Prosecutor Weighs Charges Against Rove in Leak Case

The New York Times
Prosecutor Weighs Charges Against Rove in Leak Case
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and DAVID JOHNSTON

WASHINGTON, April 27 — Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case, is expected to decide in the next two to three weeks whether to bring perjury charges against Karl Rove, the powerful adviser to President Bush, lawyers involved in the case said Thursday.

With the completion of Mr. Rove's fifth appearance before the grand jury on Wednesday, Mr. Fitzgerald is now believed to have assembled all of the facts necessary to determine whether to seek an indictment of Mr. Rove or drop the case.

Lawyers in the case said Mr. Fitzgerald would spend the coming days reviewing the transcript of Mr. Rove's three hours of testimony on Wednesday and weigh it against his previous statements to the grand jury as well as the testimony of others, including a sworn statement that Mr. Rove's lawyer gave to the prosecutor earlier this year. The lawyers were granted anonymity so they could speak about the internal legal deliberations in Mr. Rove's case.

A lawyer with knowledge of the case said that Mr. Rove had known for more than a month that he was likely to make another appearance before the grand jury, and that he had known since last fall that he would be subject to further questions from Mr. Fitzgerald before the prosecutor completed his inquiry.

Mr. Rove was relieved of his day-to-day domestic policy duties at the White House in a staff shake-up last week, but White House officials say the change was unrelated to his legal complications.

Randall Samborn, a spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald, declined to comment.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Mr. Rove, said Mr. Rove would be cleared. "We're confident at the end of this that Mr. Fitzgerald is going to find that Karl has been totally truthful and not only has done nothing wrong but has done everything right," Mr. Corallo said.

Mr. Fitzgerald must specifically decide whether Mr. Rove misled the grand jury in testimony he gave in 2004 about his conversations with reporters about Valerie Wilson, the intelligence officer at the heart of the C.I.A. leak case.

In his February 2004 testimony, Mr. Rove acknowledged talking to the columnist Robert D. Novak about Ms. Wilson, but he did not tell the grand jury about a second conversation he had about her with Matthew Cooper, a Time magazine reporter. Mr. Novak revealed her name and C.I.A. employment in a column on July 14, 2003.

Critics of the Bush administration have asserted that the revelation was retaliation against her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former diplomat who had publicly accused the administration of twisting some of the intelligence used to justify going to war with Iraq.

Mr. Rove later voluntarily told the grand jury about the conversation with Mr. Cooper, and said that he had forgotten about it in the rush of his daily business. But Mr. Fitzgerald has long been skeptical of Mr. Rove's account of his forgetfulness, lawyers in the case say. On Wednesday Mr. Fitzgerald questioned Mr. Rove about how he came to remember his conversation with Mr. Cooper.

Robert D. Luskin, Mr. Rove's lawyer, issued a statement on Wednesday declaring that Mr. Rove had testified "voluntarily and unconditionally" about a matter that had arisen since Mr. Rove's last grand jury appearance, in October 2005. Mr. Luskin was evidently referring to the testimony of Viveca Novak, a former reporter at Time magazine, who has said that she told Mr. Rove's lawyer in early 2004 that she believed that Mr. Rove had been a source for Mr. Cooper.

Mr. Rove admitted from the outset to investigators that he spoke to Mr. Novak on July 9, 2003, about Ms. Wilson. It was in that conversation that Mr. Rove first learned the name of Ms. Wilson from Mr. Novak, lawyers in the case said.

Mr. Rove's conversation with Mr. Cooper occurred two days later. In that conversation, Mr. Rove did not mention Ms. Wilson's name, but, Mr. Cooper said, Mr. Rove did say that she worked at the C.I.A.

Mr. Fitzgerald did not learn of Mr. Rove's conversation with Mr. Cooper until long after the investigation had begun, when a search of Mr. Rove's e-mail messages uncovered one that he had sent to Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, about the Cooper conversation.

It is still not publicly known why Mr. Rove's e-mail message to Mr. Hadley was not turned over earlier, but a lawyer in the case said White House documents were collected in response to several separate requests that may not have covered certain time periods or all relevant officials. Mr. Rove had no role in the search for documents, which was carried out by an administrative office in the White House.

Also on Thursday, a federal judge refused to dismiss charges against I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who was indicted on perjury and obstruction charges in the leak case last year.

The judge, Reggie B. Walton of Federal District Court, turned down a motion by lawyers for Mr. Libby who challenged Mr. Fitzgerald's authority to handle the case.

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Pentagon: Iraq Troop Reductions on the Way

ABC News
Pentagon: Iraq Troop Reductions on the Way
U.S. Could Be Down to 100,000 by End of Year
By JONATHAN KARL

April 26, 2006 — - As the top U.S. commander in Iraq suggested today that the United States would soon reduce the number of troops in Iraq, Pentagon planners said to ABC News that they hoped to pull more than 30,000 troops out by the end of the year, and possibly by as early as November.

The reductions depend on political and security progress in Iraq.

In a surprise visit to Baghdad, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld hailed progress toward the formation of a new Iraqi government as a "turning point" that would enable the United States to turn over more responsibility to the Iraqis.

Gen. George Casey, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, called the recent selection of new Iraqi leaders, including incoming Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a major step toward a partial withdrawal of U.S. troops.

In late December, Rumsfeld announced a reduction in U.S. troops that brought the number down from 150,000 to 132,000, and suggested more withdrawals would be coming. Casey suggested at the time that reductions would come by March, and the Pentagon had started planning to bring the number of troops down to 100,000 by the end of the year.

Instead of further reductions, 650 troops were added in March because of worsening violence and political deadlock. Plans for further withdrawals were frozen.

With the political deadlock in Iraq now apparently broken, Casey said today: "I'm still on my general timeline."

Pentagon officials said they were once again for troop withdrawals. First, the 650 extra troops sent to Iraq in March are expected to leave shortly and head back to Kuwait. Second, a recommendation from Casey is expected within weeks on more substantive reductions, possibly as many as 10,000 troops.

Depending on conditions in Iraq, Casey would initiate additional reductions by the end of the summer. Officials caution, however, that the reductions depend entirely on making progress in Iraq.

On the plane ride to Baghdad, Rice told reporters, "It's the Iraqis who are now in a position to deal with their problems in ways that I think they've not been in the past."

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G.M. Entangled in Pay-for-Publicity Dispute

The New York Times
G.M. Entangled in Pay-for-Publicity Dispute
By PHILIP SHENON

WASHINGTON, April 27 — A public relations firm has apologized to General Motors after acknowledging that it may have offered money to former Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich in exchange for public comments supporting the automaker's employee buyout program. The offer would violate General Motors's policy against payments to opinion makers.

The firm's president, Richard Strauss of Strauss Radio Strategies in Washington, would not say if other commentators were offered payment for public support of the troubled automaker's buyout plan, which is intended to reduce sharply its work force of 113,000 hourly employees.

Mr. Reich, who was labor secretary under President Bill Clinton and is now a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, had complained publicly about the incident, which he said occurred three weeks ago. He described the offer of payment as a new instance of how "corporate America is paying pundits to shill for them."

Neither Mr. Strauss nor Mr. Reich would respond to questions about how much money might have been offered. A spokesman for General Motors said the company had a strict policy barring payment to outside commentators to promote its interests.

In a statement on Wednesday, Mr. Strauss said, "I may have mentioned the possibility of an honorarium" to Mr. Reich "out of deference and respect to him and his position."

While Mr. Strauss insisted that he did not "recall making an offer of money," he said that he had apologized to General Motors "for any misinterpretation that resulted from my conversations with Secretary Reich," adding that he was "fully aware that G.M. does not pay money or any other compensation for opinions." His statement was prepared in response to a reporter's questions.

In recent months, the practice by companies of hiring supposedly independent outside commentators to promote their interests has come under scrutiny in Washington.

Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist at the center of an influence-peddling scandal here, paid at least two outside writers for opinion articles supporting the interests of his lobbying clients. And the Bush administration acknowledged last year that it paid outside writers and commentators to promote the Education Department policy known as No Child Left Behind.

On his personal blog on April 7 and in a subsequent article for The American Prospect magazine, Mr. Reich said, "A public relations firm working for General Motors phoned to ask if I'd say on the media that the buyback G.M. was offering its employees was a good deal for them."

"G.M.'s public relations firm said they'd offer me money if I did this, as a show of respect," he wrote. "I told them I'd look at the deal and make up my own mind, and I told them to keep the money."

He described the offer of payment as "an integrity buyout" and said that "if we've got to the point in this country when big corporations feel free to offer what are essentially bribes to columnists and commentators, we're really in trouble."

A spokesman for General Motors, Steve Harris, said the company had a firm policy of not paying outside commentators to make statements in support of it and its products. "We're not paying anybody," Mr. Harris said.

In the case of Mr. Reich, he said, "there apparently was a misunderstanding" with Strauss Radio.

Mr. Harris said that General Motors, through outside public relations firms, did try to provide news organizations with the names and contact information for independent specialists who might support its policies — in this case, the buyout offers — but that they received no compensation. Last month, G.M. announced a landmark deal with the United Automobile Workers union to offer buyouts to all 113,000 hourly workers in the United States.

"I've looked at the deal, and I don't know whether G.M.'s buyback offer is a good deal for its employees," Mr. Reich wrote in The American Prospect. "That depends on whether the alternative is a G.M. bankruptcy, in which case anyone who bailed out early and got some cash would be better off."

But he left no doubt about his disapproval of the offer from the public relations company.

