, retaliatory strike," it said.
The North has been on a steady retreat from reconciliation since President Lee Myung-bak took office in the South a year ago. After Lee said the North must continue dismantling its nuclear program if it wants aid, Pyongyang cut ties, suspended joint projects and stepped up its belligerence rhetoric.
"The danger of a military conflict is further increasing than ever before on the Korean peninsula because of the saber rattling which involves armed forces huge enough to fight a war," the North's news agency warned as Pyongyang put its armed forces on standby for combat.
Allied commanders say the exercises are nothing more than the annual drills the two nations have held for years, while the North has been condemning them as a rehearsal for invasion.
"Our military exercises with the Republic of Korea are not a threat to the North," U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Monday, using South Korea's official name. "What is a threat to the region is this bellicose rhetoric coming out of the North."
Analysts say North Korea's heated words are designed to grab President Barack Obama's attention. With South Korea cutting off aid, the impoverished North is angling for a diplomatic coup of establishing direct ties with the U.S., said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University.
For weeks, the North has said it is forging ahead with plans to send a communications satellite into space—a launch that U.S. and Japanese officials say would violate a U.N. Security Council resolution banning the North from testing ballistic missiles. That decree came after the North test-fired a long-range missile and conducted an underground nuclear weapon test in 2006.
Analysts say the launch could occur late this month or in early April, around the time North Korea's new parliament, elected Sunday, convenes its first session with leader Kim Jong Il at its helm.
Kim, 67, was among legislators unanimously elected to a five-year term, the North's state media said. Elections in North Korea are largely a formality, with the ruling Workers' Party hand-picking one candidate for each district and voters endorsing the sole nominee.
Observers were watching the results for signs of a shift in policy—or hints that Kim, who reportedly suffered a stroke last August, might be grooming a son to succeed him. None of his three sons appeared on a list of lawmakers announced on state TV late Monday.
In Seoul, Obama's special envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, urged Pyongyang not to fire a missile, which he said would be an "extremely ill-advised" move.
"Whether they describe it as a satellite launch or something else makes no difference," Bosworth said after talks with his South Korean counterpart on drawing Pyongyang back to international talks on the North's nuclear disarmament.
South Korea's Defense Ministry spokesman, Won Tae-jae, played down the North's threats as "rhetoric," but added that the country's military was ready to deal with any contingencies.
Hundreds of South Koreans were stranded overnight in the northern border town of Kaesong after Pyongyang severed the last communications link between the two governments to protest the U.S.-South Korean military exercises that began Monday.
North Korea banned nearly all cross-border traffic in December amid deteriorating relations with Seoul but has allowed a skeleton staff of South Koreans to work at a joint industrial zone in Kaesong that is a crucial source of hard currency for the isolated communist regime.
The two Koreas use the hot line to coordinate the passage of people and goods through the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone, and its suspension shut down traffic Monday and stranded about 570 South Koreans north of the border.
The North agreed Tuesday to reopen the border to South Korea's Kaesong employees, Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon said in Seoul.
Cutting the hot line for the duration of the 12-day U.S.-South Korean maneuvers leaves the two Koreas without any means of quick, direct communication at a time of high tension, when even an accidental skirmish could trigger fighting.
North and South Korea technically remain in a state of war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are massed on each side of the DMZ.
The United States, which has about 28,000 military personnel in South Korea, routinely holds joint military exercises with the South.
Last week, the North threatened danger to South Korean passenger planes flying near its airspace if the maneuvers went ahead, and several airlines rerouted their flights as a precaution.
Gen. Walter Sharp, the U.S. commander, said the joint exercises—involving some 26,000 U.S. troops, an unspecified number of South Korean soldiers and a U.S. aircraft carrier—are "not tied in any way to any political or real world event."
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Ex-UN prosecutor: Bush may be next up for International Criminal Court
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/ExUN_..._next_0307.html
3/6/2009
An ex-UN prosecutor has said that following the issuance of an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan, former US President George W. Bush could -- and should -- be next on the International Criminal Court's list.
The former prosecutor's assessment was echoed in some respect by United Nations General Assembly chief Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, of Nicaragua, who said America's military occupation of Iraq has caused over a million deaths and should be probed by the United Nations.
"David Crane, an international law professor at Syracuse University, said the principle of law used to issue an arrest warrant for [Sudanese President] Omar al-Bashir could extend to former US President Bush over claims officials from his Administration may have engaged in torture by using coercive interrogation techniques on terror suspects," reported the New Zealand Herald.
The indictment of Bashir was a landmark, said Crane, because it paved a route for the court at The Hague to pursue heads of states engaged in criminality.
"Crane also said that the [Bashir] indictment may even be extended to the former president George W. Bush, on the grounds that some officials in terms of his administration engaged in harsh interrogation techniques on terror suspects which mostly amounted to torture," said Turkish Weekly.
"All pretended justifications notwithstanding, the aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan and their occupations constitute atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who believe in the rule of law in international relations," Brockmann told the Human Rights Council. "The illegality of the use of force against Iraq cannot be doubted as it runs contrary to the prohibition of the use of force in Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter. It sets a number of precedents that we cannot allow to stand."
The Bush administration boycotted the Human Rights Council. The day Brockmann made his accusations just so happened to be the first in which the United States had observers at the council, on orders from President Obama.
According to Iranian news network PressTV, the Iranian government called the Bashir indictment "a blow to International justice" and an "insult directed at Muslims."
Iran's plainly stated sentiment toward the court's legitimacy is similar in spirit to that of the United States. Because the US Government has refused to recognize the court by becoming a signatory in its statute, "the only other way Bush could be investigated is if the [UN] Security Council were to order it, something unlikely to happen with Washington a veto-wielding permanent member," said the Herald.
Due to the International Criminal Court's lack of any real police force, it has traditionally relied upon signatory states for enforcement of its rulings. But when the leader of one such state is indicted, the court's authority and enforcement capability is called into question. Even the arrest of Bashir is a far cry, for now. And without a UN Security Council order, former US President Bush would not go on "trial" before the court any time soon.
However, on January 26, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak insisted that the pursuit of Bush and members of his administration for the torture of terror war prisoners is crucial if justice is to be served.
Nowak added that he believes enough evidence exists currently to proceed with the prosecution of Donald Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of Defense who was credited as being highly influential in the crafting and push for America's invasion of Iraq and the prior administration's abusive interrogation tactics.
The following video was published to YouTube on March 6 by the non-profit, Web-based news service LinkTV.
Video At Source
3/6/2009
An ex-UN prosecutor has said that following the issuance of an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan, former US President George W. Bush could -- and should -- be next on the International Criminal Court's list.
The former prosecutor's assessment was echoed in some respect by United Nations General Assembly chief Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, of Nicaragua, who said America's military occupation of Iraq has caused over a million deaths and should be probed by the United Nations.
"David Crane, an international law professor at Syracuse University, said the principle of law used to issue an arrest warrant for [Sudanese President] Omar al-Bashir could extend to former US President Bush over claims officials from his Administration may have engaged in torture by using coercive interrogation techniques on terror suspects," reported the New Zealand Herald.
The indictment of Bashir was a landmark, said Crane, because it paved a route for the court at The Hague to pursue heads of states engaged in criminality.
"Crane also said that the [Bashir] indictment may even be extended to the former president George W. Bush, on the grounds that some officials in terms of his administration engaged in harsh interrogation techniques on terror suspects which mostly amounted to torture," said Turkish Weekly.
