Magpie

Saturday, June 21

'This is the right time to address women's rights.'

In the Egyptian Al-Ahram Weekly, Rasha Saad looks at the difficulties currently faced by women in Iraq, and at two women — one Moroccan, one a returned exile — who are trying to help Iraqi women to take control of their lives. Both women are finding that the new Iraq is not what they had expected.

The future of Iraqi women, who constitute almost 55 per cent of the population, is proving to be a vague one. The sight of Iraqi women walking in the streets of Baghdad is now rare, as is the sight of a woman behind the steering wheel of a car. Thousands of Iraqis have prevented their daughters from returning to schools and universities. Others allow them to attend, but accompany them to the institutions which are guarded by armed security personnel. With some fatwas having been issued by Islamist clergymen decreeing that women should don the hijab, those women courageous enough to want to return to work are unsure of how to proceed out of fear of retribution. [...]

[Dalila] Roelli was complaining to [Hanaa] Edward that whenever she spoke to an Iraqi woman about future plans, they spoke mainly about their sufferings and the past. "It's as if they don't want to believe that Saddam is gone, and they don't want to live their lives in the new situation."

Roelli mentioned a talk she had with one particular Iraqi woman. This woman feared that, after working hard to reach as many poor women as possible, the new government, once established, would then prevent her from continuing her work. "So why take all the pain?" the woman asked Roelli.

Edward seemed unsurprised at this reaction. "The Iraqis, including the women, have been ruled by an iron fist for more than 30 years. They know nothing about the workings of civic institutions. They have not been taught how to assume leadership, and, above all, are too exhausted from everything that has happened. You can't just flick a switch and expect them to embrace change." [...]

Edward was shocked when she returned to Iraq. It wasn't so much the destruction of infrastructure that was responsible for that feeling, although that itself was very upsetting. What appalled her most was what she described as "the destruction of Iraqi souls". For Edward, the people she returned to had been transformed. Recalling her compatriots as having enjoyed close family relations, she found that people had become distant from one another. "Family ties had become very weak -- if they exist in the first place. I don't know whether everyone learned to fear each other or whether they were absorbed in their own problems. Perhaps both," she said. "People are still afraid, despite the fall of the regime. I never expected that."

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:13 PM | Get permalink

Didn't Jim Hightower say something about the middle of the road?

The LA Times reports on the problems that centrist Democrats are having keeping control of the party as the race for the 2004 presidential nomination heats up. Particularly hard-hit is the influential Democratic Leadership Council.

The New Democrat movement has scuffled with the left over the party's direction for nearly 20 years. The moderates, working mainly through the Democratic Leadership Council, provided an important source of ideas and support for Clinton in 1992 and 1996 and Al Gore in 2000. But the movement has splintered in the 2004 contest, with its key figures dividing among the party's leading presidential contenders.

Now the DLC finds itself under fire from a range of Democrats for a blistering attack it issued last month on two of the most liberal 2004 candidates — Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. Dean has shot back, accusing the DLC of blurring the differences between Democrats and Republicans.

These sharp exchanges underscore the ideological fissures reopening as Democrats try to set their post-Clinton course.

For those wondering about the headline for this post, Texas populist Jim Hightower once said 'There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.'

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:53 PM | Get permalink

The looting was really bad, after all.

The number of objects looted from the National Museum in Baghdad is at 6000 and growing, reports the Washington Post. This is far below the 270,000 items feared lost in April, but double the 3000 items reported missing two weeks ago. University of Chicago archaeologist McGuire Gibson says the final total of missing objects could be "far, far worse" than the current count.

It now appears, however, that although the losses were not nearly as grave as early reports indicated, they go far beyond the 33 items known to have been taken from the museum's display halls. Gibson said looters sacked two ground-floor storerooms and broke into a third in the basement. Two other storerooms appear to have been untouched.

Gibson noted that there are "thousands of things that are broken" but not listed as missing. And teams of archaeologists sent by the National Geographic Society found widespread looting of artifacts from sites outside Baghdad. None of these are museum pieces, and most were simply plucked from the ground.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:24 PM | Get permalink

The dog ate them. Honest.

Do we sense that Dubya is beginning to think that the missing Iraqi WMDs might really be a political problem for him?

President Bush, trying again to explain the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, said on Saturday that suspected arms sites had been looted in the waning days of Saddam Hussein's rule.

"For more than a decade, Saddam Hussein went to great lengths to hide his weapons from the world. And in the regime's final days, documents and suspected weapons sites were looted and burned," Bush said in his weekly radio address.

It is believed to be the first time Bush has cited looting to explain the inability of U.S. forces to uncover chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, a U.S. official said.

Via Reuters.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:47 AM | Get permalink

Captive nation.

Israeli settlers in the occupied territories (and their supporters) claim that their enterprise a continuation of the process by which Zionist pioneers built the state of Israel. Not true, says Ze'ev Sternhell, writing in Haaretz. Instead, the contemporary settlement movement is a 'post-Zionism of blood and land', which is holding the rest of Israeli society hostage to its expansionist goals.

The two basic goals of the Zionism of old no longer have any connection to what is happening in the territories: Settlement today is not a tool for rescuing a people seeking refuge, nor is it a tool for normalizing Jewish life. The opposite is true. The endless war that the settlers are trying to impose on us, which they need like fire needs oxygen, is endangering our future and fanning the flames of a new wave of hatred against Jews in the Diaspora. By the same token, in creating a colonial reality here, the settlers are impeding the normalization of Jewish life. [...]

The old Zionism took over a portion of this land in order to build a home for a persecuted people. It was the suffering of the Jews - and not historical right and, it goes without saying, divine promise - that constituted the one moral justification for this act of conquest. It has been a long and painful process, accompanied by a cruel battle for survival. Over the years, we have killed and evicted and made the lives of the Palestinians miserable. But we did it because, in the final reckoning, we had no other choice.

This is not so for post-Zionism. This new movement tramples on the rights of others and makes their lives miserable needlessly, with no other reason than an urge to expand. Some call it heeding the will of God. Others believe it is a historical decree, and disobeying it is tantamount to treason. Ein Harod, Nahalal, the Jewish neighborhoods of Haifa and Jerusalem - these were the foundations of our national renaissance. Elon Moreh, Netzarim and Kiryat Arba [settlements in the occupied territories] are threatening to drown us.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:49 AM | Get permalink

Friday, June 20

Surprising the political insiders.

The Knight-Ridder New Service has a very upbeat story on Gov. Howard Dean's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"Howard Dean is doing a good job introducing himself to voters," [former New Hampshire Democratic Party chair George] Bruno said. "He's doing a good job separating himself from the pack. He's in many ways exceeding expectations. You've got a real live candidate here."

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:22 PM | Get permalink

Cranking up the old time machine.

It's Friday here in North America, so Wampum is taking us on another visit to 1991.

GREENSPAN: ECONOMY HAS HIT BOTTOM BUT NOT YET EXPANDING
June 19, 1991
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Recent economic data indicate the economy has hit bottom but any renewed expansion so far is too small to measure, Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, said yesterday.

Greenspan, testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, said statistics "over the last several weeks strongly suggested that the bottom is somewhere in the second quarter," ending June 30.

However, he added, "we see no measurable upward thrust" and said employment is likely to...

And while you're visiting Wampum, make sure to read this, too.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:58 PM | Get permalink

No surprise here.

Magpie always knew that Dubya was a professional.

Via Cursor.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:41 PM | Get permalink

The terrible cost.

Over at SFGate.com, columnist Mark Morford speculates on the terror that Canada's same-sex marriage stance is striking into the hearts of the US right wing, religious and otherwise.

"I don't really know what this means, what it represents, what it entails, what gay people stand for, where they come from or what they do or why they do it or how they become that way in the first place or even if they're allowed to vote or fly in airplanes," announced a very trembly George W. Bush at a hastily arranged press conference in the Super Mega Hetero Gun Room of the White House.