"It just seems wrong for a company — or its representative — to offer money to someone like me to express a view the company wants expressed in the media," he wrote, adding, "It's one thing to offer an employee buyout; it's quite another thing to offer an integrity buyout."

Mr. Strauss, a former radio reporter who worked in the Clinton White House to promote its policies on radio, said in his statement that he had a "warm relationship with Robert Reich" that dates from the 1990's and that "this relationship may account for the misinterpretation, as I didn't provide the level of detail I could have with him."

He said that whatever the offer to Mr. Reich, "there was never any attempt to influence or pay for anyone's opinion."

On its Web site, Strauss Radio says that its client list includes several of the nation's largest companies, including Coca-Cola, I.B.M. and Hewlett-Packard, and that it has also done work for several federal agencies, including the Defense Department, the Treasury Department and the Voice of America.

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No computer 'trace' of offenders

BBC NEWS
No computer 'trace' of offenders

Details of more than 20 of the 80 most dangerous foreign prisoners freed without facing deportation cannot be found on the national police computer.

They include one murderer and a rapist. A source told the BBC police may not have sufficient details to run a check.

Officials are trying to trace hundreds of foreigners released without being considered for deportation since 1999.

But Home Office minister Hazel Blears insisted the most serious offenders would be out on licence and monitored.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke is due to give a written update to the House of Commons speaker on what has happened to some of the 1,023 foreign prisoners released between 1999 and last month.

Ms Blears said she was unable to say whether all the offenders were registered on the national police database or not, but added that every offender would have been registered by the Prison Service.

"Things don't just have to be on the police national computer," she told BBC Two's Newsnight.

"Clearly the Prison Service will have a record of who they were, when they came in, what their sentence was, and all those sources of information will be being used to make sure that they're being tracked properly."

She said the foreign inmates would have been dealt with in exactly the same way as British ones.

"What I can say to you is that the police are going through every single one of these individuals," she said.

"The people who've committed serious offences will be on licence and will be being monitored and the public should be reassured about that."

Mounting pressure

Newsnight reported that the Association of Chief Police Officers has appealed to regional police forces to search their own databases for the 20 foreign nationals who could not be found on the national system.

But it appears unclear whether their details are not listed or just have not shown up during checks.

I have to tell you that when your job is to defend the safety of the public that is a major failure and accordingly I'm afraid he has to go
David Davis, shadow home secretary

The Police National Computer stores details of convictions and cautions but one official told the BBC no trace of 20 of the 80 most serious offenders had been found because police were given only surnames, or names with multiple spellings.

Probation records are thought to have provided the best guide to their whereabouts, because many are under supervision or on licence.

Immigration files have also been reviewed.

The searches come amid mounting pressure from the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats for Mr Clarke to resign over the issue.

Shadow home secretary David Davis accused Mr Clarke, who has apologised, of a "major failure" and said he "had to go".

"Charles knew about this from July of last year - 10 months ago, his assertion - and we only got to the point of doing anything about it... two weeks ago," he told BBC One's Question Time.

'Black Wednesday'

"And in that time, the number of people being released had actually increased - it accelerated to nearly 300 - and what's more, they only gave the names of the thousand people who'd been released to the police to track down two days ago.

"I have to tell you that when your job is to defend the safety of the public that is a major failure."

On Thursday, Prime Minister Tony Blair robustly defended Mr Clarke and two of his Cabinet colleagues who have been under pressure in recent days.

He laughed off claims that he had suffered his own "Black Wednesday" the day before.

He was speaking after nurses booed Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt at the Royal College of Nurses' conference over job cuts, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott admitted to having had an affair and Mr Clarke faced calls to quit in the Commons.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4953008.stm

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In Terror War, Not All Names Are Equal

Inter Press Service News Agency
In Terror War, Not All Names Are Equal
William Fisher

NEW YORK, Apr 20 (IPS) - A major government watchdog group is charging that Muslim charities are being shut down for supposedly backing terrorist causes, while giant firms like Halliburton are receiving the full protection of U.S. law for allegedly breaking government sanctions against doing business with Iran -- a country designated as a sponsor of terrorism.

"There is unequal enforcement of anti-terrorist financing laws," says the Washington-based non-profit OMB Watch.

The group says the USA Patriot Act gives the government "largely unchecked power to designate any group as a terrorist organisation". And once a charitable organisation is so designated, all of its materials and property may be seized and its assets frozen. The charity is unable to see the government's evidence and thus understand the basis for the charges.

Since its assets are frozen, it lacks resources to mount a defence. And it has only limited right of appeal to the courts. So the government can target a charity, seize its assets, shut it down, obtain indictments against its leaders, but then delay a trial almost indefinitely.

Kay Guinane, OMB Watch's director of Nonprofit Speech Rights, told IPS, "The real tragedy behind closure of Muslim charities is the fate of people in need of humanitarian assistance, who are doing without because the funds have been frozen by the U.S. and sit in the bank, benefiting no one."

"The U.S. government could demonstrate its good faith by releasing these funds to other charities or aid agencies," she suggested.

Thus far, OMB Watch says, the effort has resulted in the government shutting down five charities that support humanitarian aid in Muslim areas without disclosing any official finding that they were aiding terrorist organisations. There has only been one indictment, no trials, and no convictions.

They include two Chicago-area Islamic charities, the Global Relief Foundation and the Benevolence International Foundation, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development in Texas, the Islamic American Relief Agency and the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation.

OMB Watch says that dozens of charitable groups have been investigated since 2001. The organisations shut down were not on any government watch list before their assets were frozen, it adds.

The result is that Muslims have no way of knowing which groups the government suspects of ties to terrorism. "Organisations and individuals suspected of supporting terrorism are guilty until proven innocent," it says.

To support its claim that the government is applying the law unevenly and targeting Muslim-American groups, OMB Watch cites the government's "velvet glove" treatment of the Halliburton Corporation, a giant defence contractor once headed by Vice Pres. Dick Cheney.

Halliburton has been under investigation by the Treasury Department, which oversees the terror-financing campaign, and the Department of Justice since 2001 for doing business with Iran, which is listed as a sponsor of terrorism.

But, says OMB Watch, rather than seizing and freezing assets "pending an investigation", Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Justice Department sent an inquiry to Halliburton requesting "information with regard to compliance".

Halliburton sent a written response explaining why it felt it was in compliance with the law. Halliburton's defence seemed to rest on the fact that its dealings with Iran were done through a Cayman Islands subsidiary, not its U.S.-based entity.

Over two years later, in January 2004, OFAC sent a follow-up letter requesting additional information, to which Halliburton responded that March. In July of that year, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas sent a grand jury subpoena requesting documents and the case was referred to the Justice Department.

On Sep. 22, 2005, the Progressive Caucus in the House of Representatives wrote to Pres. George W. Bush, asking that Halliburton be suspended from hurricane relief contracts for a host of reasons, including "dealing with nations that sponsor terrorism".

The White House took no action and Halliburton received no-bid contracts valued currently at 61.3 million dollars, and growing, to provide clean-up, rebuilding and logistical assistance to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Last year, an organisation called Halliburton Watch charged that the handling of the case against the company raises serious legal questions. For example, "If Halliburton were a charity, would its assets have been frozen like the U.S.-based Muslim charities?"

"Even though little is known about the evidence OFAC relied on to freeze and seize assets of Muslim charities, it appears there is much stronger evidence against Halliburton -- what legal distinction is OFAC making. If U.S. charities formed Cayman Island subsidiaries, could they avoid the USA PATRIOT Act, IEEPA, and Executive Order restrictions on dealings with groups or countries linked to terrorism?" the group asked.

Halliburton has also become the poster child for waste, fraud and abuse among U.S. contractors in Iraq. To date, it has received more than 12 billion dollars in contracts there, many of them on a no-bid basis.

The company failed to account for 43 percent of its Middle East expenses, with one billion dollars of those being considered "unreasonable" and another nearly half-billion in the "unsupported" category, according to Defence Department auditors.

Critics say the government's anti-terror financing campaign is a product of the paranoid Islamophobia that has gripped the U.S. since 9/11. They also say is has had its desired effect: to scare Muslim-Americans into abandoning one of the premier tenets of Islam -- giving to those in need.

The government denies these charges, saying it is merely trying to cut off funding to a wide variety of so-called charitable organisations that funnel money to groups that practice terrorist tactics. The Treasury Department cites Pres. Bush's pledge to ensure "that Arab Americans and American Muslims feel comfortable maintaining their tradition of charitable giving".

Meanwhile, Muslim charities report a precipitous decline in contributions. Contributions that do arrive come increasingly in cash from anonymous givers. And donors who happen to be Muslim are increasingly turning to the large household names like Oxfam and Save the Children, which may conduct programmes in predominantly Muslim areas abroad.

Leaders of the Muslim charitable community in the U.S. have had numerous meetings with officials at the Treasury Department, and together developed a set of "guidelines" for charitable organisations and their donors.

But these guidelines lack any specificity regarding Muslim philanthropy and could be applied to any charitable organisation. They also provide no safe harbour from being shut down. OMB Watch told IPS, "A group could comply 100 percent and still be shut down 'pending an investigation'."

Leaders of the Muslim philanthropic community in New Jersey asked the Treasury Department at the start of Ramadan in 2004 to issue a "white list" of "approved" charities. But the request was denied.

The government claimed it was impossible to fulfill. "Our role is to prosecute violations of criminal law," a spokesman said, adding, "We're not in a position to put out lists of any kind, particularly of any organisations that are good or bad."