"All pretended justifications notwithstanding, the aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan and their occupations constitute atrocities that must be condemned and repudiated by all who believe in the rule of law in international relations," Brockmann told the Human Rights Council. "The illegality of the use of force against Iraq cannot be doubted as it runs contrary to the prohibition of the use of force in Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter. It sets a number of precedents that we cannot allow to stand."
The Bush administration boycotted the Human Rights Council. The day Brockmann made his accusations just so happened to be the first in which the United States had observers at the council, on orders from President Obama.
According to Iranian news network PressTV, the Iranian government called the Bashir indictment "a blow to International justice" and an "insult directed at Muslims."
Iran's plainly stated sentiment toward the court's legitimacy is similar in spirit to that of the United States. Because the US Government has refused to recognize the court by becoming a signatory in its statute, "the only other way Bush could be investigated is if the [UN] Security Council were to order it, something unlikely to happen with Washington a veto-wielding permanent member," said the Herald.
Due to the International Criminal Court's lack of any real police force, it has traditionally relied upon signatory states for enforcement of its rulings. But when the leader of one such state is indicted, the court's authority and enforcement capability is called into question. Even the arrest of Bashir is a far cry, for now. And without a UN Security Council order, former US President Bush would not go on "trial" before the court any time soon.
However, on January 26, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak insisted that the pursuit of Bush and members of his administration for the torture of terror war prisoners is crucial if justice is to be served.
Nowak added that he believes enough evidence exists currently to proceed with the prosecution of Donald Rumsfeld, the former Secretary of Defense who was credited as being highly influential in the crafting and push for America's invasion of Iraq and the prior administration's abusive interrogation tactics.
The following video was published to YouTube on March 6 by the non-profit, Web-based news service LinkTV.
Video At Source
Australia to follow China-Net censorship
http://www.freeople.com/blog/australia-follow-china-net-censorship/2068
AUSTRALIA will join China in implementing mandatory censoring of the internet under plans put forward by the Federal Government.
The revelations emerge as US tech giants Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and a coalition of human rights and other groups unveiled a code of conduct aimed at safeguarding online freedom of speech and privacy.
The government has declared it will not let internet users opt out of the proposed national internet filter.
The plan was first created as a way to combat child pronography and adult content, but could be extended to include controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia.
Communications minister Stephen Conroy revealed the mandatory censorship to the Senate estimates committee as the Global Network Initiative, bringing together leading companies, human rights organisations, academics and investors, committed the technology firms to "protect the freedom of expression and privacy rights of their users".
Mr Conroy said trials were yet to be carried out, but "we are talking about mandatory blocking, where possible, of illegal material."
The net nanny proposal was originally going to allow Australians who wanted uncensored access to the web the option of contacting their internet service provider to be excluded from the service.
AUSTRALIA will join China in implementing mandatory censoring of the internet under plans put forward by the Federal Government.
The revelations emerge as US tech giants Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and a coalition of human rights and other groups unveiled a code of conduct aimed at safeguarding online freedom of speech and privacy.
The government has declared it will not let internet users opt out of the proposed national internet filter.
The plan was first created as a way to combat child pronography and adult content, but could be extended to include controversial websites on euthanasia or anorexia.
Communications minister Stephen Conroy revealed the mandatory censorship to the Senate estimates committee as the Global Network Initiative, bringing together leading companies, human rights organisations, academics and investors, committed the technology firms to "protect the freedom of expression and privacy rights of their users".
Mr Conroy said trials were yet to be carried out, but "we are talking about mandatory blocking, where possible, of illegal material."
The net nanny proposal was originally going to allow Australians who wanted uncensored access to the web the option of contacting their internet service provider to be excluded from the service.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Turley: Bush terror memos are 'very definition of tyranny'
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Turley_Bush_terror_memos_are_definition_0304.html
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Since the release on Monday of nine previously-secret Bush administration legal memos claiming that the president has the power to ignore the Constitution when fighting terrorism, experts have almost unanimously denounced both their legal reasoning and their conclusions.
"These memos provide the very definition of tyranny," Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Tuesday. "These memos include everything that a petty despot would want."
Turley believes, however, that there may be worse revelations yet to come. "These memos weren't written in a vacuum," he noted. "The question is what did they do in response? We know, among other things that they created a torture program. ... I think we're going to find out that this was the mere foundation for a greater edifice that has yet to be disclosed."
The Justice Department has already indicated that it is considering releasing additional Bush-era legal opinions.
Turley was also scathing in his criticism of John Yoo, the former Justice Department lawyer who was responsible for many of the more extreme claims of executive power. "I still cannot believe that he would produce this type of work," Turley said in dismay. "It's really bad in terms of its legal analysis. ... It really does show, I think, the great tragedy of a very bright individual working very, very hard to satisfy the president and to hell him what he wanted to hear."
Turley, however, may be underestimating Yoo's influence. In 2007, journalist Charlie Savage noted that the Office of Legal Counsel had no head during the crucial weeks immediately after 9/11, leaving Yoo free to put his own ideas into effect.
"He was very conservative," Savage said of Yoo, "and he had made his name in academia by writing law journal articles and speaking at events in which he would take a very provocatively revisionist stance about the scope of executive power. ... However, when [Yoo] became the Office of Legal Counsel deputy in charge of the national security and foreign affairs portfolio and had no boss after 9/11, it allowed him to put these theories into pragmatic effect by writing secret advisory opinions that stated these theories as true, citing his own work from the '90s as authority for why they were true."
Turley concluded by reaffirming that he remains skeptical of the plan being promoted by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to create a "truth commission" to investigate Bush-era misdeeds. He told Olbermann, "It's up to the rest of us to say, if President Obama means it that no one is above the law, we need a special prosecutor and we need to investigate -- not another commission."
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Since the release on Monday of nine previously-secret Bush administration legal memos claiming that the president has the power to ignore the Constitution when fighting terrorism, experts have almost unanimously denounced both their legal reasoning and their conclusions.
"These memos provide the very definition of tyranny," Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Tuesday. "These memos include everything that a petty despot would want."
Turley believes, however, that there may be worse revelations yet to come. "These memos weren't written in a vacuum," he noted. "The question is what did they do in response? We know, among other things that they created a torture program. ... I think we're going to find out that this was the mere foundation for a greater edifice that has yet to be disclosed."
The Justice Department has already indicated that it is considering releasing additional Bush-era legal opinions.
Turley was also scathing in his criticism of John Yoo, the former Justice Department lawyer who was responsible for many of the more extreme claims of executive power. "I still cannot believe that he would produce this type of work," Turley said in dismay. "It's really bad in terms of its legal analysis. ... It really does show, I think, the great tragedy of a very bright individual working very, very hard to satisfy the president and to hell him what he wanted to hear."
Turley, however, may be underestimating Yoo's influence. In 2007, journalist Charlie Savage noted that the Office of Legal Counsel had no head during the crucial weeks immediately after 9/11, leaving Yoo free to put his own ideas into effect.
"He was very conservative," Savage said of Yoo, "and he had made his name in academia by writing law journal articles and speaking at events in which he would take a very provocatively revisionist stance about the scope of executive power. ... However, when [Yoo] became the Office of Legal Counsel deputy in charge of the national security and foreign affairs portfolio and had no boss after 9/11, it allowed him to put these theories into pragmatic effect by writing secret advisory opinions that stated these theories as true, citing his own work from the '90s as authority for why they were true."