"But I do know we won't stand for it, and if these gul-dang furriner evildoers think they can get away with these kinds of tender unions and hand holdings and loving smiles and beautiful intimate commitments, well, they haven't seen America's righteous firepower!" he shouted, pounding his cute little fist on the podium. "We shall prevail!" Then he fainted. [...]

"As far as I'm told, Canada actually borders our fine upstanding nation," Bush managed to continue, after being hoisted upright, as a paler-than-usual Dick Cheney whispered desperately into Bush's ear while Lynne frantically tried to dissuade their secret lesbian daughter from splitting for Saskatchewan with her lover on the next flight out.

"This means we as a country are actually touching a bunch of gay married people right this very minute! Look at this map! It's like an adjacency thing! Like some sort of weird tidal wave of gay Canadian people in love, just waiting up north to ride big pink buses down here and open chains of well-appointed little erotic chocolate boutiques and buy up all the Cher Farewell Tour tickets. This will not do!"

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:24 PM | Get permalink

Looking for Saddam.

It's a tough job, reports the LA Times. Especially when the search for the ex-Iraqi leader centers on Tikrit, where Arab traditions and political loyalty combine to hide Saddam's whereabouts — if he is indeed still alive.

This part of Iraq is Hussein country: tribal, Sunni Muslim and heavily Baath, the party the former president counted on for support. Most people here worked for the regime, and almost everyone would like to see it return to power.

It is the part of Iraq where Hussein could find shelter in almost any house he approached and be assured that his hosts would not betray him.

Even the graffiti, much of it freshly painted in green Arabic lettering on the low walls that border Tikrit's main street, tell the story. "Congratulations on your birthday, sir, despite the new situation," reads one sign. Another reads, "Saddam still exists, you dog Bush." And one: "Anyone who deals with the Americans should be killed."

Although a local resident almost certainly played a role in Mahmud's capture, the Americans' questioning of people here seems futile to Hussein loyalists.

"They are asking silly things. 'Have you seen Saddam Hussein?' 'Where did you see him?' And the answer they get is, 'No, I haven't seen him.' And that is reality," said Marwan Adnan Nasiri, a 37-year-old lawyer who said six or seven of his cousins have been detained. Some of them have been released.

"If I knew where Saddam was, I would never tell you," he said with a pleasant smile, "because you are an American."

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:13 PM | Get permalink

Roe v. Wade won't be re-opened.

An attempt by the woman once known as 'Jane Roe' to re-open the case that led to the landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion has been turned down by a federal judge in Texas. Backed by anti-choice groups, Norma McCorvey had asked that the case be re-opened based on supposed new evidence showing that abortion harms women. In deciding against McCorvey, the court ruled that she didn't make her request within a 'reasonable time' after the 1973 Roe v Wade decision.

"Whether or not the Supreme Court was infallible, its Roe decision was certainly final in this litigation," Judge David Godbey wrote in the ruling. "It is simply too late now, thirty years after the fact, for McCorvey to revisit that judgment." [...]

Federal law allows litigants to petition the court to reopen cases in extraordinary situations, but such requests must be made weeks or months after the judgment, not decades, Godbey wrote.

Although McCorvey was the plaintiff in the case the ultimately legalized abortion, she has since joined the anti-abortion side of the debate. Since she filed her request to re-open the case earlier this week, pro-choice groups have maintained that the request was merely a publicity attempt.

Sarah Weddington, the abortion rights activist and attorney who originally represented McCorvey, said she was delighted but not surprised that McCorvey's request was dismissed.

"It never should have been filed," Weddington said Friday. "Those who filed it got publicity, but the publicity actually has been very helpful for those of us who believe the government should not be involved."

McCorvey's attorney says that she will probably ask the court to reconsider its ruling.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:21 AM | Get permalink

Light blogging today.

Magpie needs to practice 'The Gravel Walks.' Her current playing of the tune is, shall we say, less than adequate.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:56 AM | Get permalink

Thursday, June 19

Ten years.

The House Armed Services Committee heard testimony today that the US occupation of Iraq could last 10 years.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave no explicit estimates for the time U.S. forces would stay in Iraq, but they did not dispute members of Congress who said the deployment could last a decade or more. The comments were among the most explicit acknowledgements yet from the Bush administration that the U.S. presence in Iraq will be long, arduous, costly and a strain on the military.

By the way, if you go to the Defense Department press release on Wolfowitz and Pace's committee appearance, you'll notice that the 10-year estimate isn't there.

Another one via This Modern World, which had a particularly good day today.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:02 PM | Get permalink

Rolling back the new FCC rules.

The attempt by the US Senate to roll back the FCC's loosened media ownership rules passed its first hurdle earlier today. The Senate Commerce Committee has voted to send the Preservation of Localism, Program Diversity, and Competition in Television Broadcast Act of 2003 to a vote of the full Senate.

Via This Modern World.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:48 PM | Get permalink

Cutting off the debate.

Just before the 2002 US election, Senate Democrats killed the nomination of Texas Supreme Court justice Priscilla Owen to the federal bench. After the election, Dubya renominated her. The Democrats have stopped the nomination again by using the filibuster. The Republicans need 60 votes to end it, but they only have 50.

What to do? Lou Dubose's current article in the L.A. Weekly reveals the Republican plan. And it also gives a pretty good idea of why Owen should be kept down there in Texas.

Now, it looks like the Bush Brain Trust may try to end the filibuster that keeps Owen?s future up in the air. It works like this. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist attempts to gradually lower from 60 to 51 the votes needed to end a filibuster. That fails, because it requires 60 votes to change a Senate rule and the Republicans have only 50. Then Vice President Cheney rules on a constitutional point of order that 51 votes can end a filibuster of nominations. The Senate parliamentarian, appointed by Republicans, upholds his ruling. The filibuster blocking Priscilla Owen is ended. (And the road is cleared for the right-wing Supreme Court justices Bush will appoint later in his first term.) It would be quite an end to a Senate procedure in effect since George Washington held office.

As TalkLeft suggests, now is an excellent time to let your senators that you want them to vote against this plan. Find out who your senators are here, and then send an email or call their office directly. Or you can use this toll-free number for the Senate switchboard: 1-800-839-5276.

Via TalkLeft.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:21 PM | Get permalink

Homeless? Got 40 minutes or so?

If you're in Portland, Oregon, the AP reports that a local pizza chain will give you a slice of pizza, a coke, and a few bucks.

"I think it's a fair trade," [panhandler Peter] Schoeff said. "We're career panhandlers, that's the only other way we can get money."

The signs were meant to be humorous, said Andre Jehan, founder of Pizza Schmizza, a 26-restaurant business in Oregon and Washington.

"People don't have to feel guilty, while still appreciating the person is homeless. It's a gesture of kindness more than anything," he said.

This crowgirl notes that it's also far cheaper than paying the homeless minimum wage.

Via ReachM High.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:15 PM | Get permalink

Press freedom, occupation style.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that recently introduced restrictions on media content are going over like a lead balloon with Iraqi editors and reporters.

Under CPA Order Number 14, issued by occupation government honcho Paul Bremer, the Iraqi media are barred from airing or publishing material that incites violence against any individual or group "including racial, ethnic, religious groups, and women"; encourages civil disorder; or "incites violence against coalition forces." Breaking Order Number 14 could land the violator in prison for a year, or subject them to a US $1000 fine. While Bremer says the rule is aimed at stopping people from trying to incite political violence, editors and journalists say it smacks of the way Saddam Hussein muzzled the press.

Among the scores of new publications that have flooded Iraq's newsstands since the US-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime, the broadsheet As-Saah is one of the most widely read. In a front-page editorial Wednesday, the paper's senior editor let readers know what he thought of the country's liberators: "Bremer is a Baathist," the headline reads.