But government critics also claim that Treasury's campaign is reminiscent of the activities of John Ashcroft's Justice Department in the months following the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001 on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

The government then launched its "Global War on Terror" by rounding up thousands of "Middle Eastern-looking" men and women, sending them to jail without charges or access to lawyers, holding many in solitary confinement, but accusing none of them with terror-related crimes, convicting no one, and ending up deporting some for non-criminal immigration violations. (FIN/2006)

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Farmers Fight Ban on Poppy Growing

Inter Press Service News Agency
AFGHANISTAN:
Farmers Fight Ban on Poppy Growing
Ahmad Ihsan Sarwaryar, Nadeem Kohistani and Zubair Babakarkhel - Pajhwok Afghan News*

KABUL, Apr 25 (IPS) - Agitated poppy farmers in western Herat province say they will not destroy their crops unless the Afghan government provides them with alternative sources of income.

''I will not stop growing poppy despite the ban by the government because I've no other source of livelihood,'' asserted Ghulam Sakhi, 45, from the Nahr-i-Farhad area of Rabat Sangi district. ''They (the government) should first kill me and 12 members of my family before they destroy my farms,'' he added.

The protesting farmer was addressing the provincial governor, Said Hussain Anwari and the police chief, who were touring the area, inspecting a poppy eradication campaign that was underway.

Security forces had manually flattened over 800 acres of poppy fields in Herat province just three weeks before farmers were due to harvest the opium -- the raw material for the production of heroin.

Sakhi accused counter-narcotics officials of putting up a show before the governor and police chief. Only poor growers have been targeted while the government has spared all those with influence, he charged.

Asadullah, another farmer, said the authorities have razed poppy crops on three acres of his land. "This is injustice," he declared. "I will not let them touch my remaining farms. How shall I manage the expenses of my eight-member family?" he asked.

But Herat governor Anwari repeated the official line: poppy cultivation is illegal, and the crops must be destroyed. At the same time, he promised to support the farmers by providing them with seeds and fertilisers. The governor said a dam was being built in the area at a cost of 40,000 US dollars to help farmers irrigate their fields.

Immediately after his election in late 2004, Afghan president Hamid Karzai had identified counter-narcotics as the top priority of his government. He is quoted saying that "the fight against drugs is the fight for Afghanistan", according to Washington-based Congressional Research Reports, a think-tank.

Last year, U.S., British and Afghan officials implemented a new strategy to provide viable economic alternatives to poppy cultivation and to disrupt corruption and narco-terrorist linkages. The Taliban, which had banned opium cultivation when it was in power, are behind Afghanistan's emergence as the world's largest producer.

The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime has estimated that the country accounted for 87 percent of global opium, with a harvest of 4,100 metric tonnes in 2005.

Some 3.5 million or 10 percent of the Afghan population is involved in the opium trade, which accounts for 52 percent of the nation's legal gross domestic product of 5.2 billion dollars. Most of this money goes to drug trafficking networks rather than to the farmers and labourers who cultivate the fields in remote mountains areas.

Afghan police and counter-narcotics forces have cracked down on drug traffickers. In mid-April, round-up operations in Deshu district, in lawless Helmand, yielded "4,160 kg of opium, 47 kg of heroin, 80 kg of morphine, 1,362 kg of ammonium chloride, and 1,150 kg of sodium chloride," according to an official statement.

Elsewhere in Farah and Samangan provinces bordering Iran, police claimed to have seized 200 kgs of narcotics and arrested 26 smugglers over three weeks in March-April. Col. Muhammad Ayub Safi of the Border Police Regiment said the drugs were being smuggled into Iran, Afghanistan's western neighbour.

According to Safi, drug traffickers use the long, porous Afghan-Iran border. The Afghan drug trail goes from Iran to Turkey and beyond. All the heroin available on Britain's streets comes from Afghanistan, a report in The Telegraph daily said.

Britain, officially the lead nation in the struggle to cut off the world's opium trade, had contributed 55 million dollars to the campaign by the end of last year. It has pushed for the need to provide farmers with an alternative livelihood while hardliners in Washington have favoured a tougher approach, like spraying crops with poison.

Independent experts have advised against the use of force, and warned that it could push the small farmer into the arms of the Taliban. The Senlis Council, a drugs policy advisory council based in Paris, said farmers in Helmand, Nangarhar and Kandahar have returned to poppy cultivation with a vengeance this year.

The government failed to compensate them for the destruction of vast tracts of poppy crops that had ensured a sharp decline in production last year. Almas Bawar, spokesman for Senlis in Kabul, told Pajhwok Afghan News that their team had seen cheques issued by the government for poppy elimination that had bounced.

The Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S. think-tank, in a new report, ‘Afghanistan's Uncertain Transition From Turmoil to Normalcy', has urged foreign governments not to ''impose (on the country) their own programmes" for the control of the opium trade. ''Economic growth also requires a policy of eliminating narcotics that does not impoverish people. There should be no short-term conditionality of aid on eliminating narcotics. Elimination of narcotics will take well over a decade, and crop eradication is a counterproductive way to start such a programme,'' it has advised.

Afghanistan's spokesman for counter-narcotics, Zalmay Afzali, echoed the view. The alternative livelihood programme ''should not be confined to only seed distribution, we should construct roads, schools, clinics and other basic things for the farmers,'' he said.

(*Released under arrangement with Pajhwok Afghan News)

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The Phony Rationale for high Oil Price

The Phony Rationale for high Oil Price
by Joel Peskoff

Gasoline prices have passed the $3 mark. “At one Chevron station in downtown Los Angeles, motorists had to fork over $3.35 a gallon yesterday for self-serve regular “ (Wall Street Journal, April 18, 2006) But what’s driving these prices? The short answer is that there is no short answer. What is clear is that many of the reasons given for the rapid rise in oil prices do not withstand scrutiny and are nothing more than spin.

The Motley Fool website explains the components that comprise the cost of a gallon of gasoline:

Component April 10, 2006 April 12, 1999
Crude Oil $1.59 $0.35
Refining Cost and Margin $0.63 $0.70
State and Federal Taxes $0.57 $0.48
Distribution and Marketing $0.01 $0.09
Price Per Gallon $2.80 $1.62

Table 1

As Table 1 shows, the only significant price change is in the price of crude oil. “Since 1869 US crude oil prices adjusted for inflation have averaged $18.59 per barrel compared to $19.41 for world oil prices.” (Source: WTRG Economics) Oil for May delivery rose beyond $71 on the New York Mercantile Exchange on April 19, 2006. However, when one examines the fundamentals, we observe an obvious disconnect. According to the U.S. Dept. of Energy, petroleum stock (the amount of petroleum in storage) is at an eight-year high. Natural gas is at a five-year high in supply. Crude oil supply stock is at all time highs too. Bloomberg reports, “Stockpiles climbed 3.2 million barrels to 346 million last week, the highest since May 1998...” Therefore, today’s high prices are not caused by an oil shortage.


Stocks (Million Barrels)

Stocks Change From Last
04/21/06 Week Year
Crude Oil 345.0 values are down -0.2 values are up 20.6
Gasoline 200.6 values are down -1.9 values are down -10.7
Distillate 115.6 values are up 1.0 values are up 13.0
Propane 32.880 values are up 2.407 values are up 1.346

Chart 1 (source: US DoE)

Chart 1 clearly shows that crude oil stocks are far above average levels. Yet, prices are at record heights. Why?

To answer that question, we need to analyze the reasons given in the media for higher prices and separate out economic factors from baloney.

The main rationales heard for rising oil prices are:
• Shortage of Refineries
• The War in Iraq
• Risk Premium due to Geopolitical turmoil
• Demand from Developing Countries, (particularly China)

Shortage of Refineries

“[OPEC President] Daukoru said a shortage of refineries to turn crude oil into products like gasoline and heating oil was behind a four-year rally that has taken oil from $20 to $72 a barrel and he predicted continued strength. "The market will remain tight and will remain product-driven, not upstream-driven, for the next five years,” he said. (Source)

My only response is huh? A refinery shortage is a reason for crude prices to drop, not rise. If Ben and Jerry’s can’t churn milk into ice cream fast enough, they surely aren’t going to buy more milk at premium prices. Likewise, if refiners cannot convert crude into gasoline fast enough, they’ll cancel shipments not pay extra. It is unimaginable that refiners will pay a premium for new oil when they can’t process what they already have. "It doesn't do a lot of good to have a rise in crude if the refineries can't run it," said Phil Flynn, analyst at Alaron Trading Corp. in Chicago.

It’s important to note that the refinery shortage is a legitimate reason for gasoline prices to rise in general but it does not explain the current gasoline price rise (excluding the effect of crude oil rises.)


Chart 2

(Source: US DoE)

Although gasoline stocks have dropped, it is still within its seasonal average range (Chart 2). (It’s the trend that’s alarming.) According to the Washington Post, “U.S. gasoline demand is higher… [but only] 1.2 percent above a year ago…” In addition, “Distillate inventories, which include diesel and heating oil, dropped 4.6 million barrels to 117.4 million barrels. They remain more than 12 percent above year-ago levels.”

The War in Iraq

Without doubt, the War in Iraq has diminished the world supply of crude oil. However, the extent is exaggerated. According to the CIA, the 2005 Iraqi oil production was 2.03 million barrels a day, while the prewar production was 2.093 million barrels a day. The London-based Centre for Global Energy Studies (CGES) estimated 2005 production at about 1.9 million barrels a day, lower than the 2.6 million it estimated for before the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The world produces approximately 85 million barrels per day. A loss of 700,000 barrels per day is not responsible for the dramatic price increase. Moreover, as Chart 3 depicts, in May of 2004, a year plus after the U.S. invasion, crude prices were still below $40.



Chart 3
(Source : US DoE)

In addition, oil production gains in Russia have more than made up any loss from Iraq. As one can see in Chart 4, Russia’s production is up by 1.5 million barrels per day since the start of the Iraq War.



Chart 4

(Source: WTRG)

Risk Premium

The Motley Fool article points to “Risk Premium” as one fact or driving up crude prices. WTRG also points to risk premium as a factor when it said, “During much of 2004 and 2005 the spare capacity to produce oil has been under one million barrels per day. A million barrels per day is not enough spare capacity to cover an interruption of supply from almost any OPEC producer. In a world that consumes over 80 million barrels per day of petroleum products that adds a significant risk premium to crude oil price and is largely responsible for prices in excess of $40 per barrel.”

To understand this argument, let’s review what risk premium is (Finally my MBA comes in handy.) Risk premium is the extra return that an investment must provide over the risk-free rate to compensate for market risk. (The return on Treasury Bills is considered a proxy for the risk-free rate.) When an investor invests in a risky asset – either a stock or commodity, the investor demands a higher overall rate of return in order to compensate for the possibility that that asset may fall in value. Otherwise, the investor will choose to take his or her money and invest it in T-bills.

With respect to oil drilling, drilling must compensate with a risk premium because there is a high probability that a well drilled will be dry. However, that risk premium has been rather constant through the decades and can’t be responsible for the current rise in crude prices.

The risk in today’s world is the risk associated with Iran cutting off supplies due to geopolitical reasons (such as concerns about Iran's nuclear program.) Yet, when we examine this, it also doesn’t follow economic logic. The people exposed to the risk of Iran (as an example) cutting off oil supplies are not the same people benefiting from the risk premium. The users of the oil products are at risk of a supply cut-off while the suppliers face no risk at all. Meanwhile, the producers benefit one-sidedly from higher prices. Saudi Arabia is earning double the value of its oil than it did just a few years ago. However, Saudi Arabia isn’t taking any risk from an Iranian oil cut-off to the West. Should a cut-off arise, they face no economic lose. On the contrary, their oil will be more coveted and they will surely demand higher prices for it then. Likewise, two years ago, Texas oilmen were able to make a handsome profit by selling their oil at $35 per barrel. It does not cost any more to pump a barrel of oil than it did two years ago. However, those oilmen are now able to sell their oil for $72 dollars a barrel. Are domestic suppliers assuming any additional market risk (compared to three-years ago) that they must be compensated with an extra risk premium? I don’t think so. The suppliers are in the cat-bird seat, set to make additional return, not less return, should a world-wide disruption occur.

The only counter-argument to this is that the Texans and Saudis aren’t really demanding any more for their product, since they rely upon the world futures markets to dictate the price. There is some merit to this argument. Speculators in the futures markets are indeed bidding up the price. “Prices are being guided by institutional money managers who are holding between $100 billion and $120 billion in commodities investments. That's at least double the amount three years ago and up from $6 billion in 1999, according to Barclays Capital.” (Source: the Wall Street Journal) Translation: Hedge Funds, who have no economic interest (as opposed to airlines and distillers) for the futures market beyond speculation, are driving the oil market higher. Like the stock speculators of the 1920’s that collaborated to drive individual stocks higher only to unload them at a later date, there isn’t any force on the short side either large enough or that has an interest, in lower prices.

In a traditional market, speculators gamble. They’ll either be right or not. In this market, speculators aren’t gambling, they’re controlling the market and oil suppliers are all too eager to enjoy the higher price. If OPEC wanted to bring prices down, they merely would have to sell oil at the spot price of $50 per barrel and the futures speculators wouldn’t be able to cover their margin calls. But neither OPEC, nor any other supplier has any interest in doing that.
Demand from Developing Countries, particularly China is driving up prices
China’s total demand of oil is 6.5 million barrels per day. Its oil demand is projected to reach 14.2 million barrels per day by 2025, with net imports of 10.9 million barrels per day. China consumes about one million barrels per day more each year. At less than 1.5% of world demand, China’s additional demand is a minor factor in the 100% increase in world oil prices over the last two-years.
In summary, there really isn’t any rational reason why current oil prices are rising, except market manipulation by speculators. This is not to say that there isn’t a long-term energy problem that needs to be addressed. Eventually, the world will run out of oil but the current oil pricing is not causally related to that fact. In the short-term, there is plenty of oil.

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Technology behind the Pentagon's controversial data-mining project has been acquired by NSA, and is probably in use

technologyreview.com
The Total Information Awareness Project Lives On

Technology behind the Pentagon's controversial data-mining project has been acquired by NSA, and is probably in use.

By Mark Williams

In April, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the advocacy organization for citizens' digital rights, filed evidence to support its class-action lawsuit alleging that telecom giant AT&T gave the National Security Agency (NSA), the ultra-secret U.S. agency that's the world's largest espionage organization, unfettered access to Americans' telephone and Internet communications. The lawsuit is one more episode in the public controversy that erupted in December 2005, when the New York Times revealed that, following September 11, President Bush authorized a far-reaching NSA surveillance program that included warrantless electronic eavesdropping on telephone calls and e-mails of individuals within the United States.

Critics charged that the Bush administration had violated both the Constitution's Fourth Amendment, which protects citizens against unwarranted search or seizure, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, which requires eavesdropping warrants to be obtained from a special court of judges empowered for that purpose.

In February 2006, the controversy intensified. Reports emerged that component technologies of the supposedly defunct Total Information Awareness (TIA) project -- established in 2002 by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop advanced information technology to counter terrorists, then terminated by Congress in 2003 because of widespread criticism that it would create "Orwellian" mass surveillance -- had been acquired by the NSA.

Washington's lawmakers ostensibly killed the TIA project in Section 8131 of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal 2004. But legislators wrote a classified annex to that document which preserved funding for TIA's component technologies, if they were transferred to other government agencies, say sources who have seen the document, according to reports first published in The National Journal. Congress did stipulate that those technologies should only be used for military or foreign intelligence purposes against non-U.S. citizens. Still, while those component projects' names were changed, their funding remained intact, sometimes under the same contracts.

Thus, two principal components of the overall TIA project have migrated to the Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA), which is housed somewhere among the 60-odd buildings of "Crypto City," as NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, MD, is nicknamed. One of the TIA components that ARDA acquired, the Information Awareness Prototype System, was the core architecture that would have integrated all the information extraction, analysis, and dissemination tools developed under TIA. According to The National Journal, it was renamed "Basketball." The other, Genoa II, used information technologies to help analysts and decision makers anticipate and pre-empt terrorist attacks. It was renamed "Topsail."

Has the NSA been employing those TIA technologies in its surveillance within the United States? And what exactly is the agency doing, anyway?


The hearings that the Senate Judiciary Committee convened in February to consider the NSA's surveillance gave some clues. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, maintaining the administration's defense against charges that it violated the Fourth Amendment and FISA, told senators, firstly, that Article II of the U.S. Constitution granted a president authority to conduct such monitoring and, secondly, that the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) passed after September 11 specified that the president could "use all necessary and appropriate force" to prevent future terrorist acts. Regarding FISA, Gonzalez claimed, the NSA had sidestepped its requirements to obtain warrants for electronic eavesdropping in particular cases. But, overall, the attorney general said, FISA worked well and the authorities had used it increasingly. The available facts support Gonzalez's contention: while the FISA court issued about 500 warrants per year from 1979 through 1995, in 2004 (the last year for which public records exist) 1,758 warrants were issued.

But when senators asked why, given the fact that FISA had provisions by which government agents could wiretap first and seek warrants later, the Bush administration had sidestepped its requirements at all, Gonzalez claimed he couldn't elaborate for reasons of national security.

Former NASA director General Michael Hayden, in charge when the NSA's surveillance program was initiated in 2002, was slightly more forthcoming. FISA wasn't applicable in certain cases, he told the senators, because the NSA's surveillance relied on what he called a "subtly softer trigger" before full-scale eavesdropping began. Hayden, who is nowadays the nation's second-highest ranking intelligence official, as deputy director of national intelligence, said he could answer further questions only in closed session.

Gonzalez's testimony that the government is making increased use of FISA, together with his refusal to explain why it's inapplicable in some cases -- even though retroactive warrants can be issued -- implies that the issue isn't simply that government agents may sometimes want to act quickly. FISA rules demand that old-fashioned "probable cause" be shown before the FISA court issues warrants for electronic surveillance of a specific individual. Probable cause would be inapplicable if NSA were engaged in the automated analysis and data mining of telephone and e-mail communications in order to target possible terrorism suspects.

As the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against AT&T reveals, NSA has access to the switches and records of most or all of the nation's leading telecommunications companies. These companies' resources are extensive: AT&T's data center in Kansas, for instance, contains electronic records of 1.92 trillion telephone calls over several decades. Moreover, the majority of international telecommunications nowadays no longer travel by satellite, but by undersea fiber-optic cables, so many carriers route international calls through their domestic U.S. switches.

With the telecom companies' compliance, the NSA can today tap into those international communications far more easily than in the past, and in real time (or close to it). With access to much of the world's telecom traffic, the NSA's supercomputers can digitally vacuum up every call placed on a network and apply an arsenal of data-mining tools. Traffic analysis, together with social network theory, can reveal patterns indiscernible to human analysts, possibly suggesting terrorist activity. Content filtering, applying highly sophisticated search algorithms and powerful statistical methods like Bayesian analysis in tandem with machine learning, can search for particular words or language combinations that may indicate terrorist communications.

Whether the specific technologies developed under TIA and acquired by ARDA have actually been used in the NSA's domestic surveillance programs -- rather than only for intelligence gathering overseas -- has not been proved. Still, descriptions of the two former TIA programs that became Topsail and Basketball mirror descriptions of ARDA and NSA technologies for analyzing vast streams of telephone and e-mail communications. Furthermore, one project manager active in the TIA program before it was terminated has gone on record to the effect that, while TIA was still funded, its researchers communicated regularly and maintained "good coordination" with their ARDA counterparts.

It's this latter fact that is most to the point. Whether or not those specific TIA technologies were deployed for domestic U.S. surveillance, technologies very much like them were. In 2002, for instance, ARDA awarded $64 million in research contracts for a new program called Novel Intelligence from Massive Data. Furthermore, overall, a 2004 survey by the U.S. General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, found federal agencies operating or developing 199 data mining projects, with more than 120 programs designed to collect and analyze large amounts of personal data on individuals to predict their behavior. Since the accounting office excluded most of the classified projects, the actual numbers would likely have been far higher.

Beyond these programs, additionally, there exist all the data-mining applications currently employed in the private sector for purposes like detecting credit card fraud or predicting health risks for insurance. All the information thus generated goes into databases that, given sufficient government motivation or merely the normal momentum of future history, may sooner or later be accessible to the authorities.

How should data-mining technologies like TIA be regulated in a democracy? It makes little sense to insist on rigid interpretations of FISA. This isn't only because when the law was passed by Congress 30 years ago, terrorist threats on al Qaeda's scale did not yet exist and technological developments hadn't gone so far in potentially giving unprecedented destructive power to small groups and even individuals. Today's changed technological context, additionally, invalidates FISA's basic assumptions.

In an essay published next month in the New York University Review of Law and Security, titled "Whispering Wires and Warrantless Wiretaps: Data Mining and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance," K. Taipale, executive director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology Policy, points out that in 1978, when FISA was drafted, it made sense to speak exclusively about intercepting a targeted communication, where there were usually two known ends and a dedicated communication channel that could be wiretapped.

With today's networks, however, data and increasingly voice communications are broken into discrete packets. Intercepting such communications requires that filters be deployed at various communication nodes to scan all passing traffic with the hope of finding and extracting the packets of interest and reassembling them. Thus, even targeting a specific message from a known sender today generally requires scanning and filtering the entire communication flow in which it's embedded. Given that situation, FISA is clearly inadequate because, Taipale argues, were it to be "applied strictly according to its terms prior to any 'electronic surveillance' of foreign communication flows passing through the U.S. or where there is a substantial likelihood of intercepting U.S. persons, then no automated monitoring of any kind could occur."

Taipale proposes not that FISA should be discarded, but that it should be modified to allow for the electronic surveillance equivalent of a Terry stop -- under U.S. law, the brief "stop and frisk" of a person by a law enforcement officer based on the legal standard of reasonable suspicion. In the context of automated data mining, it would mean that if suspicion turned out to be unjustified, after further monitoring, it would be discontinued. If, on the other hand, continued suspicion was reasonable, then it would continue, and at a certain point be escalated so that human agents would be called in to decide whether a suspicious individual's identity should be determined and a FISA warrant issued.

To attempt to maintain FISA and the rest of our current laws about privacy without modifications to address today's changed technological context, Taipale insists, amounts to a kind of absolutism that is ultimately self-defeating. For example, one of the technologies in the original TIA project, the Genisys Privacy Protection program, was intended to enable greater access to data for security reasons while simultaneously protecting individuals' privacy by providing critical data to analysts via anonymized transaction data and by exposing identity only if evidence and appropriate authorization was obtained for further investigation. Ironically, Genisys was the one technology that definitely had its funding terminated and was not continued by another government agency after the public outcry over TIA.

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Penn State censors exhibit

collegian.psu.edu
PSU censors exhibit
By Jessica Remitz email
Collegian Staff Writer

For Penn State student Josh Stulman, years of hard work ended in disappointment yesterday when the university cancelled his upcoming art exhibit for violation of Penn State's policies on nondiscrimination, harassment and hate.

Three days before his 10-piece exhibit -- Portraits of Terror -- was scheduled to open at the Patterson Building, Stulman (senior-painting and anthropology) received an e-mail message from the School of Visual Arts that said his exhibit on images of terrorism "did not promote cultural diversity" or "opportunities for democratic dialogue" and the display would be cancelled.

The exhibit, Stulman said, which is based mainly on the conflict in Palestinian territories, raises questions concerning the destruction of Jewish religious shrines, anti-Semitic propaganda and cartoons in Palestinian newspapers, the disregard for rules of engagement and treatment of prisoners, and the indoctrination of youth into terrorist acts.

"I'm being censored and the reason for censoring me doesn't make sense," Stulman said.

Charles Garoian, professor and director of the School of Visual Arts, said Stulman's controversial images did not mesh with the university's educational mission.

The decision to cancel the exhibit came after reviewing Penn State's Policy AD42: Statement on Nondiscrimination and Harassment and Penn State's Zero Tolerance Policy for Hate, he wrote.

Garoian could not be reached by The Daily Collegian for further comment by press time yesterday.

Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon wrote in an e-mail message that "there are other issues involved in the display that has caused a problem, issues that have nothing to do with the content of the painting." Mahon wrote that he did not know all the details.

"We always encourage those who are offended by free speech to use their own constitutional right to free speech to make their concerns known," Mahon wrote. "This is an educational institution and people should embrace opportunities to inform one another and the public. ... We don't have a right to hide art."

Stulman said the exhibit, which is sponsored by Penn State Hillel, aims to create awareness on campus about the senselessness of terrorism and drew inspiration from images that have appeared in the public through newspapers and television.

He said he was shocked at the university's decision to cancel the exhibit and that he has tried to meet with Garoian on numerous occasions to discuss his artwork.

"It's not about hate. I don't hate Muslims. This is not about Islam," Stulman said. "This is about terrorism impacting the Palestinian way of life and Israel way of life."

Stulman said advertisements for the event were defaced in the Patterson and School of Visual Arts buildings, one of which had a large swastika on it.

Stulman, who is Jewish, said he felt threatened and abused by the Nazi symbol and is concerned for his artwork and his personal well-being.

Garoian also wrote that exhibit space in the School of Visual Arts is reserved for students and faculty, not groups with a particular agenda.

Stulman said he created his paintings on his own and he approached Penn State Hillel in February to help with advertising costs and food for the opening. He said the School of Visual Arts did not object to his earlier exhibit, also sponsored by Hillel.

Tuvia Abramson, director of Penn State Hillel, said while Hillel sponsored the Stulman's exhibit, the group had nothing to do with his message or content.

"We don't have a political agenda except to support the voice of Jewish students," he said.

Abramson said Hillel is exploring other venues for Stulman's exhibits to ensure his message does not go unnoticed.

"It's about opening eyes and challenging viewpoints," Abramson said. "Artistic expression is the basis for creativity -- but here, it was blocked."

--Collegian staff writers Meaghan Haugh and Devon Lash contributed to this article.

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On Mary McCarthy and the Bush League Players

opednews.com
On Mary McCarthy and the Bush League Players
by Mark A. Goldman

The government was/is engaged in ongoing criminal behavior. It was Bush who approved the crimes and instructed others to carry them out. He then tried to hide the crimes by classifying the behavior as a secret. That's what every criminal would like to do.

Mary McCarthy, a mid level CIA agent, allegedly told the press that the CIA was running secret and illegal prisons in Eastern Europe, a story that earned one reporter a Pulitzer Prize. If the accusation is true, Mary did what she had to do--what national and international law required her to do. It was the honorable, courageous, and patriotic thing to do. What is even more exemplary is that apparently she did it only 10 days before she could have retired. She was fired.

When Mary McCarthy exposed the crimes, she was punished for ignoring the fact that the criminals had classified their crimes as secrets. Of course that's what any Mafia boss would do if one of his operatives exposed his organization's crimes. It's just not what one would expect a legitimate government to do. Since the crimes were perpetrated and initiated at the Presidential level, and since Congress was not exercising its oversight responsibilities, she had no recourse but to go outside of government to alert the citizenry. The government was/is out to lunch.

If Mary McCarthy actually did what she has been accused of doing then she is a hero. It's the mob boss who needs to lose his job. If her punishment stands, and Bush's criminal behavior goes unpunished, then we are a nation of cowards.

One other point: Bush has a long record now of criminal behavior since coming to office. The press has been focusing on whether or not recent White House shuffling of staff is cosmetic or represents some kind of real change in the Executive Branch. I would simply say that the question is really irrelevant. The crimes Bush and his Bush league players have perpetrated on so many innocent victims are among the most violent and unconscionable acts that human beings can inflict on other human beings, and no shuffling of staff, or future change in attitude or policy, can exonerate him for what has already been done in our name.

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Tony Snow On President Bush: ‘An Embarrassment,’ ‘Impotent,’ ‘Doesn’t Seem To Mean What He Says’

thinkprogress.org
Tony Snow On President Bush: ‘An Embarrassment,’ ‘Impotent,’ ‘Doesn’t Seem To Mean What He Says’

Fox News’ Tony Snow is expected to be named White House Press Secretary. Here’s some of what he’s had to say about the President:

– Bush has “lost control of the federal budget and cannot resist the temptation to stop raiding the public fisc.” [3/17/06]

– “George W. Bush and his colleagues have become not merely the custodians of the largest government in the history of humankind, but also exponents of its vigorous expansion.” [3/17/06]

– “President Bush distilled the essence of his presidency in this year’s State of the Union Address: brilliant foreign policy and listless domestic policy.” [2/3/06]

– “George Bush has become something of an embarrassment.” [11/11/05]

– Bush “has a habit of singing from the Political Correctness hymnal.” [10/7/05]

– “No president has looked this impotent this long when it comes to defending presidential powers and prerogatives.” [9/30/05]

– Bush “has given the impression that [he] is more eager to please than lead, and that political opponents can get their way if they simply dig in their heels and behave like petulant trust-fund brats, demanding money and favor — now!” [9/30/05]

– “When it comes to federal spending, George W. Bush is the boy who can’t say no. In each of his three years at the helm, the president has warned Congress to restrain its spending appetites, but so far nobody has pushed away from the table mainly because the president doesn’t seem to mean what he says.” [The Detroit News, 12/28/03]

– “The president doesn’t seem to give a rip about spending restraint.” [The Detroit News, 12/28/03]

– “Bush, for all his personal appeal, ultimately bolstered his detractors’ claims that he didn’t have the drive and work ethic to succeed.” [11/16/00]

– “Little in the character of demeanor of Al Gore or George Bush makes us say to ourselves: Now, this man is truly special! Little in our present peace and prosperity impels us to say: Give us a great man!” [8/25/00]

– “George W. Bush, meanwhile, talks of a pillowy America, full of niceness and goodwill. Bush has inherited his mother’s attractive feistiness, but he also got his father’s syntax. At one point last week, he stunned a friendly audience by barking out absurd and inappropriate words, like a soul tortured with Tourette’s.” [8/25/00]

– “He recently tried to dazzle reporters by discussing the vagaries of Congressional Budget Office economic forecasts, but his recitation of numbers proved so bewildering that not even his aides could produce a comprehensible translation. The English Language has become a minefield for the man, whose malaprops make him the political heir not of Ronald Reagan, but Norm Crosby.” [8/25/00]

– “On the policy side, he has become a classical dime-store Democrat. He gladly will shovel money into programs that enjoy undeserved prestige, such as Head Start. He seems to consider it mean-spirited to shut down programs that rip-off taxpayers and mislead supposed beneficiaries.” [8/25/00]

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Democrats want more cargo inspection abroad

Reuters
Democrats want more cargo inspection abroad
By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats in Congress took the offensive on port security on Tuesday by urging that a bill require all U.S.-bound cargo containers to be inspected for items such as dirty bombs.

Seizing on anxieties raised by the recent Dubai ports deal, Rep. Edward Markey of Massachusetts and other Democrats said Republicans should accept his plan to show they are genuinely concerned about port security.

The shipping industry rejects the idea of insisting on full inspections of all containers before they are loaded at foreign ports as unworkable.

Markey said he would try to get the House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee to approve his amendment when it votes on a $2.4 billion bill to enhance port security on Wednesday. His proposal has already been rejected by a House subcommittee.

"If the Republicans are serious about Dubai, then they must be serious about ensuring that every single ship, every single container is inspected around the world," Markey told reporters on Capitol Hill.

In the Dubai ports saga, a United Arab Emirates-owned company announced last month it would unwind its deal acquiring some U.S. port operations after an outcry from both parties in Congress, who said they were worried about the UAE's track record on terrorism. Two of the September 11 hijackers came from the UAE.

Another Democrat who appeared with Markey, New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, said he wants to get more port security funding for cargo inspection approved as part of an emergency spending bill moving through the Senate this week.

'WE WANT A REAL BILL'

New York Republican Rep. Peter King, one of the biggest critics of the Dubai ports deal, suggested Markey's plan was largely a public relations exercise.

"There's no sense in putting something in the bill if it's not realistic," King said. "We want a real bill, not a headline."

King chairs the House Homeland Security panel that will vote on the enhanced port security bill. The legislation, which has bipartisan support, would require the government to deploy nuclear and radiological detection systems at all U.S. seaports.

The Markey amendment would require all shipping containers bound for U.S. ports to be fully inspected abroad by radiation detectors and X-ray machines, then closed with electronic tamper-proof seals before they enter U.S. waters.

Markey demonstrated for reporters with scissors how easily seals now being used could be broken. Another Democrat, New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, estimated Markey's amendment would cost about $100 per cargo container.

The World Shipping Council has criticized the Markey amendment, saying it would cripple American commerce and create disputes with trading partners. Other business groups have also lobbied against it.

Separately, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was doing background checks on 400,000 U.S. ports workers and developing biometric-based identity cards for them.

(additional reporting by Peter Kaplan)

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Watchdogs say House ethics reform is a "scam"

Reuters
Watchdogs say House ethics reform is a "scam"
By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congressional watchdogs blasted an ethics reform bill pending in the House of Representatives on Tuesday as a "scam" that would do little to curb the influence of money in politics.

"This legislation is so weak it's embarrassing," said Chellie Pingree, president of Common Cause, a group promoting accountability in government.

House Republican leaders hope to pass a bill this week that requires more disclosure of lobbyist activity and temporarily ban privately-funded travel until after the November congressional elections. The bill is a response to corruption scandals that have ensnared several lawmakers and staffers.

Watchdog groups said the bill would not change the intimate relationship between lawmakers and the lobbyists who shower them with campaign contributions and other perks.

"This bill is based on the premise that you can fool all of the people all of the time. This is an attempt at one of the greatest legislative scams that I have seen in 30 years of working on these issues," said Fred Wertheimer, president of the advocacy group Democracy 21.

House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, the California Republican who sponsored the bill, said it represents the best compromise in a body still sharply divided on exactly what reforms are needed.

"Rostenkowski said if everybody's unhappy with a piece of legislation, it's probably a pretty good bill," Dreier said, citing Dan Rostenkowski, a former veteran Illinois Democratic lawmaker who pleaded guilty to mail fraud in 1996 and spent 15 months in prison.

Corruption scandals have prompted Congress to reexamine its relationship with the $2 billion a year lobbying industry.

Former California Republican Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham is serving an eight-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to taking $2.4 million in bribes.

Two former aides to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay have pleaded guilty to corruption charges and are cooperating with investigators in a separate scandal centered around former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. DeLay, a Texas Republican, has not been charged in the scandal but recently announced that he will resign from Congress.

Unlike a reform bill passed by the Senate last month, the House bill would allow lawmakers to continue to accept gifts and meals worth up to $50 from lobbyists, and does not lengthen the current one-year "cooling off" period before a former lawmaker can begin to lobby his former colleagues.

Other measures that would have required lobbyists to report details about fund-raising events and campaign work have been dropped from the bill.

The bill would make it easier to remove special projects that lawmakers often quietly slip into large spending bills, but not "earmarks" inserted in other bills.

House Majority Leader John Boehner said the temporary ban on lobbyist-funded travel would give the Ethics Committee time to set up a mechanism to check trips before they take place.

"I'm frankly very proud of the bill that we have, it's a very substantial bill. The critics will be the critics," Boehner said. (Additional reporting by Richard Cowan)

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New Hampshire Leads a Rebellion Against Driver's License Regulations in Federal Read ID Act

ABC News
N.H. Leads Revolt Against Federal ID Rules
New Hampshire Leads a Rebellion Against Driver's License Regulations in Federal Read ID Act
By KATHARINE WEBSTER
The Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H. - New Hampshire has suddenly become a battleground in the fight over privacy rights versus homeland security, with state legislators voting against strict new federal standards for issuing driver's licenses.

At issue is the federal Real ID Act, which is intended to keep terrorists from getting fake IDs. It requires states by 2008 to verify documents such as birth certificates, Social Security cards and passports when people apply for driver's licenses. State databases with driver information and photos will also be linked.

Last month, the Republican-controlled New Hampshire House voted overwhelmingly to bar the state from participating in the program. A vote in the GOP-dominated Senate is expected in two weeks. Democratic Gov. John Lynch remains undecided.

The move has won backing from the American Civil Liberties Union as well as conservative privacy advocates and Christian fundamentalists.

"I think New Hampshire will set the dominoes falling in the states," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the Technology and Liberty Program of the ACLU, who testified against Real ID at a recent state Senate hearing alongside a member of the conservative Cato Institute. "Who's going to say, `The emperor has no clothes?' New Hampshire's in a good position to do that."

Legislation in other states would condemn Real ID, but New Hampshire's bill is the toughest measure making real progress anywhere, Steinhardt said.

Republican state Rep. Neal Kurk, author of the bill against Real ID, gave a stirring speech during the debate.

"I don't believe the people of New Hampshire elected us to help the federal government create a national identification card," Kurk told the House. "We care more for our liberties than to meekly hand over to the federal government the potential to ennumerate, track, identify and eventually control."

A weekend rally featuring Real ID opponents in Nazi uniforms attracted lawmakers from both parties, and worried members of Congress dispatched a staff member from the House Judiciary Committee to meet one-on-one with state senators in advance of a committee vote Wednesday.

Supporters of Real ID say blocking it will isolate New Hampshire, requiring residents to get a passport if they want to board an airplane or enter a federal building. The state also would lose a $3 million federal grant to update drivers' license computers.

Jeff Lungren, spokesman for the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, said Real ID closes loopholes that allowed a Sept. 11 terrorist with a six-month tourist visa to get driver's licenses in multiple states good for five years or longer.

He said it sprang from the Sept. 11 Commission's finding that "for terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons."

"They use a driver's license or any other type of identity document as a breeder document and they start setting up bank accounts and credit card accounts," he said. "That's how they were able to live openly among us."

Many governors and some state motor vehicle directors oppose Real ID. Most state legislatures are waiting to see regulations for implementing it from the federal Department of Homeland Security before acting.

"It's not going to promote national security. It's not going to help us prevent illegal immigration. It's just going to help the government keep tabs on ordinary citizens," Kurk said. "Remember, the 9-11 terrorists were in this country legally and had legally obtained documents."

The cards also must be machine-readable, so they could incorporate a radio-frequency identification chip or a bar code. That irks privacy advocates like Katherine Albrecht of Nashua, co-author of "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID."

She worries the national database will be an irresistible target for identity thieves and corrupt motor vehicle workers.

"It's just a disaster waiting to happen from a security standpoint," she said. "It would actually expand the risk of terrorism."

The Rev. Irvin Baxter, the founder of Endtime Ministries of Garland, Texas, recently had Kurk on his radio show and featured Albrecht in his magazine. He objects to Real ID on religious grounds, saying it could evolve to represent the mark of the anti-Christ.

In a telephone interview, Baxter cited a prophecy in Revelations that "every person on Earth will be given a number or a mark, and without this they will not be able to buy or sell."

On the Net:

http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2006/HB1582.html

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Webb Opens Race to Replace Allen; Ex-Reagan Aide Criticizes Ethics in Washington, Iraq War

washingtonpost.com
Webb Opens Race to Replace Allen
Ex-Reagan Aide Criticizes Ethics in Washington, Iraq War
By Robert Barnes
Washington Post Staff Writer

GATE CITY, Va., April 25 -- Democrat James Webb officially kicked off his campaign for the U.S. Senate in this conservative corner of Virginia on Tuesday, offering a strongly populist indictment of the Bush administration and pledging to seek an end to the war in Iraq and a "culture of corruption" in Washington.

Webb, a former Republican who served briefly as President Ronald Reagan's secretary of the Navy, didn't mention his Democratic opponent in the June 13 primary, Harris Miller, and didn't dwell much on Sen. George Allen (R), who is seeking a second term.

But he scalded the Bush administration and a Republican Congress that he said had sent "other people's kids to war and other people's kids to bad schools."

Webb, 60, has never run for political office before and has a mixed background of support for both parties -- he voted for President Bush in 2000 and even endorsed Allen when he was elected to the Senate six years ago.

But Webb was an early opponent of the Iraq invasion, and his military credentials -- he's a decorated Marine Corps veteran of the Vietnam War -- make him to some Democrats and an enthusiastic base of liberal bloggers an attractive candidate against the conservative Allen.

"We have a lot of work to do and a lot of cleaning up to do," he told his supporters in Gate City. "Number one is to end the war in Iraq and refocus our military." Webb said it was not contradictory to support the troops and urge an end to the war. He told his audience that his son, also a Marine, is schedule to be deployed to Iraq this summer.

"My objection to the war is not aimed at my country but at the administration that has chosen to wage this war, an administration that has muddied the truth, made mistake after mistake and refused to accept responsibility," he said.

Webb's event in Gate City was a homey affair in a field by an old farmhouse, organized by his cousin Jewel Jones and attended by about 50 people, two dogs and a videographer from the Allen campaign. Webb said that his ancestors hail from the area and that starting the campaign there was symbolic of his roots.

Webb has more events planned for Wednesday in Richmond, Fredericksburg and Arlington County.

The former boxer and Naval Academy graduate criticized Allen as a "rubber stamp" in an administration that has ballooned the federal deficit, authorized a domestic spying campaign and entered into a misguided war. "George Allen is in the middle of this, try as he might to distance himself from it," Webb said. "Voting with this president 97 percent of the time tends to hold you accountable."

But Webb spoke mostly about the Bush administration and a culture in Washington that has made people suspicious of their political leaders. "Why? Because we're in the hands of people who follow no creed," he said. "They speak to you of values but know nothing other than political expediency and blind loyalty to a money-drenched political machine."

And he said the country "has been broken into three groups: The people at the top are living a luxury never before imagined, even while the middle class sees its jobs being outsourced overseas and their health care slipping away and the public schools declining, and as the people at the bottom are becoming a permanent underclass."

Because Virginians don't register by party, any voter may participate in the primary. Miller, a longtime Democratic activist, has criticized Webb for his support for Republican candidates, criticism of affirmative action and the role of women in the military. Webb has countered that he is more appealing to a wide swath of Virginians.

"I think people who care about things that I care about should feel comfortable in the Democratic Party," he said.

Webb was wearing combat boots with his suit Tuesday, in contrast to the cowboy boots that Allen is known for. He said he is wearing them to show support for his son and others in the military and urged supporters to put on boots -- "any kind other than cowboy" -- and "join this journey."

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A New Round of McCarthyism

washingtonpost.com
A New Round of McCarthyism
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer

So . . . were we all a bit too quick to hang Mary McCarthy?

Actually, I think the media's response was perfectly logical. The CIA fired her, saying she had flunked a polygraph and admitted unauthorized contacts with reporters and, the official guidance went, she helped The Post's Dana Priest on the secret prisons story.

McCarthy made no comment, issued no statement, and didn't have a lawyer or a spokesman issue any statement. Ergo, she was not disputing the charges.

Except now she is.

Although the whole thing is still a bit strange. She has still made no comment, issued no statement, etc. Instead, a friend of hers is putting out the denial--several news cycles after the story broke.

Whether McCarthy is ultimately found to be one of Priest's sources is beside the point in terms of the larger debate. Priest assembled that story from sources with access to classified information, and they are all vulnerable to firing or prosecution. Lots of people, mostly conservatives, say The Post should not have published that story. Lots of other people, more on the liberal side, view it as a public service, as did the Pulitzer board.

The news broke yesterday with this Mark Hosenball/Mike Isikoff piece in Newsweek:

"A former CIA officer who was sacked last week after allegedly confessing to leaking secrets has denied she was the source of a controversial Washington Post story about alleged CIA secret detention operations in Eastern Europe, a friend of the operative told NEWSWEEK.

"The fired official, Mary O. McCarthy, 'categorically denies being the source of the leak,' one of McCarthy's friends and former colleagues, Rand Beers, said Monday after speaking to McCarthy. Beers said he could not elaborate on this denial and McCarthy herself did not respond to a request for comment left by NEWSWEEK on her home answering machine. A national security advisor to Democratic Party candidate John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign, Beers worked as the head of intelligence programs on President Bill Clinton's National Security Council staff and later served as a top deputy on counter-terrorism for President Bush in 2002 and 2003. McCarthy, a career CIA analyst, initially worked as a deputy to Beers on the NSC and later took over Beer's role as the Clinton NSC's top intelligence expert.

"McCarthy's lawyer, Ty Cobb, told NEWSWEEK this afternoon that contrary to public statements by the CIA late last week, McCarthy never confessed to agency interrogators that she had divulged classified information and "didn't even have access to the information" in The Washington Post story in question.

"After being told by agency interrogators that she may have been deceptive on one question during a polygraph, McCarthy did acknowledge that she had failed to report contacts with Washington Post reporter Dana Priest and at least one other reporter, said a source familiar with her account who asked not to be identified because of legal sensitivities. McCarthy has known Priest for some time, the source said."

Everyone else plays catchup. The New York Times: "Mr. Cobb said he did not believe that Ms. McCarthy, who has not spoken publicly since her dismissal, intended to fight her termination either in court or in the public arena.

'This is not somebody who's hoping to make $20,000 a day on the lecture circuit,' Mr. Cobb said. 'Going to war with the government is not high on her list.'"

The Washington Post: "Though McCarthy acknowledged having contact with reporters, a senior intelligence official confirmed yesterday that she is not believed to have played a central role in The Post's reporting on the secret prisons."

Balloon Juice has at least some sympathy for Ms. McCarthy:

"Congratulations to Mary McCarthy, this week's rightwing hate magnet. Whether or not she committed a crime remains to be seen, but you can practically smell the flopsweat as the rightwing blogosphere dances chanting around her burning effigy in an effort to drive away unpleasant visions of a fading party and a presidency sunk beyond repair.

"Don't get me wrong, McCarthy appears to have committed a breach of some sort (although she now denies it) and will likely face more retribution for her actions than simply losing her job. That is fine with me, as far as I am concerned anybody who breaks the law should be prepared to go to jail. If you broke the law for what you see as a good reason, fine, go to jail and feel good about it. Movement-wise jail did no harm to Martin Luther King or Ghandi. It is also fine with me if rightwingers want to spin elaborate theories in which every one of their hated enemies will get sucked into a web of conspiracy and go down en masse. Good luck with that guys, I'm sure that those Wilson indictments are just around the corner.

"Apparently among other crimes McCarthy gave money to the Democratic party. Score one for the Partisan Activist smear. . . .

"Another logical pretzel holds that America does not really disappear foreign suspects into gulag-style prisons that operate outside any sort of legal oversight, but McCarthy damaged American security by making people think that we do. Huh?"

Jos Cafe makes the inevitable Plame comparison:

"Scooter Libby is trashed in the press for something he didn't do, nor has he been indicted for: leaking the name of an in-active undercover CIA agent.

"Mary McCarthy admits to her bosses that she 'DID' leak information to the press and is fired. [This was pre-Newswek.]

"One is innocent.

"One is guilty.

"The Difference?

"One is a Republican

"One is a Democrat.

"Yet, John Kerry comes out and says that Mary McCarthy should be looked at as a 'whistleblower.' The women confessed to violating the law and she's a whistleblower? Why should she get a pass?"

Late Final observes that McCarthy cannot have acted alone, if indeed she did aid in the leak:

"Whodunnit?

"Mary McCarthy denies being a source of leaked information for Dana Priest's story on 'black sites' that the U.S. used to imprison captured terrorists.

"But a lot of other folks may have reason to worry. From Priest's original story - which won her a Pulitzer - here are her source attributions:

" . . . according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

" . . . according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.

" . . . said one former senior intelligence officer who is familiar with the program but not the location of the prisons.

" . . . according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials and foreign sources. This figure, a rough estimate based on information from sources who said their knowledge of the numbers was incomplete, does not include prisoners picked up in Iraq.

" . . . said current and former and U.S. and foreign government and intelligence officials."

" . . . according to former government officials.

" . . . said a former senior intelligence officer who worked in the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, or CTC, during that period.

" . . . another former senior CIA official said.

"...according to several former and current U.S. government and intelligence officials.

" . . . said a senior CIA officer.

" . . . one intelligence official said.

" . . . Several former and current intelligence officials, as well as several other U.S. government officials with knowledge of the program, express frustration...

" . . . said the intelligence official.

"So it's clear that Priest's wasn't a one-source story.

"The one person who could clear up whether McCarthy was a source is Priest herself. But she's declined comment so far."

Yes. It's called protecting confidential sources.

Well, I can't grumble about the latest poll being touted as a "new low," since this CNN survey really is a new low:

"President Bush's approval ratings have sunk to a personal low, with only a third of Americans saying they approve of the way he is handling his job, a national poll released Monday said."

Bush is at 32 percent--if that were Farenheit, he'd be freezing.

More congressmen are found pushing the ethical envelope. USA Today: "Sen. Arlen Specter obtained a $200,000 grant last year for a Philadelphia foundation represented by the son of one of Specter's top aides, the latest example of how the Pennsylvania Republican has helped clients of lobbyists related to members of his staff."

The Wall Street Journal: "Rep. Alan B. Mollohan, the West Virginia Democrat whose real-estate holdings and financial disclosures have drawn federal scrutiny, last year bought a 300-acre farm with the head of a small defense contractor that had won a $2.1 million contract from funds that the congressman added to a 2005 spending bill."

Conspiracy theorists take note: At the HuffPost, Miles Mogulescu comes out and says it's time to Get McCain:

"If John McCain secures the Republican nomination in '08, he is probably the greatest threat to any Democratic nominee -- With brand recognition as a maverick straight-shooter, adored by much of the mainstream media, he stands a good chance of collecting millions of votes among moderate independents and even among Democrats who would otherwise vote Democratic. A recent national poll shows McCain beating Hillary Clinton by 52%-39%.

"We have to start rebranding McCain as a conventional flip flopping, double-talking politician, removing any notion that he stands above conventional politics. It's time to show that the Straight Talk Express is running on a very crooked track.

"· McCain was one of the few Republicans to oppose Bush's 2001 tax cuts. Even as the deficit soars, he now supports making the deficit-inducing tax cuts for the rich permanent.

"· McCain previously called Jerry Falwell an 'agent of intolerance.' Now he plans to give a commencement address at Falwell's Liberty University. Falwell complimented McCain, calling him an advocate of 'the husband-female family.' McCain now says he is convinced that Falwell--who blamed gays, feminists and pro-choice advocates for the attacks on 9/ll--is not intolerant.

"· While McCain has a pro-life voting record, he also has said 'Certainly in the short-term, or even the long-term I would not support repeal of Roe v Wade, which would then force women in American to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.' Recently, however, he endorsed South Dakota's punitive anti-abortion legislation which would make it a felony punishable by 5 years in prison for a doctor to perform an abortion and makes no exceptions for rape, incest, and the health of the woman...

"Recently, there have been a few cracks in the mainstream media's love-fest with McCain and some criticism of his flip-flops. The progressive blogosphere and media outlets must repeat, over-and over, the flip-flopper image of McCain."

So much for fair and balanced.

The New Republic's Jonathan Chait isn't deterred by a little political dexterity:

"Last week, I wrote in this space that John McCain is repositioning himself from Bush-smiting champion of the center-left to Falwell-feting champion of the loony right. I also wrote that that's not such a bad thing.

"How could I condone such a colossal flip-flop? The answer is that, unlike most other liberal journalists, I never swooned over McCain for being a dreamy military hero and straight-talker. Sure, McCain's courage as a prisoner of war was almost indescribably heroic. But the whole idea of choosing political leaders on the basis of their personal character is silly. Duke Cunningham was a war hero too, but he turned out to be a crook. Franklin Roosevelt and Martin Luther King Jr. were adulterers. Great leaders can be bad human beings and vice versa.

"My swoon over McCain was for ideological reasons. McCain adopted all sorts of positions I shared. And his reasons seemed genuine."

Yes, says Chait, the senator has committed some "acts of weaselry. But like I said, I don't really care. Politicians can always persuade themselves to make small compromises in the pursuit of a larger good. I think McCain has a genuine desire to transform his party and his country, and he's willing to say things he doesn't agree with in order to be able to do it."

Michelle Cottle dismisses the idea behind the NYT headline "Democrats Eager to Exploit Anger Over Gas Price":

"During the last presidential race, I wrote a column outlining why the Dems' attempts to use high gas prices as an election year rallying cry were completely understandable -- as well as shameless, dishonest, and ultimately doomed to failure.

"With the public growing ever more hostile toward the party in power, it's entirely possible that pump prices will prove a more successful weapon for Dems this time around. But that doesn't make their exploitation of the issue any more honest or less shameless. I mean, does anyone really believe Dems would have done a better job of tackling our long-term energy crisis -- much less short-term gas prices -- than the Bushies have? And I say this in the context of the Bushies having tackled bupkiss. I like to kick around the administration as much as anyone, but on the issue of energy, neither party seems able to free itself from some ugly combination of knee-jerk ideology and special-interest money long enough to get serious about hashing out a workable compromise."

Compromise? In an election year? Hahahahaha.

I often find myself writing about journalists who plagiarize, but these days they start young:

"Kaavya Viswanathan, the Harvard sophomore accused of plagiarism in her debut novel, acknowledged yesterday that she used portions of another writer's book, but insisted the act was unconscious and unintentional. In a statement released by publisher Little, Brown & Co., Viswanathan apologized and said future printings will be revised to eliminate the similarities," the Boston Globe reports.

"Viswanathan, 19, who had received a two-book contract worth $500,000, was accused of closely paralleling, and in some cases copying almost verbatim, sentences from 'Sloppy Firsts,' a young-adult novel published in 2001."

The lame excuses are starting younger too.

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Many seniors unaware of deadline for Medicare drug plan

USA TODAY
Many seniors unaware of deadline for Medicare drug plan
By Richard Wolf, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Less than three weeks remains for most Medicare beneficiaries to sign up for prescription-drug coverage without penalty, but nearly half the nation's seniors apparently don't know it.

Despite a nationwide campaign by government and private organizations, only 55% of seniors realize the deadline is May 15, according to a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent health care research group. Only 53% know enrolling after the deadline will cost 1% more per month.

The April 6-11 poll of 517 seniors has a margin of error of +/—5 percentage points.

The findings could provide impetus to the push to allow more time for seniors and those with disabilities to pick a prescription-drug plan without paying higher premiums. The Bush administration and Republican congressional leaders have thus far refused to consider an extension.

"It's a finding that I think can't be ignored," says Mollyann Brodie, Kaiser's vice president for public opinion and media research. "You really do have to take a look at the group that maybe hasn't gotten the message yet."

The new drug program was passed by Congress in 2003. A six-month enrollment period began in November, and coverage went into effect Jan. 1. The Bush administration says more than 30 million people now have drug coverage, including 8 million who signed up voluntarily and others who were transferred from Medicaid or were members of managed-care plans.

More than 7 million eligible people remain without coverage, including millions who could qualify for extra financial help because of low income and assets. The Bush administration has exempted them from the deadline if they are found to be eligible for the subsidy after May 15.

For others facing the deadline, "We'll redouble our efforts," says Kathleen Harrington, director of external affairs for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Among the latest efforts are radio ads featuring Bill Cosby.

"The key message there is, 'Act now,' " Harrington says. "We believe that there is real value to having a deadline."

Many in Congress have called on the administration to extend the deadline. Aides to Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said Tuesday that the Kaiser poll could help their cause.

"It strengthens our argument," Snowe spokesman Preston Hartman said. "Extra outreach is definitely in order, and we need more time to do that."

"Too many seniors are ill-informed about the consequences of not signing up," Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin said.

Outside Congress, groups that have criticized the prescription-drug program as too complicated also are working to extend the deadline. "It's one thing to play brinksmanship and do everything to get as many people enrolled prior to May 15," says Ron Pollack of Families USA, a liberal health care research and advocacy group. "It's quite another thing to say that seniors will be penalized for the rest of their lives because they didn't sign up and were confused about the consequences."



Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-25-medicare-deadline_x.htm

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