Turley concluded by reaffirming that he remains skeptical of the plan being promoted by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to create a "truth commission" to investigate Bush-era misdeeds. He told Olbermann, "It's up to the rest of us to say, if President Obama means it that no one is above the law, we need a special prosecutor and we need to investigate -- not another commission."
Diebold voting system sported 'delete' button: report
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Diebold_voting_system_sported_delete_button_0304.html
Election observers already distrustful of the electronic voting machine manufacturer Diebold will have more reason to be wary now.
"Following three months of investigation, California's secretary of state has released a report examining why a voting system made by Premier Election Solutions (formerly known as Diebold Election Systems) lost about 200 ballots in Humboldt County during the November presidential election," Kim Zetter reports for Wired.
Zetter continues, "But the most startling information in the state's 13-page report (.pdf) is not about why the system lost votes, which Threat Level previously covered in detail, but that some versions of Diebold's vote tabulation system, known as the Global Election Management System (GEMS), include a button that allows someone to delete audit logs from the system."
As for the missing ballots, Wayne Hanson at govtech.com notes that the report indicates a "Deck Zero software error -- which can delete the first group of optically scanned ballots under certain circumstances -- caused 197 ballots to be inadvertently deleted from Humboldt County's initial results in the November 4, 2008, General Election. The results were corrected when the error was discovered."
At Brad Blog, John Gideon observes, "The report is amazing in that it reveals why our voting systems are failing. The issues with the GEMS software go much deeper than just the fact that the system may lose votes. The state also found readily apparent violations of the federal voting system standards. These violations seem to have been ignored by federal test labs, by the National Assoc. of State Election Directors (NASED), and their consultants who qualified the voting system for use, and by-passed CA Secretaries of State and their consultants."
Wired's Zetter notes, "The California report states that the 'clear' button, along with other problems with the auditing logs as well as the software flaw that caused the system to lose votes in Humboldt County (see below for more information on that flaw), should have been red flags to the testing laboratories that certified the system and should have been sufficient to 'fail' the system and prevent it from being used in any federal election."
Excerpts from Wired report:
####
Auditing logs are required under the federal voting system guidelines, which are used to test and qualify voting systems for use in elections. The logs record changes and other events that occur on voting systems to ensure the integrity of elections and help determine what occurred in a system when something goes wrong.
"Deleting a log is something that you would only do in de-commissioning a system you're no longer using or perhaps in a testing scenario," says Princeton University computer scientist Ed Felten, who has studied voting systems extensively. "But in normal operation, the log should always be kept."
Yet the Diebold system in Humboldt County, which uses version 1.18.19 of GEMS, has a button labeled "clear," that "permits deletion of certain audit logs that contain – or should contain – records that would be essential to reconstruct operator actions during the vote tallying process," according to the California report.
The button is positioned next to the "print" and "save as" buttons (see image above), making it easy for an election official to click on it by mistake and erase crucial logs.
Election observers already distrustful of the electronic voting machine manufacturer Diebold will have more reason to be wary now.
"Following three months of investigation, California's secretary of state has released a report examining why a voting system made by Premier Election Solutions (formerly known as Diebold Election Systems) lost about 200 ballots in Humboldt County during the November presidential election," Kim Zetter reports for Wired.
Zetter continues, "But the most startling information in the state's 13-page report (.pdf) is not about why the system lost votes, which Threat Level previously covered in detail, but that some versions of Diebold's vote tabulation system, known as the Global Election Management System (GEMS), include a button that allows someone to delete audit logs from the system."
As for the missing ballots, Wayne Hanson at govtech.com notes that the report indicates a "Deck Zero software error -- which can delete the first group of optically scanned ballots under certain circumstances -- caused 197 ballots to be inadvertently deleted from Humboldt County's initial results in the November 4, 2008, General Election. The results were corrected when the error was discovered."
At Brad Blog, John Gideon observes, "The report is amazing in that it reveals why our voting systems are failing. The issues with the GEMS software go much deeper than just the fact that the system may lose votes. The state also found readily apparent violations of the federal voting system standards. These violations seem to have been ignored by federal test labs, by the National Assoc. of State Election Directors (NASED), and their consultants who qualified the voting system for use, and by-passed CA Secretaries of State and their consultants."
Wired's Zetter notes, "The California report states that the 'clear' button, along with other problems with the auditing logs as well as the software flaw that caused the system to lose votes in Humboldt County (see below for more information on that flaw), should have been red flags to the testing laboratories that certified the system and should have been sufficient to 'fail' the system and prevent it from being used in any federal election."
Excerpts from Wired report:
####
Auditing logs are required under the federal voting system guidelines, which are used to test and qualify voting systems for use in elections. The logs record changes and other events that occur on voting systems to ensure the integrity of elections and help determine what occurred in a system when something goes wrong.
"Deleting a log is something that you would only do in de-commissioning a system you're no longer using or perhaps in a testing scenario," says Princeton University computer scientist Ed Felten, who has studied voting systems extensively. "But in normal operation, the log should always be kept."
Yet the Diebold system in Humboldt County, which uses version 1.18.19 of GEMS, has a button labeled "clear," that "permits deletion of certain audit logs that contain – or should contain – records that would be essential to reconstruct operator actions during the vote tallying process," according to the California report.
The button is positioned next to the "print" and "save as" buttons (see image above), making it easy for an election official to click on it by mistake and erase crucial logs.
Russian analyst: U.S. will collapse next year
Kremlin-linked scholar cites economic woes, 'social and cultural phenomena'
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29504880/
MOSCOW - If you're inclined to believe Igor Panarin, and the Kremlin wouldn't mind if you did, then President Barack Obama will order martial law this year, the United States will split into six rump-states before 2011, and Russia and China will become the backbones of a new world order.
Panarin might be easy to ignore but for the fact that he is a dean at the Foreign Ministry's school for future diplomats and a regular on Russia's state-guided TV channels. And his predictions fit into the anti-American story line of the Kremlin leadership.
"There is a high probability that the collapse of the United States will occur by 2010," Panarin told dozens of students, professors and diplomats Tuesday at the Diplomatic Academy — a lecture the ministry pointedly invited The Associated Press and other foreign media to attend.
Meshing with the Kremlin’s view
The prediction from Panarin, a former spokesman for Russia's Federal Space Agency and reportedly an ex-KGB analyst, meshes with the negative view of the United States that has been flowing from the Kremlin in recent years, in particular from Vladimir Putin.
Putin, the former president who is now prime minister, has likened the United States to Nazi Germany's Third Reich and blames Washington for the global financial crisis that has pounded the Russian economy.
Panarin didn't give many specifics on what underlies his analysis, mostly citing newspapers, magazines and other open sources.
He also noted he had been predicting the demise of the world's wealthiest country for more than a decade now.
Prediction: Alaska will return to Russian control
But he said the recent economic turmoil in the United States and other "social and cultural phenomena" led him to nail down a specific timeframe for "The End" — when the United States will break up into six autonomous regions and Alaska will revert to Russian control.
Panarin argued that Americans are in moral decline, saying their great psychological stress is evident from school shootings, the size of the prison population and the number of gay men.
Turning to economic woes, he cited the slide in major stock indexes, the decline in U.S. gross domestic product and Washington's bailout of banking giant Citigroup as evidence that American dominance of global markets has collapsed.
"I was there recently and things are far from good," he said. "What's happened is the collapse of the American dream."
Panarin insisted he didn't wish for a U.S. collapse, but he predicted Russia and China would emerge from the economic turmoil stronger and said the two nations should work together, even to create a new currency to replace the U.S. dollar.