In an interview, editor Ni'ma Abdulrazzaq says the press edict decreed by Bremer lays out restrictions similar to those under Mr. Hussein. Not long ago, an uppity writer could easily be accused of being an agent for America or Israel. "Now they put plastic bags on our heads, throw us to the ground, and accuse us of being agents of Saddam Hussein," the editorial reads. "In other words, if you're not with America, you're with Saddam."

"Mr. Bremer, you remind us of Saddam," the column continues. "We've waited a long time to be free. Now you want us to be slaves."

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:03 PM | Get permalink

Who are you, again?

Since 9/11, the pressure to develop and deploy biometric systems to identify terrorists has grown. Advocates claim that iris scanning, facial recognition software, and other biometric methods are very accurate and cost-effective. James Wayman begs to differ. As a biometrics advisor to both the US and UK governments, he has an insiders view of the promise and limitations of biometrics. New Scientist has an interview.

That sounds crazy: forcing governments to use biometric systems that may not work?

Some people say it's like barcodes, which didn't work in the early days. Biometrics will get better, it's true. But it's a bad analogy because barcodes can be controlled in manufacturing. If a checker has to type in the code too many times they make the manufacturer redesign the can. Human beings can't go to God. No one technology is going to provide the magic bullet. People are different in ways that you could never imagine. They never have what you think they are going to have where you think they are going to have it.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:43 PM | Get permalink

The graves in Iraq.

The Moscow Times offers a blistering commentary on recent events in Iraq.

Equally insignificant, apparently, are the U.S. soldiers who keep dying, week after week, in a war whose triumphant "end" was announced nearly two months ago by the Dear Leader during his million-dollar photo-op on an aircraft carrier. This week, stung by mounting evidence -- including prewar reports from the Pentagon's own intelligence service -- that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before the war and thus no casus belli, Bush struck back. The president, whose family fortune was built in part on profits from the Auschwitz death camp, denounced his critics as "historical revisionists," Reuters reports. Wisely ignoring the WMD issue altogether, Bush offered up his last remaining line of defense: "This is for certain: Saddam Hussein is no longer a threat to the United States."

Who then is killing Americans by the dozens in Iraq? The Dear Leader's own spokesmen tell us it is "Baathist die-hards," who are likely being paid if not directly supervised by the still-alive, still-free dictator himself. Saddam, it seems, enjoys considerably more liberty than the liberated Iraqi people. And he is a much greater threat to Americans now -- as a free agent, with nothing to lose, operating in secret -- than he ever was as the struggling head of a crippled country crawling with UN inspectors, Kurdish armies and Allied warplanes controlling his skies. From 1991 to 2003, not a single American death can be tied to Saddam Hussein; but in the seven weeks since Bush declared "mission accomplished," his partisans have killed more than 40 Americans.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:00 PM | Get permalink

If your name is Muhammad and you live in Kansas City.

Magpie has good news: Your library fines have been paid.

On Saturday, a man walked into the Kansas City Public Library's Southeast branch and paid off more than $600 in outstanding fines for everyone whose last name is Muhammad.

And it didn't go on the Visa card; he paid the debt off in ramen noodles. Each year the library is host for a food drive in which the tardy can donate canned or nonperishable goods and wipe away the fines. Each item clears $1 of debt.

That's right -- more than 600 packages of ramen noodles. The man had to make two trips, prompting this recollection from Gretchen Dombrock, branch manager: "I've never seen so many packages of ramen noodles."

Via librarian.net.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:29 AM | Get permalink

A well-deserved apology.

South Knox Bubba has one to Dubya that's so good Magpie is posting the whole thing.

I owe George Bush an apology for criticizing his brilliant foreign policy involving failed diplomacy and the unprovoked, pre-emptive invasion of a sovereign state. It appears that Iraq in fact had no WMD, so it wasn't pre-emptive after all. Just unprovoked.

| | Posted by Magpie at 2:18 AM | Get permalink

We've been here before.

Dubya's assault on liberty and the Bill of Rights isn't the first in US history. Not by a long shot. Thom Hartmann looks at President John Adams and the Alien & Sedition Acts for both a warning and a source of hope in our current situation.

It started when Benjamin Franklin Bache, grandson of Benjamin Franklin and editor of the Philadelphia newspaper the Aurora, began to speak out against the policies of then-President John Adams. Bache supported Vice President Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party (today called the Democratic Party) when John Adams led the conservative Federalists (who today would be philosophically identical to GOP Republicans). Bache attacked Adams in an op-ed piece by calling the president "old, querulous, Bald, blind, crippled, Toothless Adams." [...]

Bache's writings sent Adams and his wife into a self-righteous frenzy. Abigail wrote to her husband and others that Benjamin Franklin Bache was expressing the "malice" of a man possessed by Satan. The Democratic-Republican newspaper editors were engaging, she said, in "abuse, deception, and falsehood," and Bache was a "lying wretch."

Abigail insisted that her husband and Congress must act to punish Bache for his "most insolent and abusive" words about her husband and his administration. His "wicked and base, violent and calumniating abuse" must be stopped, she demanded.

Abigail Adams followed the logic employed by modern-day "conservatives" who call the administration "the government" and say that those opposed to an administration's policies are "unpatriotic," by writing that Bache's "abuse" being "leveled against the Government" of the United States (her husband) could even plunge the nation into a "civil war."

If you want to know more about this period of US history, check out Richard Rosenfeld's American Aurora: A Democratic-Republican Returns. The Suppressed History of Our Nation's Beginnings and the Heroic Newspaper that Tried to Report It. There's a review of the book here.

As an almost-historian herself (only half a thesis away), this crowgirl has always wondered why people on the US left seem almost as oblivious of history as anyone else in the country. Hartmann's article is a welcome exception.

Via wood s lot.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:56 AM | Get permalink

Afflicting the afflicted.

Amnesty International USA has issued a report on how the US treats refugee children who are unaccompanied by an adult. The report accuses US officials of frequently treating these children as juvenile offenders, in clear contravention of international standards.

AI sent a detailed questionnaire on the policies, procedures and conditions of detention to 115 facilities nationwide that reportedly have housed unaccompanied children. The responses from the 33 facilities that returned a completed survey document the many problems endemic to a system that locks up children who are not convicted of crimes - particularly in so-called secure facilities:

— Forty-eight percent of secure facilities reported that they house unaccompanied minors in the same cells as juvenile offenders;
— More than half (57%) said they use solitary confinement as punishment;
— Eighty-three percent said they routinely restrain children when taking them outside the facility;
— Only 13 percent provide the children with the required weekly psychological counseling;
— Only 35 percent reported that they explain to children why they have been detained in such a facility and that they have the right to judicial review of the decision to put them there.

Amnesty's press release on the report includes the following, gathered from interviews with refugee children and their attorneys:

— Children and advocates told AI that at one facility, physical abuse is sometimes used as punishment. Staff reportedly kick children, throw them to the floor and knock their heads into walls for infractions such as looking the wrong way or saying "can I use the bathroom" instead of "may I."

— JD told AI delegates that he had been strip-searched about 25 times in the five weeks he spent in secure detention. One search occurred after he lost a pen. Guards threatened to send him back to the country of his birth because he couldn't find the pen.

— RT reported that he was handcuffed, restrained with leg-irons and chained to two other children during transport to the dentist. He said he remained handcuffed to the other children in the waiting room, and that the "regular people" in the room were staring at him.

— AI researchers observed a 16-year-old asylum-seeker who had been held in solitary confinement for five days. The researchers later saw him in the throes of an apparent anxiety attack. He had been housed in a shelter facility nearby, but reportedly was transferred without explanation to a secure facility in handcuffs and leg irons. His attorney was not informed of the transfer until a guard reported this "nervous breakdown." When the attorney finally saw him, he repeatedly begged "Help me!" and began to cry when she explained he would be strip-searched after her visit.

— Fega, who was seven when she arrived in the US, curled up in a fetal position and wept when she heard Yoruba, her native language, for the first time in more than a year of detention. The primary languages at Boystown, a Florida shelter where Fega spent a total of 15 months, are Spanish, Creole and Mandarin. Fega asked the Yoruba interpreter if she was her mother, something she often had asked the women she encountered.

The press release announcing the report and its findings is here.

If you want to read the complete report, Amnesty has made it available as an html file or a PDF file.

Via TalkLeft.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:34 AM | Get permalink

Democrats letting Dubya get away with mishandling the economy.

The economy sucks, but so far the field of candidates vying for the Democratic presidential nomination haven't been able to use this issue successfully against the White House. The Washington Post looks at how the Democrats seem to be fumbling the economic ball to Dubya's benefit.

Under Bush, the U.S. economy has lost about 3 million private-sector jobs. The unemployment rate has risen from 4.2 percent to 6.1 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average, despite a recent rebound, remains more than 1,100 points below the levels of January 2001. The president's tax cuts and spending increases have turned budget surpluses into record deficits that some experts say amount to a long-term fiscal crisis.

In the face of those figures, Democrats appear stymied. The party's congressional wing, operating in the minority, has neither the votes nor the megaphone to carry an economic message, party strategists acknowledge. The party's presidential candidates speak with nine voices, and they have failed to make the economy a consistent and coherent focus of their messages. Polls show that the public neither blames Bush principally for the state of the economy nor recognizes a Democratic alternative. [...]

Many of the candidates have given, at some time over the past six months, a major economic speech, and harsh criticism of the president is threaded through their standard speeches along the campaign trail. It has added up to little, in part because no one has a full-blown economic program.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:09 AM | Get permalink

The gun continues to smoke in UK Iraq investigation.

The UK Parliament has posted the evidence presented by MPs Robin Cook and Clare Short in the parliamentary investigation of how Tony Blair's government used intelligence about Iraq in the run-up to the invasion.

Q25 Mr Chidgey: Can I then turn to the chemical and biological programme which you have already said was the area, as far as you were concerned, where there were questions. In a previous stage of our reporting on weapons of mass destruction, we were advised by one key witness that a thousand litres of anthrax or less would be almost impossible to discover in a place like Iraq. I would like you in a moment to ask me whether that was the intelligence services' view as well. Presumably that information would have been passed to Government. The real key to this for me is, if it is impossible to discover a thousand litres or less of anthrax, which clearly has a potential to do incredible damage to many people, would the advice have been that if it was impossible to remove the threat of a chemical or biological weapon the only sensible policy to pursue would be to remove the organisation that would use that threat? At what stage was an assessment made that the only safe way to go forward in terms of our interest would be pursue a policy regime change rather than suppression or destruction of chemical weapons that were so difficult to find?

Mr Cook: I think you reflect more of the United States' debate than the British debate. For the period that I was Foreign Secretary we did not have anxiety that anthrax, to which you refer, was on the verge of being turned into a weaponised capability. As I said earlier, we were frustrated by the fact, as you rightly say, that these things are difficult to find, easy to conceal and, therefore, we were not able to make the progress that we had hoped up until 1998. On the other hand, after 1998 we did not have any compelling, urgent reason to believe that containment was not working in the sense of keeping Saddam in his cage. I would also make the point that biological agents such as anthrax are extremely toxic and a menace to anybody near them, but they were not weaponised then, and if not weaponised cannot be used for military purpose. We are fortunate in that it is not particularly easy to weaponise biological agents because weapons do tend either to explode or incinerate, which tends to have the effect of destroying the biological agent that they are carrying. This is fortunate for humanity because it is actually quite easy to get hold of biological agents; it is fortunate it is not particularly easy to turn them into weapons. I never actually saw any intelligence to suggest that Saddam had successfully weaponised that material. The one other point I would make is that, whilst it is certainly true that 10,000 litres is a small volume and not terribly easy to find if you are searching for it, we now actually have under interrogation all the senior figures from the Iraqi weapons programme. It makes it particularly odd, if these exist, that we have not been led to them. Their existence must be known to scores if not hundreds of people who were involved in the transport, storage and protection of such material. It is curious that none of them have come forward, since the reward would be immense. They could have their own ranch in Texas if they were to lead us to such a thing at the present time. That does also leave the very real anxiety, if they have not come forward to us and if these things exist, have they come forward to a terrorist organisation? If priceless works of art can be smuggled out of Iraq could 10,000 litres of anthrax?

Via also not found in nature.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:02 AM | Get permalink

The true cost of US media deregulation.

The Onion has the scoop.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:51 AM | Get permalink

Belated justice for South African songwriter's family.

In the US, we're used to hearing stories of blues and R&B songwriters who were paid little or nothing for rights to songs that later made millions for other people. It turns out that something similar happened with what is probably the most famous song to come out of Africa: 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight.' Zulu musician Solomon Linda wrote the song in the 1940s, and sold the rights to a record producer in South Africa for 10 shillings. Since then, the song has been recorded by at least 170 artists (including famous versions by the Weavers and the Tokens) and has earned over US $75 million.

Until now, Linda's family has not shared in that wealth. However, an obscure provision of British Imperial Copyright Law means that Linda's three surviving daughters will receive millions in unpaid royalties.

The provision states that all rights to the song revert to the composer’s estate 25 years after his death. The family would have remained unaware that the provision existed had the talent spotter’s company not been belatedly struck by guilt.

It instructed its lawyers to find ways of helping the daughters. The lawyers then discovered the provision. The Master of the Supreme Court in Pretoria is now appointing an executor to Linda’s estate who will begin to recover the royalties due to the family – royalties that should be worth millions of pounds.

"We feel very angry about what happened because those Americans have got very rich on our father’s record while we got nothing,” Elizabeth Ntsele, Linda’s third daughter, said. “Two of my sisters did not go to school because there was no money, and my mother sold home-made beer so I could get an education."

Linda never wrote the song down. It was largely improvised when he and his band, the Evening Birds, visited the Johannesburg studio of Eric Gallo, an Italian who specialised in spotting black talent.

He paid Linda 10 shillings for the rights to the song, originally called Mbube, Zulu for “the lion”. He also gave him work packing boxes in the company’s warehouse, where he remained until his death.

The song was the first to sell more than 100,000 in South Africa. Its success made Linda the toast of the Zulu migrant worker hostels, but he had no idea of the fabulous wealth it could have brought him and his family.

Via The Statesman (India).

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:46 AM | Get permalink

Alberta stands alone.

The Globe & Mail reports that almost all Canadian provinces say they will comply with a proposed federal law legalizing same-sex unions. The federal government announced on Tuesday that it will speedily draft and pass such a law following court rulings in three provinces holding that a ban on same-sex unions violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Alberta's justice minister, however, has indicated that his province will do everything it can to block a change in the laws, including using the Constitution's 'notwithstanding clause' to prevent enforcement of the law in Alberta.

Attorney-General Geoff Plant of British Columbia, however, dismissed Alberta's threat as almost certainly an exercise in futility. He said a province cannot use the clause to override federal legislation on a matter within Ottawa's jurisdiction.

"The definition of marriage is a matter of federal constitutional responsibility, and I notice that in the last few days, what Alberta has said it will do has changed a little bit," Mr. Plant said. "My view is that an attempt to get through the back door what you cannot get through the front door will be struck down by the courts."

Constitutional expert Patrick Monahan of Toronto's Osgoode Hall Law School agreed. "You cannot use a province's right to issue marriage licences to frustrate the operation of federal law."

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:23 AM | Get permalink

We don't need no stinkin' global warming.

Amidst continuing reports that Dubya's White House is distorting science to serve right-wing politics, the NY Times reports that information on global warming is being dropped from an EPA report on the state of the environment. Officials report that the changes were made at the behest of the Council on Environmental Quality and Office of Management and Budget. A climate policy expert at the National Wildlife Federation said that the changes were 'like the White House directing the secretary of labor to alter unemployment data to paint a rosy economic picture.' [Not that that would ever happen. — Crowgirl]

This is not the first time that Dubya's heavy hand has fallen on EPA reports. Last September, the EPA's annual report on air pollution was released without a section on global warming after adminstration 'editing.' Such a section had appeared for the previous six years.