Asked for comment on how the Foreign Ministry views Panarin's theories, a spokesman said all questions had to be submitted in writing and no answers were likely before Wednesday.
Persuasive?
It wasn't clear how persuasive the 20-minute lecture was. One instructor asked Panarin whether his predictions more accurately describe Russia, which is undergoing its worst economic crisis in a decade as well as a demographic collapse that has led some scholars to predict the country's demise.
Panarin dismissed that idea: "The collapse of Russia will not occur."
But Alexei Malashenko, a scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center who did not attend the lecture, sided with the skeptical instructor, saying Russia is the country that is on the verge of disintegration.
"I can't imagine at all how the United States could ever fall apart," Malashenko told the AP.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29504880/
MOSCOW - If you're inclined to believe Igor Panarin, and the Kremlin wouldn't mind if you did, then President Barack Obama will order martial law this year, the United States will split into six rump-states before 2011, and Russia and China will become the backbones of a new world order.
Panarin might be easy to ignore but for the fact that he is a dean at the Foreign Ministry's school for future diplomats and a regular on Russia's state-guided TV channels. And his predictions fit into the anti-American story line of the Kremlin leadership.
"There is a high probability that the collapse of the United States will occur by 2010," Panarin told dozens of students, professors and diplomats Tuesday at the Diplomatic Academy — a lecture the ministry pointedly invited The Associated Press and other foreign media to attend.
Meshing with the Kremlin’s view
The prediction from Panarin, a former spokesman for Russia's Federal Space Agency and reportedly an ex-KGB analyst, meshes with the negative view of the United States that has been flowing from the Kremlin in recent years, in particular from Vladimir Putin.
Putin, the former president who is now prime minister, has likened the United States to Nazi Germany's Third Reich and blames Washington for the global financial crisis that has pounded the Russian economy.
Panarin didn't give many specifics on what underlies his analysis, mostly citing newspapers, magazines and other open sources.
He also noted he had been predicting the demise of the world's wealthiest country for more than a decade now.
Prediction: Alaska will return to Russian control
But he said the recent economic turmoil in the United States and other "social and cultural phenomena" led him to nail down a specific timeframe for "The End" — when the United States will break up into six autonomous regions and Alaska will revert to Russian control.
Panarin argued that Americans are in moral decline, saying their great psychological stress is evident from school shootings, the size of the prison population and the number of gay men.
Turning to economic woes, he cited the slide in major stock indexes, the decline in U.S. gross domestic product and Washington's bailout of banking giant Citigroup as evidence that American dominance of global markets has collapsed.
"I was there recently and things are far from good," he said. "What's happened is the collapse of the American dream."
Panarin insisted he didn't wish for a U.S. collapse, but he predicted Russia and China would emerge from the economic turmoil stronger and said the two nations should work together, even to create a new currency to replace the U.S. dollar.
Asked for comment on how the Foreign Ministry views Panarin's theories, a spokesman said all questions had to be submitted in writing and no answers were likely before Wednesday.
Persuasive?
It wasn't clear how persuasive the 20-minute lecture was. One instructor asked Panarin whether his predictions more accurately describe Russia, which is undergoing its worst economic crisis in a decade as well as a demographic collapse that has led some scholars to predict the country's demise.
Panarin dismissed that idea: "The collapse of Russia will not occur."
But Alexei Malashenko, a scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center who did not attend the lecture, sided with the skeptical instructor, saying Russia is the country that is on the verge of disintegration.
"I can't imagine at all how the United States could ever fall apart," Malashenko told the AP.
The American Media Misdiagnosis
It’s widely agreed that there are a number of factors dragging down American newspapers, including the economic recession and the impact of the Internet, but a reason rarely mentioned is that the national news media failed in its most important job – to serve as a watchdog for the people.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/030209.html
By Robert Parry
March 2, 2009
As Americans look out over the wreckage of the past three decades – and especially the last eight years – there have been too many times when the constitutionally protected U.S. news media didn’t raise the alarm or even joined in spreading misinformation that advanced the disastrous mismanagement of the U.S. economy and government.
Not that anyone should derive pleasure from watching once formidable institutions like the New York Times and the Washington Post fade into pale shadows of their former selves.
But it also must be acknowledged that decisions by senior management of those and other top news organizations contributed to their own decline, especially the failure to stand up to the Right’s increasingly effective propaganda that emerged in the late 1970s in the wake of Richard Nixon’s Watergate debacle and the American defeat in Vietnam.
The Right was determined to prevent “another Watergate” and “another Vietnam.” So, key Republican strategists, such as former Treasury Secretary William Simon, went to work building their own media infrastructure, which included special groups to attack mainstream reporters who got in the way.
Rather than standing up to this pressure and defending the kind of aggressive journalism that exposed Nixon’s criminality and the lies behind the Vietnam War, many major news organizations consciously retreated from that watchdog tradition. [See Robert Parry’s Lost History.]
At the New York Times, neoconservative executive editor Abe Rosenthal talked about moving his newspaper “back to the center,” by which he meant to the right. Washington Post chairwoman Katharine Graham also was uncomfortable with the adversarial position of her newspaper and sidled up to President Ronald Reagan when he came to power in 1981.
When I was hired at Washington Post-owned Newsweek in 1987 – supposedly to pursue the Iran-Contra scandal that I had helped expose while at the Associated Press – I was surprised to find senior Newsweek executives fretting about the possibility that Iran-Contra could become another Watergate.
The very company (the Washington Post), which was credited with blowing the whistle on Nixon’s Watergate crimes, seemed not to want “another Watergate,” in part because it might damage the generally friendly dinner-party relationships that had developed with the Reagan insiders, which in turn might upset Mrs. Graham.
I ran into this corporate reality when I pressed ahead with an investigation showing that the Iran-Contra scandal was not a rogue operation run by White House aide Oliver North and a few men of zeal – but rather was authorized and directed by President Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush with the active support of the CIA.
I encountered hostility from Newsweek’s top brass in New York and little support from my immediate superiors in Washington. The message was that the Iran-Contra scandal should be wrapped up quickly, that it should not go any higher, and that additional digging would not be “good for the country.”
It was known inside Newsweek that executive editor Maynard Parker was cozy with key neoconservatives and the CIA, while Washington bureau chief Evan Thomas was a great admirer of the neocon writers at The New Republic. It soon became clear that battling to tell Iran-Contra truths was not a route to career advancement.
Changing Journalism
More broadly, the character of journalism was changing, too.
Instead of the Watergate/Pentagon Papers image of scrappy reporters and hardened editors standing up to the powers-that-be, star journalists and well-paid executives were partaking in the riches and comforts of a then-booming industry with extra money to be made on TV pundit shows – if you stayed safely within the bounds of Washington’s “conventional wisdom.”
In short, many people in the news business stopped being outsiders keeping an eye on the insiders for the American public, but rather they became insiders themselves.
And the fastest way to lose your lucrative insider status was to offend the Right, which was building a vast media infrastructure that could easily pick off the few reporters and editors who resisted this new paradigm.
By the time I left Newsweek in 1990, I was convinced that the mainstream U.S. news media had moved beyond a point where it could be reformed. It was becoming incapable of examining complex cases of wrongdoing either by the government or the private sector.
Yet, when I approached liberal foundations with my first-hand insights – and my recommendation that they must begin investing aggressively in a counter-media infrastructure – the reaction I received was usually one of bemusement. “We don’t do media” went one typical reaction.
So, the downward media spiral continued, accelerated by the emergence of right-wing talk radio (which hammered even mildly center-left politicians like Bill Clinton) and cable news (which obsessed 24/7 on sensational crime stories, such as the O.J. Simpson case).