The editing eliminated references to many studies concluding that warming is at least partly caused by rising concentrations of smokestack and tail-pipe emissions and could threaten health and ecosystems.

Among the deletions were conclusions about the likely human contribution to warming from a 2001 report on climate by the National Research Council that the White House had commissioned and that President Bush had endorsed in speeches that year. White House officials also deleted a reference to a 1999 study showing that global temperatures had risen sharply in the previous decade compared with the last 1,000 years. In its place, administration officials added a reference to a new study, partly financed by the American Petroleum Institute, questioning that conclusion.

In the end, E.P.A. staff members, after discussions with administration officials, said they decided to delete the entire discussion to avoid criticism that they were selectively filtering science to suit policy. [...]

Drafts of the report have been circulating for months, but a heavy round of rewriting and cutting by White House officials in late April raised protest among E.P.A. officials working on the report.

An April 29 memorandum circulated among staff members said that after the changes by White House officials, the section on climate "no longer accurately represents scientific consensus on climate change."

Another memorandum circulated at the same time said that the easiest course would be to accept the White House revisions but that to do so would taint the agency, because "E.P.A. will take responsibility and severe criticism from the science and environmental communities for poorly representing the science."

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:04 AM | Get permalink

Not on the agenda.

The UK Independent takes a look at what European Union leaders aren't talking about at their current meeting in Greece.

Strictly off the agenda will be the economic factors that drive migrants half way round the world in search of a better life: the trade barriers that bar access to Third World goods and the billions of euros in subsidies paid to EU farm barons and agribusiness that cause economic ruin in the developing world. The 15 leaders will make no attempt to discuss what connects the flow of asylum-seekers to Europe and the obstacles placed in the way of the goods their countries try to sell us: the arbitrary and punitive duties on Kenyan-cut flowers, for example, or on the surplus EU fruit and vegetables that are dumped on Senegal's fragile market to the detriment of local producers.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:02 AM | Get permalink

Violence in Baghdad?

According to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, it's much better than what you'd find in a large US city.

While the deaths of U.S. troops generate "a deep sorrow,'' Rumsfeld said, he believes the American people feel the sacrifices are worthwhile.

"They recognize the difficulty of the task,'' Rumsfeld said. "You got to remember that if Washington, D.C., were the size of Baghdad, we would be having something like 215 murders a month. There's going to be violence in a big city.'' Rumsfeld noted that Baghdad has nearly six million residents.

Perhaps Rumsfeld should read this article from the UK Guardian to see exactly how similar life in Baghdad and Washington are.

This crowgirl wonders how Rumsfeld can equate the murders in a US city with killings by anti-US guerillas in Iraq while keeping a straight face.

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink

Wednesday, June 18

Another call for Dubya's impeachment over WMD issue.

This time, it's in the Seattle Weekly:

Iraq is half the size of South Africa, whose banned weapons were found instantly when apartheid ended. Iraq is not, as Bush protests, "a big country"; in two months, American soldiers have exhausted search possibilities. Nor have Iraq's weapons fled the country. Or been found. They have not existed for years. But soldiers died because George W. Bush said they did.

Thanks, Kathleen!

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:03 PM | Get permalink

More Vietnam-speak about Iraq.

Excerpts from an AP report, via the NY Times:

American forces are making progress against Iraqi resistance, a ground commander said Wednesday, asserting that the recent increase in U.S. casualties is "militarily insignificant."

Out of context, you wonder?

"I will never downplay Americans being killed in combat. It is a very significant sacrifice, especially for their families," he said. "But from a military perspective, it is insignificant. They're having no impact on the way we conduct business on a day-to-day basis in Iraq."

This crowgirl doesn't think the extended quote sounds much better.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:59 AM | Get permalink

Don't mess with Dubya. Or his daddy.

Cynthia McKinney used to represent a district in Georgia in the US House of Representatives. She lost her re-election bid in 2002 largely over a remark she reportedly made after 9/11, saying that Dubya knew about the attack on the World Trade Center in advance, and had deliberately withheld that information from the public. Major media, including NPR and the NY Times gave the remark wide currency, and McKinney was never able to recover from that bad publicity.

Guess what? McKinney never made her 'notorious' remark about Dubya. And, says journalist Greg Palast, the way McKinney was demonized appears to have more to do with her persistent questions about whether Dubya won Florida (and the White House) through the disenfranchisement of thousands of black voters, and, earlier, her call for an investigation of the activities of a mining company for whose Washington lobbyist was Bush senior.

AlterNet has Palast's full story about McKinney's problems here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:58 AM | Get permalink

Get ready for the bloodletting.

The Washington Post reports that Dubya has rejected overtures from Democratic senators to avoid a nasty confirmation battle if a Supreme Court position needs to be filled.

On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle sent a letter to Dubya suggesting a bipartisan meeting of Senate leaders to agree on consensus nominees for the high court. Earlier, Sen. Charles Schumer had written to Dubya as well, suggesting some nominees who would be acceptable to both Democrats and Republicans.

This morning, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer called the idea "a novel new approach to how the Constitution guides the appointment process." The Constitution gives the president sole power to nominate Supreme Court justices, who then need to be confirmed by the Senate.

Bush is declining to meet with Democrats on the topic. Fleischer said at a briefing that White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales "is always happy to meet and talk with these individual senators and of course he will, if they want to do that."

"But the Constitution is clear, the Constitution will be followed," Fleischer added. "We always welcome thoughts, but certainly no one wants to suggest that the Constitution be altered."

Fleischer brushed off questions about why Bush himself will not consult with the senators and about why Bush would not seize the opportunity to avoid a divisive process. "Unless and until there is a vacancy, this is idle chit-chat and I'd just leave it at chit-chat," Fleischer said.

At AlterNet, Kari Lydersen has a good article about what's at stake with the next Supreme Court vacancy, and what progressive groups are doing to prepare to deal with a reactionary Dubya nominee.

This crowgirl thinks that Fleischer's derision of the Democratic offer to avoid a confirmation battle is hypocrtical to the highest degree, given the continual complaints from Dubya's administration about how Democrats are obstructing judicial appointments. It appears that, if a Supreme Court vacancy does arise, having a divisive political fight over confirming Dubya's nominee is part of the Republican strategy for retaining the White House.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:57 AM | Get permalink

No comment.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, chair of the US Senate Judiciary Committee, had a few things to say during a hearing on copyright law:

During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.

"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can't.

"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."

The senator acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, "then destroy their computer."

"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions, he said.

"There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws," Hatch said.

Via The Agonist and the Washington Post.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:01 AM | Get permalink

Vietnam revisited?

Writing for Inter Press Service, Jim Lobe says that that the US press is starting to describe Iraq in the same terms it once used for Vietnam. And given that very little in Iraq seems to be going as Washington planned, Lobe isn't surprised by the similarity.

For instance, New York Times' military analyst Michel Gordon this weekend used the dreaded ''counter-insurgency'' about prospects for defeating unhappy armed Iraqis. ''Unlike the rush to Baghdad, this fight will not be measured in days but in months, if not years ... For the Americans this is a campaign of raids, bombing strikes and dragnets, as American commanders try to isolate and destroy remnants of the old order.''

''It is more like a counter-insurgency than in invasion,'' Gordon added, in what [analyst Tom] Engelhardt said marked the first reference to the tactic in relation to the U.S. ''war'' in Iraq.

In a swift echo, 'The Christian Science Monitor' followed with an article Monday titled ''U.S. Anti-Guerrilla Campaign Draws Iraqi Ire''. ''The U.S. army has changed from being a liberator to an offensive occupier,'' the article quoted Fawzi Shafi, editor of a new weekly newspaper in Fallujah, the apparent centre anti-U.S. resistance, as saying.

Rehabilitating schools and providing free gasoline to communities are now referred to by the old Vietnam cliché of ''winning hearts and minds''; arms seized by U.S. troops have been called ''weapons counts'', an eerie reminder of the ''body counts'' of Vietnam days.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:25 AM | Get permalink

Civil unions in store for UK lesbians/gay men.

The UK Independent reports that the UK goverment will introduce a bill into Parliament that will give lesbian and gay couples the same legal rights as married heterosexual couples. The formal announcement will be A revolutionary Bill giving gay and lesbian partners the same legal rights as married couples will be included in the Queen's Speech this November, and the law is expected to be approved within the following 12 months.

Under the Bill, pension and property rights will be conferred on homosexual couples for the first time - provided they agree to sign an official register of partnerships.

The changes would transform the lives of gay and lesbian people, allowing them to benefit from a dead spouse's pension, exempt them from inheritance tax on a partner's home and give next of kin rights in hospitals. [...]

The plans, particularly to grant pension rights, were bitterly opposed by some within Whitehall but Mr Blair has agreed that the Government should act swiftly to correct generations of injustice.

Following Mrs Roche's insistence, the proposals make the civil partnership as close to a marriage contract as possible, even including provision for a form of divorce through "dissolution" of a partnership.

The scheme will not apply to heterosexual cohabitees on the grounds that they have the option of civil or religious marriage denied to homosexuals.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:11 AM | Get permalink

Carrying the double burden.

An 18-month study by the Women's Empowerment Project is providing further evidence of the double burden that Palestinaian women bear. Besides having to deal with the violence and oppressive conditions of the Israeli occupation, Palestinian women also have to deal with the gender role traditionally set for women in Palestinian Arab culture. As a result, reports the BBC, Palestinian women 'face increasing domestic violence, anxiety disorders, depression and threat of honour killings.'

According to the Gaza City-based Women's Empowerment Project (WEP), reported cases of domestic violence have increased by 154% since 1999.

In a recent WEP study of 120 randomly selected women, more than 60% said they were victims of violence in the home.

Economic hardship was cited as a primary catalyst of abuse, aggravated by Gaza's soaring unemployment rate, now 56%.

"The men feel frustrated by the political situation so they project their anger on women and children," says WEP psychologist Hala Al Sarrag.

"Many also misinterpret the Koran, thinking it gives them justification to deal with women in any manner they want. They read one verse and forget the others that stipulate reverence and just treatment toward women." [...]

Samir Quota, a psychologist and research officer, explains that although women are less exposed to political violence than men, they are more vulnerable to psychological illness.

Centuries-old patriarchal customs keep Palestinian females largely confined to their homes.

"While males can go out and be active by demonstrating or even resisting, women have no means for catharsis," Quota says.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:02 AM | Get permalink

Canada to allow same-sex unions.

The Canadian government has decided not to appeal any of the recent court rulings that held laws against same-sex marriage to be illegal. The most recent of these came last week, when Ontario's high court ruled the province's ban on same-sex marriages violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and ordered provincial authorities to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples immediately.

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien says the goverment will draft a law providing for same-sex unions within a few weeks — unusually fast for such controversial legislation.

"We won't be appealing the recent decision on the definition of marriage. Rather, we'll be proposing legislation that will protect the right of churches and religious organizations to sanctify marriage as they define it. At the same time, we will ensure that our legislation includes and legally recognize the union of same-sex couples," he said.

He said the government plans to move quickly on the bill, and then refer the legislation to the Supreme Court. After that, it will be put to a free vote in the House of Commons, Mr. Chrétien said.

"We don't want there to be a long period of uncertainty."

The Toronto Star reports details of the cabinet meeting at which the government decided not to appeal the court rulings.

Huddled around a cabinet table, ministers sensed they were making history Tuesday as they spent a good part of the day haggling over details of the plan.

"There were a lot of vibes around the table," Justice Minister Martin Cauchon said.

"It's always special to be around the table when such an important decision is about to be debated."

One source said ministers unanimously supported the principle of same-sex marriage, but spent most of the time discussing how to navigate what could be a political minefield.

The bill will not have easy sailing in Parliament, or with all of the provinces once it has been passed into law. The ruling Liberal Party is divided on the issue, and the government would probably not be acting were it not for the recent court decisions. A provision allowing religious groups to refuse to perform same-sex unions is being put into the draft legislation to ease the qualms of some Liberal MPs.

Two provinces, Manitoba and Quebec, have already endorsed the government's decision. However Alberta says it will invoke the 'notwithstanding' clause of the Constitution to delay enforcement in Alberta of any federal law on same-sex marriages.

The right to marriage may be defined by Ottawa but it's up to the provinces to issue the licences, Alberta Justice Minister David Hancock said.

And Alberta has no intention to hand them out to same-sex couples, he said.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink

Tuesday, June 17

More evidence that Tony Blair lied about Iraqi WMDs.

The UK Independent reports on the first day of a parliamentary inquiry into the UK government's use of intelligence reports during the months before the invasion of Iraq. Two former cabinet members directly challenged PM Tony Blair's pre-war warnings that Iraq was capable of immediate deployment of chemical and biological weapons.

In an extraordinary public hearing at Westminster, Clare Short and Robin Cook told MPs that intelligence chiefs had concluded that the risk of Saddam using chemical or biological weapons was not high.

Ms Short, the former secretary of state for international development, said Mr Blair was guilty of "honourable deception" and claimed he used "a series of half-truths, exaggerations, reassurances that were not the case to get us into conflict by the spring.

"I believe that the Prime Minister must have concluded that it was honourable and desirable to back the US in going for military action in Iraq and therefore it was honourable for him to persuade us through various ruses and ways to get us there - so for him I think it was an honourable deception," said Ms Short.

Mr Cook, the former foreign secretary, accused ministers of "not presenting the whole picture" and presenting selective evidence to back the case for war.

Both former ministers said Mr Blair exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, and condemned the Government's dossier on Saddam's arsenal as "shoddy" and "thin".

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:59 PM | Get permalink

Oh happy day.

We all nagged MB into bringing Wampum back. Not full time, but she's back.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:24 PM | Get permalink

Do we get a discount if we buy the Prez and the Congress both?

A few days ago, Magpie noted that Dubya is on his way to having the biggest presidential campaign warchest ever. Today, we received this interesting message from the campaign reform group Public Campaign:

I thought you might want to take note of this little fact that we've unearthed: In inflation-adjusted dollars, the $170 million that Bush-Cheney '04 officials are naming as their fundraising goal for the primaries is more money than the combined amounts of private money (individual and PAC) raised for the presidential primaries by Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984, George H.W. Bush in 1988 and 1992, and Bob Dole in 1996.

We know he said he wants to "make the pie higher" but not this pie, please! Imagine how much more of the government he's going to have to sell off to special interests to raise this much cash.

Public Campaign has more information (along with the sources for their figures) here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:37 PM | Get permalink

News flash!

The NY Times retracts years of erroneous headlines.

Or maybe not.

Thanks Dr D!

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:28 PM | Get permalink

The world press looks at Iran.

Salon has compiled an excellent roundup of news coverage and commentary about the current situation in Iran.

In light of this simmering stew, Washington is not hiding its desire to see regime change in Iran. Some of the most bellicose elements of the U.S. Republican establishment further preach that such a change should be made by force. The protests in Tehran, whether or not encouraged by the U.S., fuel the potential for dangerous interference in Iran's internal affairs and support the explicit U.S. intention to prevent the Islamic regime from becoming a nuclear power. — El Pais, Spain

[Subscription or ad view req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:59 AM | Get permalink

US appeals court approves secret arrests.

A federal appeals court in Washington DC has ruled that the US government can keep secret the names of more than 700 people arrested and detained after 9/11. While a lower court had agreed with arguments by the Center for National Security Studies, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and other groups that the Justice Department should have to make public the names of the detainees, today's decision overturns that earlier ruling. In addition, the appeals court decision means that the government can also withhold the names of the detainees' lawyers, dates they were picked up, and the reasons they were detained. According to the court majority, federal judges should defer to government concerns that disclosing this information could help terrorists. The judges based their decision on an exemption in the Freedom of Information Act that exempts law enforcement information from disclosure if revealing it "could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings."