One of the reasons I founded Consortiumnews.com in 1995 was that the market for well-documented stories about the serious wrongdoing of the Reagan-Bush-41 years had disappeared. That information was considered too historical as well as too risky.
By then, top media commentators also had bought into the insiders’ faith in globalization and deregulation as well as the value of a “tough-guy” foreign policy and a dismissive attitude toward tree-hugging environmentalists.
You could safely protect your future as a big-name media star if you parroted Bob Woodward's view that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was a “maestro,” if you followed the foreign policy lead of neocons like Charles Krauthammer and Fred Hiatt, or if you echoed Gregg Easterbrook’s critique of environmental extremists.
In Campaign 2000, the Washington press corps sank to its junior-high worst when it ganged up on nerd Al Gore and fairly swooned at the feet of big-man-on-campus George W. Bush.
Not only was there no warning about the danger of putting an unqualified dauphin like Bush in charge of the federal government, the major U.S. news media – led by the New York Times and the Washington Post – paved the way by treating Gore as a delusional braggart. [For details, see Neck Deep.]
The Bush-43 Era
Then, with Bush in place, the U.S. news media spent the crucial summer of 2001 obsessed with one of many white-girl-goes-missing stories – about Washington intern Chandra Levy who had had an affair with a Democratic congressman, Gary Condit.
Almost no attention was paid to the growing alarm inside the U.S. intelligence community about the prospects of a terrorist attack from Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization. And once the attack took place on 9/11, the news media lined up unquestioningly behind Bush, who then mounted a public relations campaign to justify invading Iraq.
Besides failing to ask tough questions of Bush, the major U.S. news media joined in cheerleading for the go-go financial era, offering little or no substantive criticism of the dangers from a deregulated global economy. Indeed, any commentator who dared challenge the conventional wisdom about “free markets” and “free trade” almost surely would get drummed out of the media insider club.
The Washington Post became a prime example of all these trends – and did so in contradiction to the political views of much of its community, one of the most liberal in the country. Though facing competition only from two right-wing newspapers (the Washington Times and the Examiner), the Post charted a neocon editorial direction that often insulted its more liberal readers.
A typical day in the life of the Post’s editorial section offers up the writings of neocons like Krauthammer, William Kristol, Robert Kagan and editorial page editor Hiatt. (Hiatt oversaw an ugly campaign to discredit Iraq War critic Joseph Wilson, whose wife, covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, was exposed by senior officials in the Bush administration.)
Besides the neocons, you might find more traditional conservatives like George Will and Kathleen Parker, plus laissez-faire economic writer Robert Samuelson and pro-Iraq War “insiders” like David Ignatius, Jim Hoagland and Richard Cohen.
Liberals, such as E.J. Dionne and Eugene Robinson, are almost always in a distinct minority.
So, when the Washington Post complains about its 77 percent drop in fourth-quarter earnings, its loss of advertising during the economic downturn, its three rounds of staff buyouts, or its circulation struggles in the face of Internet competition, many Washingtonians may be inclined to say simply, “it’s your own damn fault.”
Liberal Failings
But blame for America’s media mess also must fall on wealthy liberals and progressives who have largely stayed on the sidelines as the right-wing juggernaut rolled over honest reporters during the past three decades and thus made the fabrication of a false national narrative much easier.
The Left’s failure to engage on media also represents possibly the biggest threat to the young Obama presidency and to its ambitious reform agenda, which includes broader availability to health care, stronger environmental protections, more resources for education, help to unions, and investments in the national infrastructure.
George Lakoff, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California-Berkeley, described this problem in a HuffingtonPost article on Feb. 24 entitled The Obama Code. Though the article focuses on how Obama frames his rhetorical arguments, Lakoff adds near the end:
“The conservative message machine is huge and still going. There are dozens of conservative think tanks, many with very large communications budgets. … About 80 percent of the talking heads on TV are conservatives.
“Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are as strong as ever. There are now progressive voices on MSNBC, Comedy Central, and Air America, but they are still overwhelmed by [the] Right's enormous megaphone.
“Republicans in Congress can count on overwhelming message support in their home districts and homes states. That is one reason why they were able to stonewall on the President's stimulus package. They had no serious media competition at home pounding out the Obama vision day after day.
“Such national, day-by-day media competition is necessary. Democrats need to build it. … The President and his administration cannot build such a communication system, nor can the Democrats in Congress. The DNC does not have the resources.
“It will be up to supporters of the Obama values, not just supporters on the issues, to put such a system in place. Despite all the organizing strength of Obama supporters, no such organizing effort is now going on.
“If none is put together, the movement conservatives will face few challenges of fundamental values in their home constituencies and will be able to go on stonewalling with impunity. That will make the President's vision that much harder to carry out.”
So, while it is undeniably true that the mainstream news media has failed the American people – and that the nation is paying a terrible price for that failure – it’s also true that liberals and progressives have contributed to the problem by seeing media as someone else’s responsibility.
Combined with the Right’s disinformation and the cowardice of the mainstream, the Left’s media blindness – the “we-don’t-do-media” syndrome – has enabled the unfolding American political/economic disaster, which has now carried the country and the world to the brink of a global depression.
It is way past time for people of goodwill to respond.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/030209.html
By Robert Parry
March 2, 2009
As Americans look out over the wreckage of the past three decades – and especially the last eight years – there have been too many times when the constitutionally protected U.S. news media didn’t raise the alarm or even joined in spreading misinformation that advanced the disastrous mismanagement of the U.S. economy and government.
Not that anyone should derive pleasure from watching once formidable institutions like the New York Times and the Washington Post fade into pale shadows of their former selves.
But it also must be acknowledged that decisions by senior management of those and other top news organizations contributed to their own decline, especially the failure to stand up to the Right’s increasingly effective propaganda that emerged in the late 1970s in the wake of Richard Nixon’s Watergate debacle and the American defeat in Vietnam.
The Right was determined to prevent “another Watergate” and “another Vietnam.” So, key Republican strategists, such as former Treasury Secretary William Simon, went to work building their own media infrastructure, which included special groups to attack mainstream reporters who got in the way.
Rather than standing up to this pressure and defending the kind of aggressive journalism that exposed Nixon’s criminality and the lies behind the Vietnam War, many major news organizations consciously retreated from that watchdog tradition. [See Robert Parry’s Lost History.]
At the New York Times, neoconservative executive editor Abe Rosenthal talked about moving his newspaper “back to the center,” by which he meant to the right. Washington Post chairwoman Katharine Graham also was uncomfortable with the adversarial position of her newspaper and sidled up to President Ronald Reagan when he came to power in 1981.
When I was hired at Washington Post-owned Newsweek in 1987 – supposedly to pursue the Iran-Contra scandal that I had helped expose while at the Associated Press – I was surprised to find senior Newsweek executives fretting about the possibility that Iran-Contra could become another Watergate.
The very company (the Washington Post), which was credited with blowing the whistle on Nixon’s Watergate crimes, seemed not to want “another Watergate,” in part because it might damage the generally friendly dinner-party relationships that had developed with the Reagan insiders, which in turn might upset Mrs. Graham.
I ran into this corporate reality when I pressed ahead with an investigation showing that the Iran-Contra scandal was not a rogue operation run by White House aide Oliver North and a few men of zeal – but rather was authorized and directed by President Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush with the active support of the CIA.
I encountered hostility from Newsweek’s top brass in New York and little support from my immediate superiors in Washington. The message was that the Iran-Contra scandal should be wrapped up quickly, that it should not go any higher, and that additional digging would not be “good for the country.”
It was known inside Newsweek that executive editor Maynard Parker was cozy with key neoconservatives and the CIA, while Washington bureau chief Evan Thomas was a great admirer of the neocon writers at The New Republic. It soon became clear that battling to tell Iran-Contra truths was not a route to career advancement.
Changing Journalism
More broadly, the character of journalism was changing, too.
Instead of the Watergate/Pentagon Papers image of scrappy reporters and hardened editors standing up to the powers-that-be, star journalists and well-paid executives were partaking in the riches and comforts of a then-booming industry with extra money to be made on TV pundit shows – if you stayed safely within the bounds of Washington’s “conventional wisdom.”
In short, many people in the news business stopped being outsiders keeping an eye on the insiders for the American public, but rather they became insiders themselves.
And the fastest way to lose your lucrative insider status was to offend the Right, which was building a vast media infrastructure that could easily pick off the few reporters and editors who resisted this new paradigm.
By the time I left Newsweek in 1990, I was convinced that the mainstream U.S. news media had moved beyond a point where it could be reformed. It was becoming incapable of examining complex cases of wrongdoing either by the government or the private sector.
Yet, when I approached liberal foundations with my first-hand insights – and my recommendation that they must begin investing aggressively in a counter-media infrastructure – the reaction I received was usually one of bemusement. “We don’t do media” went one typical reaction.
So, the downward media spiral continued, accelerated by the emergence of right-wing talk radio (which hammered even mildly center-left politicians like Bill Clinton) and cable news (which obsessed 24/7 on sensational crime stories, such as the O.J. Simpson case).
One of the reasons I founded Consortiumnews.com in 1995 was that the market for well-documented stories about the serious wrongdoing of the Reagan-Bush-41 years had disappeared. That information was considered too historical as well as too risky.
By then, top media commentators also had bought into the insiders’ faith in globalization and deregulation as well as the value of a “tough-guy” foreign policy and a dismissive attitude toward tree-hugging environmentalists.
You could safely protect your future as a big-name media star if you parroted Bob Woodward's view that Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was a “maestro,” if you followed the foreign policy lead of neocons like Charles Krauthammer and Fred Hiatt, or if you echoed Gregg Easterbrook’s critique of environmental extremists.
In Campaign 2000, the Washington press corps sank to its junior-high worst when it ganged up on nerd Al Gore and fairly swooned at the feet of big-man-on-campus George W. Bush.
Not only was there no warning about the danger of putting an unqualified dauphin like Bush in charge of the federal government, the major U.S. news media – led by the New York Times and the Washington Post – paved the way by treating Gore as a delusional braggart. [For details, see Neck Deep.]
The Bush-43 Era
Then, with Bush in place, the U.S. news media spent the crucial summer of 2001 obsessed with one of many white-girl-goes-missing stories – about Washington intern Chandra Levy who had had an affair with a Democratic congressman, Gary Condit.
Almost no attention was paid to the growing alarm inside the U.S. intelligence community about the prospects of a terrorist attack from Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda organization. And once the attack took place on 9/11, the news media lined up unquestioningly behind Bush, who then mounted a public relations campaign to justify invading Iraq.
Besides failing to ask tough questions of Bush, the major U.S. news media joined in cheerleading for the go-go financial era, offering little or no substantive criticism of the dangers from a deregulated global economy. Indeed, any commentator who dared challenge the conventional wisdom about “free markets” and “free trade” almost surely would get drummed out of the media insider club.
The Washington Post became a prime example of all these trends – and did so in contradiction to the political views of much of its community, one of the most liberal in the country. Though facing competition only from two right-wing newspapers (the Washington Times and the Examiner), the Post charted a neocon editorial direction that often insulted its more liberal readers.
A typical day in the life of the Post’s editorial section offers up the writings of neocons like Krauthammer, William Kristol, Robert Kagan and editorial page editor Hiatt. (Hiatt oversaw an ugly campaign to discredit Iraq War critic Joseph Wilson, whose wife, covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, was exposed by senior officials in the Bush administration.)
Besides the neocons, you might find more traditional conservatives like George Will and Kathleen Parker, plus laissez-faire economic writer Robert Samuelson and pro-Iraq War “insiders” like David Ignatius, Jim Hoagland and Richard Cohen.
Liberals, such as E.J. Dionne and Eugene Robinson, are almost always in a distinct minority.
So, when the Washington Post complains about its 77 percent drop in fourth-quarter earnings, its loss of advertising during the economic downturn, its three rounds of staff buyouts, or its circulation struggles in the face of Internet competition, many Washingtonians may be inclined to say simply, “it’s your own damn fault.”
Liberal Failings
But blame for America’s media mess also must fall on wealthy liberals and progressives who have largely stayed on the sidelines as the right-wing juggernaut rolled over honest reporters during the past three decades and thus made the fabrication of a false national narrative much easier.
The Left’s failure to engage on media also represents possibly the biggest threat to the young Obama presidency and to its ambitious reform agenda, which includes broader availability to health care, stronger environmental protections, more resources for education, help to unions, and investments in the national infrastructure.
George Lakoff, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California-Berkeley, described this problem in a HuffingtonPost article on Feb. 24 entitled The Obama Code. Though the article focuses on how Obama frames his rhetorical arguments, Lakoff adds near the end:
“The conservative message machine is huge and still going. There are dozens of conservative think tanks, many with very large communications budgets. … About 80 percent of the talking heads on TV are conservatives.
“Rush Limbaugh and Fox News are as strong as ever. There are now progressive voices on MSNBC, Comedy Central, and Air America, but they are still overwhelmed by [the] Right's enormous megaphone.
“Republicans in Congress can count on overwhelming message support in their home districts and homes states. That is one reason why they were able to stonewall on the President's stimulus package. They had no serious media competition at home pounding out the Obama vision day after day.
“Such national, day-by-day media competition is necessary. Democrats need to build it. … The President and his administration cannot build such a communication system, nor can the Democrats in Congress. The DNC does not have the resources.
“It will be up to supporters of the Obama values, not just supporters on the issues, to put such a system in place. Despite all the organizing strength of Obama supporters, no such organizing effort is now going on.
“If none is put together, the movement conservatives will face few challenges of fundamental values in their home constituencies and will be able to go on stonewalling with impunity. That will make the President's vision that much harder to carry out.”
So, while it is undeniably true that the mainstream news media has failed the American people – and that the nation is paying a terrible price for that failure – it’s also true that liberals and progressives have contributed to the problem by seeing media as someone else’s responsibility.
Combined with the Right’s disinformation and the cowardice of the mainstream, the Left’s media blindness – the “we-don’t-do-media” syndrome – has enabled the unfolding American political/economic disaster, which has now carried the country and the world to the brink of a global depression.
It is way past time for people of goodwill to respond.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Senate bars FCC from revisiting Fairness Doctrine
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iZo8HqKUQ5LkGkTf0CiQtS7WQlQQD96JF8V00
By JIM ABRAMS – 21 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has barred federal regulators from reviving a policy, abandoned two decades ago, that required balanced coverage of issues on public airwaves.
The Senate vote on the so-called Fairness Doctrine was in part a response to conservative radio talk show hosts who feared that Democrats would try to revive the policy to ensure liberal opinions got equal time.
The Federal Communications Commission implemented the doctrine in 1949, but stopped enforcing it in 1987 after deciding new sources of information and programming made it unnecessary.
President Barack Obama says he has no intention of reimposing the doctrine, but Republicans, led by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., say they still need a guarantee the government would not establish new quotas or guidelines on programming.
__________________
By JIM ABRAMS – 21 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate has barred federal regulators from reviving a policy, abandoned two decades ago, that required balanced coverage of issues on public airwaves.
The Senate vote on the so-called Fairness Doctrine was in part a response to conservative radio talk show hosts who feared that Democrats would try to revive the policy to ensure liberal opinions got equal time.
The Federal Communications Commission implemented the doctrine in 1949, but stopped enforcing it in 1987 after deciding new sources of information and programming made it unnecessary.
President Barack Obama says he has no intention of reimposing the doctrine, but Republicans, led by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., say they still need a guarantee the government would not establish new quotas or guidelines on programming.
__________________
Government 'using fear as a weapon to erode civil liberties'
Britain on brink of becoming database police state, speakers tell Convention on Modern Liberty
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/f...ment-law-courts
Tracy McVeigh, chief reporter
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 28 February 2009 17.52 GMT
The government and the courts are collabarating in shaving away freedoms and pushing Britain to the brink of becoming a "database" police state, a series of sold-out conferences across the UK heard today.
In a day of speeches and discussions, academics, politicians, lawyers, writers, journalists and pop stars joined civil liberty campaigners to issue a call to arms for Britons to defend their democratic rights.
More than 1,500 people attended the Convention on Modern Liberty in Bloomsbury, central London, which was linked by video to parallel events in Glasgow, Belfast, Bristol, Manchester, Cardiff and Cambridge.
They heard from more than 80 speakers, including the author Philip Pullman, musicians Brian Eno and Feargal Sharkey, journalists Fatima Bhutto, Andrew Gilligan and Nick Cohen, and the editor-in-chief of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger.
Other speakers included Lord Bingham, the retired senior law lord, Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, and the human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy.
In her speech, Kennedy said she felt fear was being used as a weapon to break down civil liberties.
"There is a general feeling that in creating a climate of fear people have been writing a blank cheque to government. People feel the fear of terrorism is being used to take away a lot of rights."
She said voters were anxious that their communities were "being alienated" by the use of powers that were originally designed to protect national security but were now being used outside that remit. Now was the time for the electorate to make its feelings known to government, before the next election.
She said: "People are fearful of the general business of collecting too much information about individuals".
High on the list of concerns of many at the convention were the recent allegations against the British security services by the Guantà namo Bay torture victim Binyam Mohamed, plans for ID cards, DNA databases and surveillance powers being used by civil servants as well as the government.
The Conservative MP David Davis, who resigned from the shadow cabinet in order to fight a byelection on a civil liberties platform, gave the final keynote speech of the day. He told the Observer that he believed the danger of a police state was a very real one and that the justice secretary, Jack Straw, was leading a "piecemeal and casual erosion" of freedom in the UK.
"There has been a tide of government actions which have bput expediency over justice time and time again. The British people wear their liberty like an old comfy suit, they are careless about it, but the mood is changing. Last year 80% of people were in favour of ID cards, now 80% are against.
"There is a point of reflection that we are reaching. The communications database which is planned to collect every private text and phone call and petrol station receipt will create uproar."
He said the fact that people had paid £35 to attend the event was a real sign that people were waking up and getting irritated by the threat.
"We are getting on the way to becoming a police state and the surest thing I do know is that by the time we are sure we are, then it will be too late."
Britain's judiciary came under fire from many speakers. A panel of leading journalists accused the courts of helping quash free speech. They agreed that libel law was being manipulated by "dodgy characters" from all over the world who sought legal redress against valid investigative journalism in UK courts.
"Most of this is hidden from public view," said Rusbridger, who complained that British lawyers' fees were 140 times more expensive than in the rest of Europe, creating impossible dilemmas for journalists on newspapers already suffering from dropping sales and advertising revenues.
Gilligan, of the Evening Standard, said the planned communications database would bring an end to privacy and with it "an end of journalism". He pointed out that the only arrest in the case of the illegal shooting to death by police of the Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes was that of a journalist who revealed that police statements were untrue.
"This is a very worrying time," he said. "We are already witnessing the last days of local journalism; local papers are closing down, local reporters don't have the time to go out on stories." Newspapers and indiviuduals needed to start "getting angry", he said.
The Observer and Vanity Fair writer Henry Porter, who co-organised the conference, said was moved by the support from the speakers and attendees.
"I had been feeling like the lone lunatic wandering around Oxford Street with a placard and its tremendously moving for me to see how many people share my concerns.
"The number of tickets, I'm told, could have been sold two or three times over. That has to show people really are thinking about these frightening issues quite seriously."
The Convention on Modern Liberty, sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, openDemocracy, Liberty, NO2ID and the Guardian, was launched as an umberella campaign last month under the statement of purpose: "A call to all concerned with attacks on our fundamental rights and freedoms under pressure from counter-terrorism, financial breakdown and the database state".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/f...ment-law-courts
Tracy McVeigh, chief reporter
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 28 February 2009 17.52 GMT
The government and the courts are collabarating in shaving away freedoms and pushing Britain to the brink of becoming a "database" police state, a series of sold-out conferences across the UK heard today.
In a day of speeches and discussions, academics, politicians, lawyers, writers, journalists and pop stars joined civil liberty campaigners to issue a call to arms for Britons to defend their democratic rights.
More than 1,500 people attended the Convention on Modern Liberty in Bloomsbury, central London, which was linked by video to parallel events in Glasgow, Belfast, Bristol, Manchester, Cardiff and Cambridge.
They heard from more than 80 speakers, including the author Philip Pullman, musicians Brian Eno and Feargal Sharkey, journalists Fatima Bhutto, Andrew Gilligan and Nick Cohen, and the editor-in-chief of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger.
Other speakers included Lord Bingham, the retired senior law lord, Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions, and the human rights lawyer Helena Kennedy.
In her speech, Kennedy said she felt fear was being used as a weapon to break down civil liberties.
"There is a general feeling that in creating a climate of fear people have been writing a blank cheque to government. People feel the fear of terrorism is being used to take away a lot of rights."
She said voters were anxious that their communities were "being alienated" by the use of powers that were originally designed to protect national security but were now being used outside that remit. Now was the time for the electorate to make its feelings known to government, before the next election.
She said: "People are fearful of the general business of collecting too much information about individuals".
High on the list of concerns of many at the convention were the recent allegations against the British security services by the Guantà namo Bay torture victim Binyam Mohamed, plans for ID cards, DNA databases and surveillance powers being used by civil servants as well as the government.
The Conservative MP David Davis, who resigned from the shadow cabinet in order to fight a byelection on a civil liberties platform, gave the final keynote speech of the day. He told the Observer that he believed the danger of a police state was a very real one and that the justice secretary, Jack Straw, was leading a "piecemeal and casual erosion" of freedom in the UK.
"There has been a tide of government actions which have bput expediency over justice time and time again. The British people wear their liberty like an old comfy suit, they are careless about it, but the mood is changing. Last year 80% of people were in favour of ID cards, now 80% are against.
"There is a point of reflection that we are reaching. The communications database which is planned to collect every private text and phone call and petrol station receipt will create uproar."
He said the fact that people had paid £35 to attend the event was a real sign that people were waking up and getting irritated by the threat.
"We are getting on the way to becoming a police state and the surest thing I do know is that by the time we are sure we are, then it will be too late."
Britain's judiciary came under fire from many speakers. A panel of leading journalists accused the courts of helping quash free speech. They agreed that libel law was being manipulated by "dodgy characters" from all over the world who sought legal redress against valid investigative journalism in UK courts.
"Most of this is hidden from public view," said Rusbridger, who complained that British lawyers' fees were 140 times more expensive than in the rest of Europe, creating impossible dilemmas for journalists on newspapers already suffering from dropping sales and advertising revenues.
Gilligan, of the Evening Standard, said the planned communications database would bring an end to privacy and with it "an end of journalism". He pointed out that the only arrest in the case of the illegal shooting to death by police of the Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes was that of a journalist who revealed that police statements were untrue.
"This is a very worrying time," he said. "We are already witnessing the last days of local journalism; local papers are closing down, local reporters don't have the time to go out on stories." Newspapers and indiviuduals needed to start "getting angry", he said.
The Observer and Vanity Fair writer Henry Porter, who co-organised the conference, said was moved by the support from the speakers and attendees.
"I had been feeling like the lone lunatic wandering around Oxford Street with a placard and its tremendously moving for me to see how many people share my concerns.
"The number of tickets, I'm told, could have been sold two or three times over. That has to show people really are thinking about these frightening issues quite seriously."
The Convention on Modern Liberty, sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, openDemocracy, Liberty, NO2ID and the Guardian, was launched as an umberella campaign last month under the statement of purpose: "A call to all concerned with attacks on our fundamental rights and freedoms under pressure from counter-terrorism, financial breakdown and the database state".
Uncertainty over new health safety net for jobless
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090301/ap_on_go_pr_wh/stimulus_health_insurance
By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer Erica Werner, Associated Press Writer – Sun Mar 1, 8:09 am ET
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration rushed to include a health care safety net for laid-off workers in the recently signed stimulus bill, but has not told employers exactly how to make it work.
As a result, tens of thousands of jobless people could wait months before getting help paying for health insurance that their employers previously had covered.
"Too many people are still trying to figure this out," said Heath Weems, director of human resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers. "There is a lot of confusion."
At issue is the program called COBRA, the acronym for the law that allows workers to keep their company's health insurance plan for 18 months after they leave their job, if they pay the premiums.
The policies are so expensive that only a minority of eligible workers sign up, often those with medical conditions that demand attention. Costs for a family of four can top $1,000 per month.
A $25 billion provision in the stimulus bill aimed to cut COBRA's price tag, reducing its cost by 65 percent for workers laid off as far back as Sept. 1.
The bill gives eligible workers 60 days to apply. Then they get the reduced-cost premium for nine months.
But it's not going to happen right away.
Employers are waiting for instructions from the Labor Department and the Internal Revenue Service on how to put the program into place. Both agencies posted some information online Thursday.
Until employers get the guidance they need and notify potentially eligible ex-employees, most workers will not apply for the new benefit. Many probably will not know it exists.
Left waiting are people such as Cassandra J. Kelsey, 55. The District of Columbia resident lost her job with Verizon in January. She says she can barely pay her rent and is eating less to save money to cover the $550 a month premium to keep her health coverage under COBRA.
Kelsey walks with a cane and lists a litany of ailments, including degenerative arthritis and hypertension. For her, going without health insurance is unthinkable.
Outside a D.C. career center on a recent morning, Kelsey clutched copies of her COBRA invoice, clippings from a local newspaper about the stimulus bill and a form letter she received from the White House after writing to Obama about her troubles.
Kelsey knew about the reduced premium and said it would bring her COBRA costs below $200 a month. But when she called her benefits department, she was distressed to learn that she would not be able to get the reduced cost immediately, probably not until May.
"I can't take advantage of it now which I think is totally unfair," Kelsey said. "I don't know how I'm going to make it."
The stimulus bill contemplated that workers might not get the reduced premium immediately, and contains a provision that would allow them to be reimbursed later on.
That would be little help to Kelsey and others who need the benefit now.
An IRS spokesman said the agency is moving as fast as it can. A Labor Department spokeswoman responded to questions with an e-mail linking to a short agency fact sheet.
One question that employers are struggling with is how to go back and find employees who were laid off as far back as September.
Also, the legislation says only workers who were "involuntarily terminated" are eligible, but never defines that term. Does it include only people who are laid off? Or those who take buyouts offered by their employers?
No one knows how many people will actually seek a share of the stimulus money to pay their COBRA premiums. Congressional experts estimated 7 million, but that may be too high.
Advocates fear that even cut-rate COBRA could prove too little, too late for some jobless Americans.
"For many people it will remain unaffordable," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA.
By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer Erica Werner, Associated Press Writer – Sun Mar 1, 8:09 am ET
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration rushed to include a health care safety net for laid-off workers in the recently signed stimulus bill, but has not told employers exactly how to make it work.
As a result, tens of thousands of jobless people could wait months before getting help paying for health insurance that their employers previously had covered.
"Too many people are still trying to figure this out," said Heath Weems, director of human resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers. "There is a lot of confusion."
At issue is the program called COBRA, the acronym for the law that allows workers to keep their company's health insurance plan for 18 months after they leave their job, if they pay the premiums.
The policies are so expensive that only a minority of eligible workers sign up, often those with medical conditions that demand attention. Costs for a family of four can top $1,000 per month.
A $25 billion provision in the stimulus bill aimed to cut COBRA's price tag, reducing its cost by 65 percent for workers laid off as far back as Sept. 1.
The bill gives eligible workers 60 days to apply. Then they get the reduced-cost premium for nine months.
But it's not going to happen right away.
Employers are waiting for instructions from the Labor Department and the Internal Revenue Service on how to put the program into place. Both agencies posted some information online Thursday.
Until employers get the guidance they need and notify potentially eligible ex-employees, most workers will not apply for the new benefit. Many probably will not know it exists.
Left waiting are people such as Cassandra J. Kelsey, 55. The District of Columbia resident lost her job with Verizon in January. She says she can barely pay her rent and is eating less to save money to cover the $550 a month premium to keep her health coverage under COBRA.
Kelsey walks with a cane and lists a litany of ailments, including degenerative arthritis and hypertension. For her, going without health insurance is unthinkable.
Outside a D.C. career center on a recent morning, Kelsey clutched copies of her COBRA invoice, clippings from a local newspaper about the stimulus bill and a form letter she received from the White House after writing to Obama about her troubles.
Kelsey knew about the reduced premium and said it would bring her COBRA costs below $200 a month. But when she called her benefits department, she was distressed to learn that she would not be able to get the reduced cost immediately, probably not until May.
"I can't take advantage of it now which I think is totally unfair," Kelsey said. "I don't know how I'm going to make it."
The stimulus bill contemplated that workers might not get the reduced premium immediately, and contains a provision that would allow them to be reimbursed later on.
That would be little help to Kelsey and others who need the benefit now.
An IRS spokesman said the agency is moving as fast as it can. A Labor Department spokeswoman responded to questions with an e-mail linking to a short agency fact sheet.
One question that employers are struggling with is how to go back and find employees who were laid off as far back as September.
Also, the legislation says only workers who were "involuntarily terminated" are eligible, but never defines that term. Does it include only people who are laid off? Or those who take buyouts offered by their employers?
No one knows how many people will actually seek a share of the stimulus money to pay their COBRA premiums. Congressional experts estimated 7 million, but that may be too high.
Advocates fear that even cut-rate COBRA could prove too little, too late for some jobless Americans.
"For many people it will remain unaffordable," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA.
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