"America faces an enemy just as real as its former Cold War foes, with capabilities beyond the capacity of the judiciary to explore," wrote U.S. Circuit Judge David B. Sentelle. He said judges are "in an extremely poor position to second-guess the executive's judgment in this area of national security."

In a harsh dissenting opinion, Circuit Judge David S. Tatel accused his colleagues of "uncritical deference to the government's vague, poorly explained arguments for withholding broad categories of information about the detainees."

Tatel said the decision to withhold the information prevents U.S. citizens from learning whether the Bush administration "is violating the constitutional rights of the hundreds of persons whom it has detained in connection with its terrorism investigation." [...]

Tatel, in his dissenting opinion, said the ruling "eviscerates" the Freedom of Information Act and principles of openness in government.

"Just as the government has a compelling interest in ensuring citizens safety, so do citizens have a compelling interest in ensuring that their government does not, in discharging its duties, abuse one of its most awesome powers, the power to arrest and jail," Tatel wrote.

A lawyer for the Electronic Frontier Foundation told the AP that today's decision will be appealed.

The Center for National Security Studies has a complete history of the case, including the full text of today's appeals court decision, here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:57 AM | Get permalink

Behind bars at Macy's.

The NY Times has an article on the private jails and security forces used to deal with shoplifters by Macy's and other large US retailers. It's another example of the creeping privatization of law enforcement in the US, such as the use of private security forces by gated communities, arenas, and amusement parks. (The Disneyland/Disney World security operations are well-known examples.)

But the elaborate systems like the one at Macy's in Manhattan — which includes 100 security officers, four German shepherds, hundreds of cameras, and a closed-circuit television center reminiscent of a spaceship control room — have highlighted a concern shared by a range of people, from civil libertarians to individual shoppers who have been detained, and even to some law enforcement officials.

Whether guilty or innocent, these critics say, those accused of shoplifting are often deprived of some of the basic assurances usually provided in public law enforcement proceedings: the right to legal representation before questioning, rigorous safeguards against coercion, particularly in the case of juveniles, and the confidence that the officers in charge are adequately trained and meaningfully monitored. [...]

"The issue of private security guards is a difficult one," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "On the one hand, stores have an interest in protecting their business. But on the other hand, security guards have neither the training nor the same legal obligations as police officers and the danger of interfering with individual rights is huge."

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:46 AM | Get permalink

Homophobic outburst in Jerusalem.

Haaretz reports that members of the right-wing Kach movement tore down and burned rainbow flags that the city had put up in preparation for the lesbian/gay pride parade on Friday.

Ultra-Orthodox Shas MK Nissim Ze'ev, declining to comment on the flag-burning, said the parade should be forbidden. The gay-lesbian community "is a marginal, fringe group, and they must not be given a public stage." He said the parade "sends a negative message to our youth, and delegitimizes the Jewish family unit."

Baruch Marzel, an unsuccessful Knesset candidate and ex-leader of the Kach movement founded by the militant late Rabbi Meir Kahane, backed the flag-burning, criticizing fellow Orthodox politicians for remaining silent over a march that he said would "violate the holiness of Jerusalem."

"This parade in the holy city of Jerusalem is an abomination. It is a disgrace to every Jew, and therefore I certainly have no reservations about the flag burning yesterday evening on King George Street."

This crowgirl thinks that the statements of the Shas and Kach bigots sound an awful lot like things she's heard from the religious right in the US.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:30 AM | Get permalink

Monday, June 16

Another day, another platform.

The New Democrat Network has announced its six-point plan that it hopes will steer the party toward the political center, reports the LA Times. The NDN has supported Clinton-style 'moderate' Democrats for office since its formation in 1996. It raised almost US $7 million for candidates of this type during the 2002 elections.

"We need to be spending more of our time as a party not fighting with one another or getting mad at President Bush but crafting a compelling governing agenda," said Simon Rosenberg, the organization's president. "We have clearly not come up with a set of agenda points and a governing agenda than is better than what Bush is offering right now and we are kidding ourselves if we think we have." [...]

On national security, it endorses aggressive policies-such as a commitment to "ensure that America's military is the strongest, most agile, and best equipped in the world" -- that many on the left will likely consider too belligerent. On domestic issues, the calls for a balanced budget, "a market-based" plan for providing seniors prescription drugs, and reform of Medicare are also likely to raise red flags on the left.

This crowgirl wonders just why 'moderate' Democrats keep thinking that the way to win an election is to give people 'GOP lite.'

[Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:37 PM | Get permalink

Psssssst!

Wanna know what Magpie's place looks like?

Okay, here's the deal: Go over to cartoonist Christopher Baldwin's strip Bruno, and take a look at the strips for the week of June 9. The attic rooms where the character Dije is using the computer, talking on the phone, and watching TV are actually the place where Magpie lives. (Definitely not with Dije, thank you!) And yes, she really like living amidst that much clutter, but then she is a magpie, after all!

And if you're not familiar with Bruno, read some of the archived strips while you are there. Magpie has been a big fan for years, and she loves how real places in Portland are always appearing as background for Bruno storylines.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:01 PM | Get permalink

Hold Dubya accountable for distorting Iraq intelligence.

MoveOn.org has launched a petition drive in support of the demand that the US Congress create an independent commission to investigate charges that Dubya and his cohorts 'massaged' the intelligence about Iraq's weapons capbabilities.

Go here to sign the petition, and send a message to your members of Congress.

1. Please call for an independent, bipartisan commission to investigate the distortion of Iraq intelligence. The investigation should include open hearings with testimony from government and outside witnesses that conclude with an unclassified report to the American people.

2. Please co-sponsor H. Res. 260, a Resolution of Inquiry that compels the administration to turn over “documents or other materials in the President’s possession” to substantiate claims that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the U.S.. The House International Relations Committee is expected to vote on this resolution on Wednesday, June 18th. Some committee members may vote against this resolution by claiming that Congressional hearings will be sufficient. This would be a mistake. The closed-door hearings will not produce the answers that this resolution requires – and the American people deserve.

A President may make no more important decision than whether or not to take a country to war. If Bush or his officials deceived the American public to create support for the Iraq war, he needs to be held accountable.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:04 AM | Get permalink

More Iranians speak out against religious authority.

The AP has received a statement signed by 252 Iranian writers and university lecturers, calling for the supreme leader of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to accept that he is accountable to the people. The statement also supports an earlier call by liberal members of the Majlis (Iran's parliament) for democratic reforms.

The new statement is a direct challenge to the secular authority wielded by conservative clergy, including Khameini. The religious Council of Guardians, for example, can toss out legislation passed by the Majlis, and it has often exercised this power to thwart the reform efforts of President Mohammed Khatami.

The signers of the statement could be placing themselves in some danger. It is illegal in Iran to criticize the supreme leader.

"Considering individuals to be in the position of a divinity and absolute power ... is open polytheism (in contradiction to) almighty God and blatant oppression of the dignity of human being," said the statement issued Sunday.

"People (and their elected politicians) have the right to fully supervise their rulers, criticize them, and remove them from power if they are not satisfied," said the statement, which was published in the reformist newspaper Yas-e-nou on Monday.

Prominent among the 252 signatories were Hashem Aghajari, a lecturer who was condemned to death last year on charges of insulting Islam and questioning clerical rule, and Ebrahim Yazdi, the leader of the opposition party, the Freedom Movement of Iran.

After mass protests, Aghajari's death sentenced was revoked in February, but he remains in prison.

The signatories included two aides to President Mohammad Khatami: Saeed Pourazizi, an official in the president's office; and Saeed Hajjarian, who is widely regarded as the architect of Khatami's reform program. Hardline vigilantes shot and wounded Hajjarian in 2000.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:02 AM | Get permalink

Sunday, June 15

Howdy.

A big ol' Magpie hello to Joe 6 Pack.

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:28 PM | Get permalink

More protests in Iran.

The protests in Tehran have carried on into a sixth night. Reuters is reporting that gunshots have been heard near a university dormitory that has been a focal point for the demonstrations.

Hardline Islamic vigilantes, some carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles and wearing bullet-proof vests, patrolled streets near the university campus which were clogged with thousands of cars carrying people trying to take part in the protests.

Police on Saturday had warned plainclothes vigilantes, who are fiercely loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and had attacked demonstrators with clubs, knives and chains, from taking the law into their own hands.

"Immediately after the gunshots some of these hard-liners jumped on their motorbikes and headed in the direction of the (sound of the) shots," a Reuters correspondent said.

Meanwhile, the BBC reports that an influential group of reformists have signed a letter defending the right of Iranians to criticize the country's leadership:

[T]he 248 reformists said the people of Iran had "the right to fully supervise the action of their rulers".

"Sitting or making individuals sit in the position of divine and absolute power is a clear heresy towards God and a clear affront to human dignity," said the strongly-worded statement. [...]

The dissidents' one-page statement was followed by two pages of names of its signatories, the AFP news agency reported.

They include Hashem Aghajari, a pro-reform dissident who is awaiting a revision of his death sentence passed last year after he questioned the clerics' right to rule.

Another signatory is dissident Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the cleric once designated as successor to the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Khomeini.

AFP reports on warnings from the Iranian government and much of the Iranian media that the US not try to take advantage of the current unrest:

Feeling the pressure from all sides, Tehran also hit out at Washington after the White House said it was "alarmed" by the crackdown. The foreign ministry said such comments constituted a "flagrant example of interference in Iran's internal affairs". [...]

[Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei has accused arch-enemy the United States of orchestrating the unrest. Many protestors seeking to join the fray were answering calls from US-based Iranian opposition-run Persian language satellite television channels -- notably the Los Angeles-based pro-monarchist NITV.

State television and radio also accused foreign media of distorting their coverage of unrest in line with an "imperialist and Zionist" plot against the Islamic republic. Foreign media in Tehran have received a written recommendation from the authorities to keep away from the scene of the protests.

BBC Monitoring has a sampling of how the Iranian press is covering the protests:

Activating the reform movement under the current circumstances will enable us to kill many birds with one stone. First, the Majlis will be able to test the method of exerting pressure from below while bargaining at the top. Second, one can channel the current developments in a democratic direction. Third, one can compel totalitarian groups... to retreat and dissolve black and reactionary pressure groups. — Tose'eh - reformist

Foreigners are waiting to take advantage of any kind of protests, even anti-inflation protests... Unsystematic, violent, radical and sensationalized reactions to the protests will... only result in the escalation of such protests and turn their focus from socio-economic issues to political ones. — Resalat - conservative

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:26 PM | Get permalink

That gig in Lagos.

In May, the Irish government brought a passel of traditional musicians to Nigeria for a series of concerts. Magpie hates to use the word 'charming,' but that's the best she can come up with in describing this review of one of the concerts from the This Day newspaper in Lagos.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:19 AM | Get permalink

The 'D' word.

No, not 'deficit' — deflation.

Writing in The Nation, economics journalist William Greider is not at all bullish on the US economy.

At the risk of sounding like Chicken Little, I am going to describe the economic situation in plain English. The United States is flirting with a low-grade depression, one that may last for years unless the government takes decisive action to overcome it. This would most likely be depression with a small d, not the financial collapse and "grapes of wrath" devastation Americans experienced during the Great Depression of the 1930s. But the potential consequences, especially for the less affluent and the young, would be severe enough--a long interlude of sputtering stagnation, years of tepid growth and stubbornly high unemployment, punctuated occasionally with a renewed recession. Depression means an economy that is stuck in a ditch and cannot get out, unable to regain its normal energies for expansion. Japan, second-largest economy in the world, has been in this condition for roughly twelve years, following the collapse of its own financial bubble. If the same fate has befallen the United States, the globalized economy is imperiled, too, since America's market for imports and its huge trade deficits keep the global trading system afloat.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:08 AM | Get permalink

Indians and US Law.

Indian Country Today has a special issue on the legal relationship between Indian tribes and the US government. A collection of excellent articles run the gamut from why tribes should codify their laws to how tribes are trying to educate the US Supreme Court about native issues. There's an overview of the issue here.

Magpie particularly recommends the article about the roots of tribal sovereignty by David Wilkins.

I’d, therefore, like to focus on one of the few legal doctrines that has proven to be of some merit to indigenous peoples in their quest for domestic peace, tranquility, and justice since it is generally regarded as one of the most important doctrines undergirding the treaty and trust rights of indigenous nations - the reserved rights doctrine. On its face, this doctrine is less problematic than those of plenary power, discovery, trust, or good faith since the word "reserve," is the root word of the "reservations" that constitute a fundamental aspect of the Indian and U.S. relationship.

Broadly defined, reservations are tracts of land expressly set aside or reserved for Indian nations by tribal insistence and some federal action. Many Americans have at least some vague notion and will concede, if reluctantly, that although Indian tribes "lost," "surrendered," or "sold," most of homelands to the United States, railroads, states, and enterprising whites, they rightfully retained through sheer determination or liberal federal Indian policies, smaller regions designated as "Indian reservations." In fact, with summer upon us, American tourists are already trekking to reservations in search of indigenous culture and identity.

Interestingly, these same Americans, however, are sometimes taken aback or in some cases become irate when tribal nations and their citizens move to assert reserved rights - be it a property right like the right to hunt, gather, or fish, or a political right like the power to regulate domestic relations, tax, administer justice, exercise civil and criminal jurisdiction, among others. Why these Americans will concede the greater reserved right (recognize tribal land ownership) but refuse to recognize the lesser rights (rights to tribal property or treaty or civil rights) is a most interesting phenomenon, and speaks to the ongoing schizophrenia the American public and many of their lawmakers exhibit towards First Nations.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:03 AM | Get permalink

That Mikhaela.

She comes by it honestly.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:02 AM | Get permalink

Pax Americana.

The current drive of the US for world domination is unprecedented, says historian Eric Hobsbawm, writing in the UK Guardian. Previously, the best an imperial power could hope for was regional dominance. But in the absence of any competing superpower, the global reach of the US probably means that it can impose its will on the rest of the world. However, Hobsbawm warns that the US can't maintain world domination forever.

How long the present superiority of the Americans lasts is impossible to say. The only thing of which we can be absolutely certain is that historically it will be a temporary phenomenon, as all other empires have been. In the course of a lifetime we have seen the end of all the colonial empires, the end of the so-called thousand-year empire of the Germans, which lasted a mere 12 years, the end of the Soviet Union's dream of world revolution.

There are internal reasons, the most immediate being that most Americans are not interested in running the world. What they are interested in is what happens to them in the US. The weakness of the US economy is such that at some stage both the US government and electors will decide that it is much more important to concentrate on the economy than to carry on with foreign military adventures. Even by local business standards Bush does not have an adequate economic policy for the US. And Bush's existing international policy is not a particularly rational one for US imperial interests - and certainly not for the interests of US capitalism. Hence the divisions of opinion within the US government.

The key questions now are: what will the Americans do next, and how will other countries react? Will some countries, like Britain, back anything the US plans? Their governments must indicate that there are limits. The most positive contribution has been made by the Turks, simply by saying there are things they are not prepared to do, even though they know it would pay. But the major preoccupation is that of - if not containing - educating or re-educating the US. There was a time when the US empire recognised limitations, or at least the desirability of behaving as though it had limitations. This was largely because the US was afraid of somebody else: the Soviet Union. In the absence of this kind of fear, enlightened self-interest and education have to take over.

Via also not found in nature.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink