Frist begins to squeeze the trigger

hillnews.com
The Hill

Frist begins to squeeze the trigger
By Alexander Bolton

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s (R-Tenn.) chief of staff has told conservative activist leaders and business-community representatives that Frist will soon trigger the so-called “nuclear option” to end threatened Democratic filibusters of President Bush’s judicial nominees this month.

The chief of staff, Eric Ueland, said the event will take place in “less than a month,” according to several people who attended a closed-door meeting late last week.

But social conservatives are anticipating from conversations with Frist’s staff that the controversial move will take place next week and are predicting a conservative backlash if Senate Republicans delay any longer.

A conservative lobbyist came away from a separate conversation with Frist’s staff convinced that the disaffected Republicans will make their move in “a matter of days.”

Socially conservative groups would be important potential allies for Frist should he decide to run for president in 2008.


The leader of a broad coalition of conservative groups fighting to end the Democratic filibuster of judicial nominees, Manuel Miranda, chairman of the National Coalition to End the Judicial Filibuster, said: “We all believe that it will be next week.”

“I believe it’s concrete,” Miranda said. “It must happen next week. It would be considered intolerable to delay any further than next week.” He added, “Were it to be delayed beyond the next week, the Senate GOP should expect tens of thousands of angry phone calls and faxes to tie up their lines.”

Next Monday is four years from the day when President Bush first introduced his slate of appellate-court nominees, several of whom Democrats blocked.

But a Senate source familiar with Ueland’s thinking strongly disputed that conservatives had been told in any way that the rare parliamentary maneuver, also known as the constitutional option, would take place next week.

“The day is fast approaching,” the source said. “But no member or staffer has said this will happen next week.”

The source said conservatives had predicted inaccurately that Frist would act before this week’s recess.

One GOP aide familiar with discussions on timing and strategy said that the drawback of executing the nuclear option before the congressional recess was that it would have denied Republican senators an optimal platform for responding to expected media criticism, as they would have been dispersed among their home states, away from the Capitol’s spotlight.

The conservative lobbyist who said that Frist’s staff had indicated that Republicans would act in the coming days agreed that conservative activists would respond critically if that did not happen.

“They’ve been kind of dragging us along for months,” the source said. “If it doesn’t happen next week, I’m going to be shocked.”

The lobbyist added that Frist’s staff has been cautious about revealing the timing because “they know that eventually the word gets out there and they don’t want to give the other side an absolute heads up.”

Frist aides who attended last week’s meeting with conservatives heard frustration expressed over the protracted timing of the nuclear option, participants said. Senate Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) also attended the meeting.

“We’ve made it clear that patience is running out,” said Richard Lessner, executive director of the American Conservative Union.

“Pretty soon the steam starts to go out of it,” Lessner said of grassroots conservative support if lawmakers do not act soon. “In terms of maintaining grassroots intensity, people have to see progress being made, more than press conference after press conference with just the threat [of the constitutional option] being made.”

Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society, recently sent Santorum a strongly worded e-mail urging quick action on ending the filibuster, said two sources familiar with its content.

Conservative groups have provided significant impetus to Senate Republicans’ decision to move to end the judicial filibuster. Dr. Gary Cass, executive director of Reclaiming America, said that he had presented to Frist a petition with more than 170,000 signatories in favor of ending the judicial filibuster.

Many conservatives had thought that Frist would call up either Janice Rogers Brown, a filibustered nominee to the D.C. Circuit, or Priscilla Owen, a blocked nominee to the 5th Circuit, last week. Conservative activists said they were told earlier last month to ramp up their public communication effort to peak the week before the Senate left for its recess.

“We were not angry that it did not happen on April 28 because we were led to believe it would happen the first week the Senate came back” from this week’s recess, said Miranda, who used to handle judicial nominees as a senior aide to Frist.

Some Republican strategists said delaying the constitutional or nuclear option has provided a political benefit. The continued filibuster of judges along with staunch opposition to the president’s plans to reform Social Security makes it easier for Republicans to argue that Democrats are obstructionist.

Last week, Frist and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) exchanged compromise proposals to avoid a triggering of the nuclear option, but both the proposals fell flat as Democrats insisted they be able to filibuster nominees and Republicans clung tightly to their position that filibusters are unacceptable.

The final effort to reach a compromise was viewed as delaying the decision to end the judicial filibuster through a ruling of the Senate chair.

Some observers, particularly Democrats, have expressed doubts that Republicans have enough votes to sustain such a controversial ruling — only a simple majority would be needed. GOP lawmakers such as Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) said they were leaning against supporting it.

But Republican Whip Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) declared last month that the Republican leadership has the support it needs.

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GOPer: New terror hijack 'no catastrophe'

NY Daily News
GOPer: New terror hijack 'no catastrophe'

BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - A Georgia lawmaker has stunned congressional colleagues - and New Yorkers - with complaints about air security and saying another hijack attack wouldn't be a "catastrophe."


At two hearings of the House Homeland Security Committee last month, GOP Rep. John Linder blasted federal spending that focuses on "looking for toenail clippers and box cutters."

"It is my view that no airplane will ever hit a commercial building - which is the only value [terrorists] have in taking out large numbers of people," he said at an April 27 hearing. He added that "passengers won't allow that to happen."

"And if an airline is blown up in the air, that is a very bad circumstance for 200 or 300 people, but it is not a catastrophe," Linder said. He made similar remarks April 13 to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

But 9/11 relatives such as Carie Lemack, whose mother, Judy Larocque, died on American Airlines Flight 11 when it hit the World Trade Center, blasted the lawmaker's insensitivity.

"It's a catastrophe to me and to everyone who knew and loved her, and to all the families and friends and neighbors who knew everyone on those planes and in those buildings," Lemack said.

Linder's comments were "obviously insensitive," agreed Kristen Breitweiser, whose husband, Ron, was killed in the twin towers. "Any death from a terrorist attack that didn't need to happen is a catastrophe."

Asked whether Linder acknowledges that he crossed an emotional line, his spokeswoman, Gretchen Learman, said, "We certainly are." A lost jetliner "would be a devastating tragedy," she said.

Chertoff took exception to Linder's bizarre complaints about protecting air travel. "I certainly think that toenail clippers are not the thing we're worried about," Chertoff said.

New York lawmakers also expressed outrage. "I'm speechless. New Yorkers know we need to be strong on every front, not just worst-case scenarios," said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan).

Rep. Nita Lowey (D-Westchester) said it's "unbelievable" her fellow committee member doesn't see every terror attack as catastrophic.

Linder said more federal cash should be spent on hunting nuclear devices in terrorists' hands. "Preventing nuclear terrorism merits resources - but not at the expense of aviation security," Lemack said.

Originally published on May 4, 2005

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Mass. House Approves Stem-Cell Bill

nevadaappeal.com
Mass. House Approves Stem-Cell Bill

By STEVE LeBLANC
Associated Press Writer
May 4, 2005

BOSTON (AP) -- House lawmakers on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a final version of a bill that would give scientists in the state more freedom to conduct embryonic stem cell research, despite a promised veto by Gov. Mitt Romney.

The bill was approved by a 119-38 vote. The Senate approved it by a 34-2 vote last week. Both votes give supporters far more than the two-thirds majority needed to override a gubernatorial veto. A final procedural vote is needed in both chambers before the bill is sent to Romney's desk.

It would let scientists create cloned embryos and extract their stem cells for research into the potential treatment and cure of diabetes, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injuries and other conditions.



But critics say it will allow scientists to create new human life just to destroy it. They say there are other kinds of stem cell research that don't involve the creation of new embryos.

Romney supports research using adult stem cells or leftover frozen embryos from fertility clinics, but opposes the creation of new embryos.

Under current state law, scientists conducting stem cell research first need the approval of the local district attorney. The bill would remove that requirement, give the state Health Department some regulatory controls and ban cloning for reproductive purposes.

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Bush administration stepping up obscenity prosecutions

USA TODAY

Bush administration stepping up obscenity prosecutions

WASHINGTON (AP) — Thomas Lambert made no attempt to hide the kind of videos he peddled from his Montana home — hard-core sex tapes involving bestiality, sadomasochism and simulated rape.

The 65-year-old former schoolteacher had little reason to believe he could get in trouble. He was selling tapes to adults who wanted them and there had not been a federal obscenity prosecution in Montana in at least 16 years, according to his lawyer, Mark Errebo.

But Lambert and co-defendant Sanford Wasserman were charged last spring with violating federal obscenity statutes. In pleading guilty, they joined a growing number of purveyors of pornography whom the Bush administration has pursued.

Since 2001, 40 people and businesses have been convicted and 20 additional indictments are pending, said Andrew Oosterbaan, chief of the Justice Department's child exploitation and obscenity section. By comparison, there were four such prosecutions during the eight years of the Clinton administration, he said.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, like his immediate predecessor, John Ashcroft, has pledged to make obscenity prosecutions a priority. The department is expected to announce soon the creation of a special unit within its criminal division to focus on adult obscenity cases.

"Enforcement is absolutely necessary if we are going to protect citizens from unwanted exposure to obscene materials," Gonzales recently told federal prosecutors. He directed U.S. attorneys to report back by late July on effective ways to crack down on obscenity and what tools the prosecutors might need.

Those kind of words please religious conservatives, who claim the Clinton administration virtually ignored the proliferation of pornography, particularly on the Internet, during the 1990s.


Critics say a few dozen criminal cases will not dent an industry with an estimated $10 billion a year in sales. Moreover, they say, the effort is an assault on the First Amendment protection of speech and expression, however distasteful.

"They'll find some sacrificial victims, but the porn industry will go on," said Marjorie Heins, founder of the Free Expression Policy Project at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice.

A proponent of strict enforcement of obscenity laws agreed with Heins that so far, the administration has aimed mostly at minor figures in the industry.

"At some point, they're going to have to ratchet it up if they want to do something meaningful," said Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media.

Oosterbaan said the government has won convictions in high-profile cases. He cited a guilty plea last year from John Coil of Highland Village, Texas, who owned and operated 27 adult-oriented businesses in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Coil forfeited an estimated $8.1 million in property to the government and was sentenced to more than five years in prison.

In addition, there is the 23-count indictment against Edward Wedelstedt of Littleton, Colo., and his Goalie Entertainment Holdings Inc. Wedelstedt owns pornographic bookstores in 18 states; the indictment lists six allegedly obscene videos and DVDs.

The government is seeking the forfeiture of millions of dollars in real estate and other property, including a Lear jet, in the Wedelstedt case.

Henry W. Asbill of Washington, Wedelstedt's lawyer, said the indictment was politically motivated.

"My client supplies his own stores with adult materials that are for adults only. Consenting adults come into the stores and view or rent or buy the movies," Asbill said.

In trying to prosecute obscenity, it long has been difficult to distinguish obscenity from indecent content. As former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once famously said about hard-core pornography, "I know it when I see it."

The Supreme Court has ruled that many dirty pictures are constitutionally protected free speech that adults have the right to see and buy. The high court also has rebuffed Congress' attempts to ban or restrict adult-oriented Web sites.

But the court also set out ground rules for obscenity in its landmark 1973 ruling in Miller v. California that allow the standards for offending material to vary from one community to the next.

The Justice Department's approach has been to identify videos that even some in the pornography business find unappealing and to bring charges in more socially conservatives places, where possible.

In the Montana case, Lambert distributed videos that even his lawyer said were "frankly, disgusting."

In the case against Wedelstedt, the government filed charges in Dallas, where the Colorado resident was indicted.

But a recent court decision in Pittsburgh could upset the administration's plans. U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster tossed out an obscenity indictment against Extreme Associates Inc. and its owners, Robert Zicari, and his wife, Janet Romano, both of Northridge, Calif.

Lancaster ruled that prosecutors overstepped their bounds while trying to block the company's hard-core movies from children and from adults who did not want to see such material. He said the company can market and distribute its materials because people have a right to view them in the privacy of their own homes.

The government has appealed.

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U.S. asks for more data on travelers

USA TODAY
U.S. asks for more data on travelers
By Thomas Frank, USA TODAY

The federal government plans to begin collecting the full names and birth dates of air travelers this summer in its latest effort to screen passengers for possible links to terrorism.

In a few weeks, the Transportation Security Administration will notify airlines, travel agents and online reservation systems that they will be required to ask travelers for their legal names and birth dates when booking domestic flights.

Travelers will be encouraged — but not required — to give the personal information. Under the current system, only a last name and first initial are needed to reserve a flight.

Passengers who don't comply with the request will dramatically increase their chances of being stopped at airports for questioning or pat-downs, TSA assistant administrator Justin Oberman said. That's because their partial names are more likely to register a "hit" on terrorist watch lists.


More detailed personal information will enable security officials to distinguish innocent passengers from those who might be terrorism suspects.

"The vast majority of travelers will be willing to give their full name and date of birth," Oberman predicted.

The government's long-awaited takeover of background checks from airlines is getting a 60-day test run starting in August.

Two airlines will begin transmitting full names and birth dates of each passenger to the TSA for comparison with a terrorist watch list. The TSA expects to name the airlines within a week.

Other domestic airlines will follow over the next 18 months, said Oberman, who oversees the program.

The new program, called Secure Flight, comes on the heels of a failed government effort to collect passengers' personal information. The TSA killed a program known as CAPPS II last summer amid concerns, some from within TSA, that it was too intrusive.

Secure Flight has advanced far beyond CAPPS II, which never went past the planning stages.

Millions of passengers a year are given extra airport scrutiny or told they cannot board flights because their names resemble those of terrorism suspects.

The TSA also will compare passengers' names with the government's comprehensive watch list. Airlines screen travelers against a partial list that omits names the government considers too sensitive to release.

But privacy concerns linger as the TSA weighs whether to seek more passenger information, such as credit data. Greeley Koch, a member of the executive committee of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, says his group fears that the government may begin collecting too much personal information and will check passengers through commercial databases that reveal credit and purchasing histories.

In order for Secure Flight to go beyond the test phase, TSA must ensure that few passengers will be incorrectly tagged as terrorism suspects.

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In attacking Hillary Clinton, Janet Parshall revived debunked smear

mediamatters.org
In attacking Hillary Clinton, Janet Parshall revived debunked smear

During an extended attack on Democrats who oppose President Bush's judicial nominees, radio host Janet Parshall falsely accused Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) of promoting herself as an evangelical Christian. The source of Parshall's accusation was apparently a National Review Online column by "comic commentator" Rob Long.


From the May 2 edition of the nationally syndicated radio program Janet Parshall's America:

PARSHALL: And our challenge is going to be able to persevere, speak the truth, doing it in a loving fashion when they take our faith and use it as a bludgeoning tool against us. Dirty politics. In the final analysis, it will work against them. How do I know that? Because Hillary's already calling herself an evangelistic -- evangelical Christian. And last time around, she was Jewish. So before it's all said and done, she will be an evangelical Jewish Muslim. Trust me.

Long's November 16, 2004, column began with a bulletin from a fictitious church in Arkansas:

From "Light the Lamp!": The monthly newsletter of the Holy Flame Pentecostal Church of Little Rock: We welcome back to the area Senator Hillary Clinton (D., N.Y.), who has been spending so much time here in Little Rock lately that she's practically joined the church choir! "I'm here spending time at my husband's library," she told the Lamp when we caught up with her after a Sunday camp meeting, "and of course, I always take time to worship God in as evangelical a way as is feasible, given time and location constraints. As you know, I consider myself an evangelical Christian, really a Christian conservative, if you want to know the truth, so it's nice to be 'home' again in the South, which I really consider my quote-unquote home even though I live in New York most of the time. Well, Washington, D.C., most of the time, actually, but if I'm not there I'm in New York, of course, but always thinking about being here, in the South, my spiritual home, where I shared so many wonderful evangelical ... moments and ... events. Can you read that back to me?"

When Long's piece appeared, numerous conservative websites published the alleged Clinton quote across the Internet, misrepresenting it as real. After realizing the quotation was fake, the authors of one website, Blogs for Bush, issued a correction: "That's what I get for not tracing the quote to the original source."

Further, contrary to Parshall's claim that "the last time around, [Clinton] was Jewish," Clinton has never identified herself as Jewish. Parshall was apparently referring to an August 1999 article in the Jewish newspaper The Forward, which revealed that Clinton's step-grandfather was a Jew.

According to an article in American Outlook, the quarterly magazine of the conservative Hudson Institute, Janet Parshall's America "reaches 3.5 million listeners five days a week." The show is syndicated by Salem Radio Network.

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A New Rumsfeld Rule

thenation.com
The Daily Outrage
A New Rumsfeld Rule

Preventing journalists from doing their jobs has become a new "Rumsfeld Rule." Reporters covering the court martial in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, of Army Sgt. Hasan Akbar--who was convicted on April 21 of murdering two fellow soldiers in a bomb attack in Kuwait--were forced to follow fourteen Army "ground rules."

According to the association of Military Reporters & Editors (MRE), the stipulations included "a pledge to not interview soldiers at Fort Bragg about the case or ask legal advisors in the media room to speculate on the outcome. To ensure compliance with the agreement, reporters were escorted everywhere while on base and some were monitored as they went to the restroom." While the general public could speak freely with soldiers at base, reporters could not. Even the bathroom was considered a potential hot spot for reportorial subversion.

A judge can only close a legal hearing, including a court martial, based on narrow, specific findings and when presented with no reasonable alternative, neither of which applied to the Akbar case. "The purported 'agreement' does not meet that test," the MRE wrote in a letter to Rumsfeld. "No public hearing was held, no showing was made and no judicial findings were rendered to justify press restrictions of any sort."

Instead, the press is caught in a post 9/11 crackdown where any type of secrecy can be justified in the name of national security.

A military affairs reporter in Wilmington, NC, experienced similar restrictions when covering the court martial of a Marine whose plane clipped the wires of a cable car in Italy, killing several people. Another man was tried in secret for an immigration violation until his case reached the Supreme Court. Last December, the Army barred the press from covering a trial in Colorado of several soldiers accused of killing an Iraqi general. A Denver Post lawsuit forced the Army to open the proceedings.

"That strikes me as crazy," Eugene Fidell, a Denver Post lawyer, said of the recent constraints in the Akbar case. Trial coverage by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and Associated Press neglected to mention the hamstrung access.

Meanwhile, their press comrades in Iraq are facing far more severe pressures. A Knight-Ridder report says Iraqi journalists have been beaten and detained by Iraqi police for "snapping pictures of long lines at gas stations," "filming a mosque" and criticizing local Governors. Journalists now avoid covering Iraqi security forces and refrain from identifying themselves as press at police checkpoints. "Under such circumstances," says Israa Shakir, editor of Iraq Today, "We should be worried about the future of democracy." Why isn't Rummy?

ari_berman

The Daily Outrage aims to shine a spotlight on the forces that corrupt our democracy. The outrages come from all over these days: lobbyists stifling reformers in both parties, defense contractors profiting off pre-emptive war, the mainstream media echoing government deceptions, and a rightwing attack machine defending neo-imperialists and distorting progressive values. These stories rarely make the front-page, penetrate talk-radio, or appear on the evening news. So let The Daily Outrage guide you through the tangled web of media, money and politics at home and abroad. And click here to let us know of any outrages you think we should be covering.

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Oil projects may get less scrutiny

Yahoo! News
Oil projects may get less scrutiny

By Tom Kenworthy, USA TODAYWed May 4, 6:11 AM ET

When a Denver-based energy company proposed to explore and drill for natural gas in an area rich with ancient Indian art panels, the plan kicked off a rigorous environmental review.

The company, Bill Barrett Corp., spent two years and $1 million to comply with the federal law that requires studying what the drilling would do to the environment. The 1969 environmental law also requires consultations with government agencies, Indian tribes and residents before drilling and exploring can begin.

The result: The federal Bureau of Land Management forced changes in the project to protect thousands of rock art and artifacts, as well as wildlife and streams.

"It slowed things down a little bit, so the (Bureau of Land Management) could do it right," says Pam Miller of the College of Eastern Utah's Prehistoric Museum.

But in the future, companies like Barrett that produce oil and gas in the Rocky Mountain West may not have to undergo that kind of environmental analysis.

A section of the energy bill approved by the House of Representatives last month would exempt many federal energy projects from the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act.



If the Senate passes the bill and the president signs it into law, many oil-and-gas projects will no longer be analyzed for their environmental effects or be open to public comment. Some examples:

• Oil and gas wells that disturb less than 5 acres of land. Kermit Witherbee of the Bureau of Land Management says, "Most of our drill pads are less than 5 acres. Our average is less than 3 acres."

As of January, there were more than 63,000 oil and gas wells on federal land, and the Bush administration is accelerating approval for new ones. The energy bill, if it becomes law, will apply to new projects.

• Most seismic explorations, which use sound waves generated by trucks or small underground explosions to find likely pockets of gas and oil.

• New wells added to existing fields that were previously analyzed - a common practice that can double or triple the number of wells in an area.

The bill also would mean no environmental studies of water discharged from wells that coax methane gas from coal seams. These coal bed methane wells often bring large amounts of salty water to the surface, which can damage plants and pastures.

Coal bed methane, a form of natural gas used for heating homes and generating electricity, is rapidly growing in the West, with about 51,000 wells proposed just in one corner of Wyoming.

The change in the environmental law would be welcomed by the energy industry, which has long complained about meeting federal regulations while seeking to increase production of gas and oil.

The legislation "could prove to be a real benefit," Barrett Vice President Duane Zavadil says. He estimates "if not a majority, near a majority" of the company's projects would come under the environment exemptions in the energy bill.

But environmental groups say the legislation would open a loophole that would lead to abuses of public land.

"This is swinging the gate wide open. ... The scope of what it is going to affect is enormous," says Steve Bloch, an attorney with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, a conservation group based in Salt Lake City.

"What you lose ... is the process of addressing potential impacts and the process of letting the public have a voice in what happens," says Sharon Buccino, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington.

Just how big the impact would be is uncertain. The Bureau of Land Management, the agency that oversees energy development on federal lands, has made no assessment yet.

"We haven't done a specific inventory," says Witherbee, a senior minerals official in the bureau's Washington headquarters. He says the agency must still comply with other environmental laws, so "it isn't going to have a huge effect."

U.S. Rep. John Peterson (news, bio, voting record), a Pennsylvania Republican who wrote the part of the energy bill allowing the exemptions, says the looser environmental requirement would spur energy production without harming the environment. Reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act often duplicate other studies, he says.

Peterson says the environmental law, passed during the Nixon presidency, is frequently "used to delay projects."

Here in eastern Utah, the law led to changes in the way Barrett drilled and explored for gas - and stronger protections for archaeological sites. "I think there's very little doubt the project would have been different," without the law's requirements, Bloch says.

The project Barrett proposed in 2002 involved land around Nine Mile Canyon, which is actually 40 miles long and includes thousands of Native American artworks carved into rock walls and artifacts. Many sites were used by the Fremont Indians and date back 1,000 years. There are also cabins and other structures built by the Buffalo Soldiers, the 19th-century African-American cavalry who helped explore the West.

Nine Mile Canyon was named last year by the National Trust for Historic Preservation as one of the nation's 11 most endangered places.

As a result of the environmental law, federal land managers ordered changes to the Barrett proposal:

• Gas wells planned for the canyon bottom were eliminated.

• Crews conducting the seismic work had training to avoid archaeological sites.

• Archaeological consultants conducted more surveys covering a larger area.

• Landscape architects were hired to help supervise the upgrading of a gas pipeline within the canyon.

• Extensive consultations were held by the Bureau of Land Management with Indian tribes and other agencies, including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Environmental Protection Agency, to gauge environmental threats.

With "so many resources out there," says Mark Mackiewicz, who supervised the project for the Bureau of Land Management, "I can't imagine this project without a process like (this)."

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Air Force Academy wrestles with alleged religious bias

Yahoo! News
Air Force Academy wrestles with alleged religious bias

By Patrick O'Driscoll, USA TODAYWed May 4, 6:11 AM ET

A Pentagon task force will investigate the religious climate at the Air Force Academy after allegations of anti-Semitism, favoritism for born-again Christian cadets and conversion attempts by evangelicals on the Colorado Springs campus.

The investigation, announced Tuesday by acting Air Force Secretary Michael Dominguez, will address the behavior of cadets and the academy's leadership. It comes four days after the group Americans United for Separation of Church and State issued a 14-page report citing instances of alleged religious bias and preferential treatment toward Christians at the academy.


A Pentagon statement Tuesday listed various steps already taken by the academy to address concerns of bias, including a mandatory class in religious tolerance for all 4,000 cadets and 5,000 other academy personnel. But the statement also noted that "lingering allegations," including those of Americans United, "are being taken very seriously."

The investigation grew out of a survey of cadets and staff last year after another academy controversy: a 2003 scandal in which nearly 150 female cadets alleged that they had been sexually assaulted by fellow cadets in the previous decade.

Write-in remarks on religion prompted officials to conduct focus groups during the summer. The academy's superintendent, Lt. Gen. John Rosa, told the school's civilian oversight board last month that those yielded complaints of 55 instances of religious bias in the past five years, including proselytizing by Christians, use of Bible quotes in official e-mail and an ad promoting Jesus in the base newspaper, signed by 200 academy leaders.

The Americans United report alleges that non-Christian cadets were harassed by seniors and that Christians were allowed to display crosses in the dorms while cadets were barred from hanging non-religious items.

The academy is in Colorado Springs, a hub of evangelical Christian groups including the International Bible Society, The Navigators and Youth with a Mission. Across Interstate 25 from the academy is the headquarters of Focus on the Family, which reaches millions on radio and is active on conservative social and political issues.

The most recognizable building on the academy's campus is the chapel, a non-denominational house of worship. The main-floor chapel is for Protestant denominations, which include 60% of Air Force cadets. Rooms downstairs include a chapel for Catholics (30%), a synagogue for Jews (1%), a prayer room for Muslims (less than 1%) and spaces for others.

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Researchers Tested Drugs on Foster Kids

Yahoo! News
Researchers Tested Drugs on Foster Kids

By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer

Government-funded researchers tested AIDS drugs on hundreds of foster children over the past two decades, often without providing them a basic protection afforded in federal law and required by some states, an Associated Press review has found.

The research funded by the National Institutes of Health spanned the country. It was most widespread in the 1990s as foster care agencies sought treatments for their HIV-infected children that weren't yet available in the marketplace.

The practice ensured that foster children — mostly poor or minority — received care from world-class researchers at government expense, slowing their rate of death and extending their lives. But it also exposed a vulnerable population to the risks of medical research and drugs that were known to have serious side effects in adults and for which the safety for children was unknown.

The research was conducted in at least seven states — Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Colorado and Texas — and involved more than four dozen different studies. The foster children ranged from infants to late teens, according to interviews and government records.

Several studies that enlisted foster children reported patients suffered side effects such as rashes, vomiting and sharp drops in infection-fighting blood cells as they tested antiretroviral drugs to suppress AIDS or other medicines to treat secondary infections.

In one study, researchers reported a "disturbing" higher death rate among children who took higher doses of a drug. That study was unable to determine a safe and effective dosage.



The government provided special protections for child wards in 1983. They required researchers and their oversight boards to appoint independent advocates for any foster child enrolled in a narrow class of studies that involved greater than minimal risk and lacked the promise of direct benefit. Some foster agencies required the protection regardless of risks and benefits.

Advocates must be independent of the foster care and research agencies, have some understanding of medical issues and "act in the best interests of the child" for the entirety of the research, the law states.

However, researchers and foster agencies told AP that foster children in AIDS drug trials often weren't given such advocates even though research institutions many times promised to do so to gain access to the children.

Illinois officials believe none of their nearly 200 foster children in AIDS studies got independent monitors even though researchers signed a document guaranteeing "the appointment of an advocate for each individual ward participating in the respective medical research."

New York City could find records showing 142 — less than a third — of the 465 foster children in AIDS drug trials got such monitors even though city policy required them. The city has asked an outside firm to investigate.

Likewise, research facilities including Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore said they concluded they didn't provide advocates for foster kids.

Some states declined to participate in medical experiments. Tennessee said its foster care rules generally prohibit enlisting children in such trials. California requires a judge's order. And Wisconsin "has absolutely never allowed, nor would we even consider, any clinical experiments with the children in our foster care system," spokeswoman Stephanie Marquis said.

Officials estimated that 5 percent to 10 percent of the 13,878 children enrolled in pediatric AIDS studies funded by NIH since the late 1980s were in foster care. More than two dozen Illinois foster children remain in studies today.

Some foster children died during studies, but state or city agencies said they could find no records that any deaths were directly caused by experimental treatments.

Researchers typically secured permission to enroll foster children through city or state agencies. And they frequently exempted themselves from appointing advocates by concluding the research carried minimal risk and the child would directly benefit because the drugs had already been tried in adults.

"Our position is that advocates weren't needed," said Marilyn Castaldi, spokeswoman for Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York.

If they decline to appoint advocates under the federal law, researchers and their oversight boards must conclude that the experimental treatment affords the same or better risk-benefit possibilities than alternate treatments already in the marketplace. They also must abide by any additional protections required by state and local authorities.

Many of the studies that enrolled foster children occurred after 1990 when the government approved using the drug AZT — an effective AIDS treatment — for children.

Arthur Caplan, head of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said advocates should have been appointed for all foster children because researchers felt the pressure of a medical crisis and knew there was great uncertainty as to how children would react to AIDS medications that were often toxic for adults.

"It is exactly that set of circumstances that made it absolutely mandatory to get those kids those advocates," Caplan said. "It is inexcusable that they wouldn't have an advocate for each one of those children.

"When you have the most vulnerable subjects imaginable — kids without parents — you really do have to come in with someone independent, who doesn't have a dog in this fight," he said.

Those who made the decisions say the research gave foster kids access to drugs they otherwise couldn't get. And they say they protected the children's interest by carefully explaining risks and benefits to state guardians, foster parents and the children themselves.

"I understand the ethical dilemma surrounding the introduction of foster children into trials," said Dr. Mark Kline, a pediatric AIDS expert at Baylor College of Medicine. He enrolled some Texas foster kids in his studies, and doesn't recall appointing advocates for them.

"To say as a group that foster children should be excluded from clinical trials would have meant excluding these children from the best available therapies at the time," he said. "From an ethical perspective, I never thought that was a stand I could take."

Illinois officials directly credit the decision to enroll HIV-positive foster kids with bringing about a decline in deaths — from 40 between 1989 and 1995 to only 19 since.

NIH, the government health research agency that funded the studies, did not track researchers to determine if they appointed advocates. Instead, the decision was left to medical review boards made up of volunteers at each study site.

A recent Institute of Medicine study concluded those Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) were often overwhelmed, dominated by scientists and not focused enough on patient protections. An ethicist who served 22 years on such boards said they lack the resources to ensure the safety of foster children.

"Over the last half century, IRBs have basically broken under the strain of some of the structural changes in research," said Gregory E. Pence, a University of Alabama-Birmingham bioethicist.

The U.S. Office for Human Research Protections, created to protect research participants after the infamous Tuskegee syphilis studies on black men, is investigating the use of foster children in AIDS research. The office declined to discuss the probe.

NIH said it considers patient safety its top priority and awaits the outcome of the investigation. "If we find that patient protections need further strengthening, we will take action to do so," spokesman John Burklow said.

AP's review found that if children were old enough — usually between 5 and 10 — they also were educated about the risks and asked to consent. Sometimes, foster parents or biological parents were consulted; other times not.

"Our policy was to try and contact the (biological) parents because it was fairly common when we got done the foster kid would go back to the parents," said Dr. Ross McKinney, a pediatrics AIDS expert at Duke University.

Research and foster agencies declined to make foster parents or children in the drug trials available for interviews, or to provide information about individual drug dosages, side effects or deaths, citing medical privacy laws.

Other families who participated in the same drug trials told AP their children mostly benefited but parents needed to carefully monitor potential side effects. Foster children, they said, need the added protection of an independent advocate.

"I don't believe a foster care parent can do it," said Vinnie DiPoalo, a New Jersey woman whose 10-year-old adopted son has participated in three AIDS drug trials. "There are informed consents that have to be signed. There are follow-up blood appointments.

"I think that's the role the advocate should take, because a foster parent may only have this child for three months and then the child moves on and someone needs to be watching all the time," she said.

Many studies that enlisted foster children involved early Phase I and Phase II research — the riskiest — to determine side effects and safe dosages so children could begin taking adult "cocktails," the powerful drug combinations that suppress AIDS but can cause bad reactions like rashes and organ damage.

Some of those drugs were approved ultimately for children, such as stavudine and zidovudine. Other medicines were not.

Illinois officials confirmed two or three foster children were approved to participate in a mid-1990s study of dapsone. Researchers hoped the drug would prevent a pneumonia that afflicts AIDS patients.

Researchers reported some children had to be taken off the drug because of "serious toxicity," others developed rashes, and the rates of death and blood toxicity were significantly higher in children who took the medicine daily, rather than weekly.

At least 10 children died from a variety of causes, including four from blood poisoning, and researchers said they were unable to determine a safe, useful dosage. They said the deaths didn't appear to be "directly attributable" to dapsone but nonetheless were "disturbing."

"An unexpected finding in our study was that overall mortality while receiving the study drug was significantly higher in the daily dapsone group. This finding remains unexplained," the researchers concluded.

Another study involving foster children in the 1990s treated children with different combinations of adult antiretroviral drugs. Among 52 children, there were 26 moderate to severe reactions — nearly all in infants. The side effects included rash, fever and a major drop in infection-fighting white blood cells.

New York City officials defend the decision to enlist foster children en masse, saying there was a crisis in the early 1990s and research provided the best treatment possibilities. Nonetheless, they are changing their policy so they no longer give blanket permission to enroll children in preapproved studies.

"We learned some things from our experience," said Elizabeth Roberts, assistant commissioner for child and family health at the Administration for Children's Services. "It is a more individualized review we will be conducting."

Researchers likewise defend their work, saying they often sat with foster families to explain the risks and benefits, and provided them literature and 24-hour phone numbers.

"We talk about it. Then they come the next time. There is no rush," explained Dr. Ram Yogev, the chief pediatric AIDS researcher in Chicago whose patients include a large number of foster children.

Kline, the Texas researcher, added: "I never wanted a parent or guardian to ever say 'yes' simply because they thought that it was what I wanted them to do. I wanted it to be the right choice for them. I think there is not any single right answer for any family."

___

Researcher Rachel Landau in Washington and reporter Carla K. Johnson in Chicago contributed to this story. On the Net:

Documents associated with this story are available at:

http://wid.ap.org/inv/foster.html

National Institutes of Health: http://www.nih.gov

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U.S. Treasury Says It May Reintroduce 30-Year Bond

The New York Times
May 4, 2005
U.S. Treasury Says It May Reintroduce 30-Year Bond
By JONATHAN FUERBRINGER

In a surprise announcement that roiled the bond market and cost some traders and investors millions of dollars in losses, the Treasury Department announced today that it was considering whether to resume selling the 30-year bond, the one-time benchmark of the world's largest bond market.

The resurrection of the 30-year bond, which the Treasury stopped issuing in October 2001, comes as the Treasury confronts the enormous borrowing needs to cover the federal budget deficit. Treasury officials said today that the bond would help them be more flexible in their borrowing, which would lower costs for taxpayers.

But regular issuance of 30-year bonds also could have enormous implications for Wall Street, pension funds and millions of aging Americans.



For Wall Street, the 30-year bond is a long-term security that is more volatile than shorter-term securities. And Wall Street traders love volatility because it is an opportunity to make money.

For pensions, a new 30-year bond could become a benchmark that could lessen the underfunding of pensions. It also could help provide a vehicle for pension funds to match their costs to the income from a long-term security, making pension management less risky.

As for the aging baby boomers, a 30-year bond would give them a safe, long-term security to put their money in that is better matched to the population's lengthening life expectancy.

"Very long time horizons are implicit in things like pensions," said Neal M. Soss, chief economist at CSFB. "Very long time horizons are implicit in things like I.R.A.'s and 401(k)'s. And very long time horizons are implicit in the longer lives Americans are living."

The Treasury is expected to make its final decision in August. If the Treasury decides to re-issue 30-year bonds, the sales would begin in February 2006, with a second sale later in the year. The total of bonds issued would be $20 billion to $30 billion a year.

The announcement caught the bond market unprepared and the price of the old 30-year bond plunged as much as 2 1/2 points as its yield, which moves in the opposite direction shot as high as 4.67 percent, from around 4.5 percent, in just minutes.

Because a lot of traders have been betting that longer-term interest rates would rise more slowly than short-term term rates, the sudden surge in the 30-year bond's yield meant that there were a lot of losses, traders said.

But despite the cost of the surprise announcement, Wall Street was still generally happy with the Treasury's decision. "It was a surprise, but it was something the market had been calling for, for a long time," said Lundy Wright, who runs the Treasury desk at Nomura Securities International. "So in the long term it was not an unwanted development."

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Judge Declares Mistrial in Abu Ghraib Abuse Case

The New York Times
May 4, 2005
Judge Declares Mistrial in Abu Ghraib Abuse Case
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL and TIMOTHY WILLIAMS

FORT HOOD, Tex., May 4 - A United States Army judge declared a mistrial in the court martial of Pfc. Lynndie England today after expressing doubts about whether she had been aware that she was committing a crime when she abused Iraqi prisoners.

The mistrial means that Private England's deal with military prosecutors, under which she agreed to plead guilty, is invalid. Her case goes next to Lt. Gen. Thomas F. Metz, commander of military operations in Iraq, who has a wide range of options, including ordering a non-judicial punishment or directing that the case be reinvestigated. General Metz has jurisdiction in the case because the abuse occurred under his command.

Before declaring a mistrial, the judge, Col. James L. Pohl, had halted the proceedings briefly after a witness, Pvt. Charles Graner Jr., testified that photographs of naked prisoners taken at Abu Ghraib Prison near Baghdad had a legitimate training use for guards. Private Graner also said he had ordered Private England to hold a leash around the neck of a detainee and said that the leash had become attached to the prisoner's neck by accident.


Private Graner's explanation contradicted Private England's testimony earlier this week, when she told the judge that she knew that the photographs of naked prisoners were intended solely for the amusement of American military guards, including herself, and that she understood her actions were wrong.

Testimony by Private England and other witnesses speaking on her behalf was intended to mitigate her actions and secure a shorter prison term, but Colonel Pohl warned several times that it was verging on a statement of her innocence.

"If you don't want to plead guilty, don't," the judge told her this morning. "Am I missing something here?"

Once court resumed this afternoon, Colonel Pohl said the contradiction between Private England's guilty plea for conspiring to mistreat prisoners and Private Graner's testimony could not be resolved.

"You can't have a one-person conspiracy," Colonel Pohl said.

Private Graner, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence for mistreating prisoners at Abu Ghraib, has been described as Private England's former boyfriend and the father of a child she gave birth to last year.

On Tuesday, Private Graner, 36, passed a statement to reporters as he waited to testify that said, "Knowing what happened in Iraq, it was upsetting to see Lynn plead guilty to her charges." But he added hopes that her plea would result in a lesser sentence, and he said he was sending her "love and support" from people "all over."

Before today's mistrial, Private England, 22, had pleaded guilty to seven counts of abuse, including conspiracy, and faced up to 11 years in prison, though people close to the prosecution said the military jury had been more likely to favor a sentence of 30 months or so. Widely publicized photographs showed Private England smiling and gesturing at naked prisoners and holding a prisoner with a dog leash around his neck. This morning, Private Graner gave his account of the photographs showing Private England with the leashed prisoner.

"I wrapped what I called a tether around his shoulder," Private Graner said. "At one point, it slipped around his neck. I asked her to hold the end."

Private Graner said he then took three photographs.

Today was not the first time that Private England's capacity to discern right from wrong has surfaced in her court-martial.

Earlier this week, a psychologist, Thomas C. Denne, the director of assessment of the Mineral County schools in the poor West Virginia area where Private England grew up, portrayed her as a troubled child, born a "blue baby" deprived of oxygen, and suffering from a malformation of her tongue that required it to be clipped. As a result, he said, she was "electably mute - we knew she could talk, she just didn't."

Private England was so shy in kindergarten, Dr. Denne continued, that she spoke only to a teacher's aide and would not answer his questions. Dr. Denne tested her again in the second, fifth and eighth grades and found her to suffer, he said, from an inability to process information, an ailment affecting fewer than 2 children in 100.

But Dr. Denne said that by high school Private England had learned to manage her disability so that she graduated with a 3.0 average and was accepted by the Army Reserves.

Colonel Pohl interrupted Dr. Denne's testimony to ask, "Are you saying she had trouble telling right from wrong?"

Dr. Denne replied, "I don't know that with great certainty, sir."

Judge Pohl was not satisfied. "The problem here," he told defense lawyers, "is you're creating some inference she had trouble knowing right from wrong."

The judge then instructed the jurors that in her guilty plea Private England "admitted she knew it was wrong and chose to do it."

Ralph Blumenthal reported from Fort Hood, Tex., and Timothy Williams contributed reporting from New York for this article.

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Florida girl's abortion allowed

BBC NEWS
Florida girl's abortion allowed
A pregnant 13-year-old girl in Florida has been allowed to have an abortion after a legal battle over the issue.

The girl, known only as LG, was told last week she could not have an abortion, because she lacked the maturity to make such a decision.

But the same judge reversed the order late on Monday, after LG underwent a psychological evaluation.

"Legally speaking, it's not a difficult decision to make. Morally speaking, it's very difficult," the judge said.

"But I'm not here to make the moral decision. I'm here to make the legal decisions," Judge Ronald Alvarez said, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper.


'No good news'

Florida Governor Jeb Bush said the state would not fight the judge's decision, but expressed sadness about the situation.

"It's a tragedy that a 13-year-old child would be in a vulnerable position where she could be made pregnant and it's a tragedy that her baby will be lost.

"There's no good news in this at all," he said on Tuesday.

Florida's Department of Children and Families had sought to block the abortion, because LG is a ward of the state.

She learned last week she was three months pregnant.

It is not clear if she has had the abortion.

Florida state law specifically does not require a minor to seek parental consent before an abortion.

LG's lawyers argued that meant the state - as her legal guardian - could not block it.

Abortion is a deeply divisive issue in the US.

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Senate shifts on filibusters

Analysis: Senate shifts on filibusters

By DAVID ESPO
AP Special Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Time was, Republicans buried Bill Clinton's judicial picks by the dozen in the Senate Judiciary Committee and Democrats indignantly demanded a yes-or-no vote for each.

That was then.

This is now, when Democrats block a far smaller number of President Bush's court nominees - and Republicans heatedly insist the Constitution itself requires a vote.

"Give them a vote. A vote up or down," Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah said recently, speaking of seven appeals court nominees Democrats have vowed to block. "That's what we've always done for 214 years before this president became president."

Except for more than 60 nominees whose names Clinton sent to the Senate between 1995 and 2000.


Republicans didn't resort to filibusters in many of those cases. They didn't need to.

They controlled the levers of Senate power at the time, and simply refused to schedule action on the nominations they opposed. Hatch, a former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, played a pivotal role in the blockade.

Inconsistency is hardly a Republican-only trait.

"According to the U.S. Constitution, the president nominates, and the Senate shall provide advice and consent," Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said in 1997.

"It is not the role of the Senate to obstruct the process and prevent numbers of highly qualified nominees from even being given the opportunity for a vote on the Senate floor," said Boxer, who supported a move in 1995 to ease the filibuster rule.

Except that she joined other Democrats in successfully filibustering 10 of Bush's first-term appeals court candidates. Bush has renominated seven of the 10, and they are at the core of the current struggle over rules governing judicial confirmation.

According to the U.S. Senate Web site, "filibuster" is from a Dutch word meaning pirate. It is embedded in the rules, available to any minority - senators from one party, for example, or senators from one region - who are trying to thwart the majority.

Filibusters aren't forever, though. Under current rules, a 60-vote majority is enough to end one and assure final action on legislation or a nomination. That means the majority can be forced into concessions as members maneuver for the support needed to prevail.

Conservatives used the filibuster against civil rights legislation a half century ago. Liberals used it during the energy crisis of the 1970s when they sought to prevent passage of natural gas deregulation legislation.

Republicans and Democrats agree its use or threatened use has become more frequent.

Picking their words with excruciating care, many Republicans argue that before Bush came into office, there had never been a filibuster against a judicial nominee with majority support.

Except for Abe Fortas.

He was a Supreme Court justice whom President Lyndon Johnson wanted to make the chief justice in 1968. The nomination drew a filibuster by Republicans and Southern Democrats who opposed Fortas' liberalism and were eager to inflict defeat on a lame duck president.

The roll call on a test vote was 45-43, a majority for Fortas, but short of the total needed to advance to a final vote. The nomination was withdrawn, defeated by a filibuster.

Then there was the case of two Californians Clinton nominated, Richard Paez and Marsha Berzon. Paez's nomination languished for more than four years, Berzon's more than two, before then-Majority Leader Trent Lott agreed to a vote. "I didn't think it was right to filibuster judicial nominees then. And it's not right now," the Mississippi Republican said recently.

Except it took the threat of another filibuster before he agreed to a vote in 2000, officials say. Boxer intervened at the time, promising to block action on a Lott-backed nominee to the Tennessee Valley Authority unless there was final action on Paez and Berzon. Paez was confirmed with 59 votes, Berzon with 64.

A decade ago, Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin called the filibuster "a dinosaur, a relic of the ancient past."

Frustrated at the multiple filibusters Republicans had launched in the run-up to the 1994 elections, the Iowa senator proposed a gradually receding filibuster, in which supporters would eventually need a 51-vote majority to prevail.

His attempt died on a test vote of 76-19.

Nine Democrats still in office backed the effort and now support efforts to block Bush's controversial nominees. "Senator Harkin's position has changed since then" on protecting minority rights, said a spokeswoman, Allison Dobson. She said that unlike the current GOP move, Harkin attempted to amend the rules in straightforward fashion rather than through a parliamentary ruling.

Among the 76 opponents of Harkin's rules change were 24 Republicans still in office, many of whom now argue heatedly that judicial filibusters are an abuse of the rules.

Among them is Sen. Bill Frist, newly elected from Tennessee at the time.

Changing positions, he supported a different proposal several years later to change the rules. Now, as majority leader, he is the point man in the GOP effort to ban judicial filibusters and clear the way for confirmation of Bush's nominees.

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More Social Security misinformation in CNN, Fox press conference coverage

mediamatters.org

More Social Security misinformation in CNN, Fox press conference coverage

Beyond distortions and misinformation on President Bush's proposal for Social Security, coverage of Bush's April 28 press conference on CNN and Fox News featured additional Social Security falsehoods. On CNN, host Wolf Blitzer allowed Sens. Norm Coleman (R-MN) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) to falsely claim that Social Security faces an unfunded liability exceeding $10 trillion. Rep. Anne Northup (R-KY) made the same claim without challenge in a post-press conference edition of Hannity & Colmes after co-host Sean Hannity made a baseless assertion of his own -- that privatization in Chile and Galveston, Texas, have been "successful stories." Similarly, former Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes claimed on the May 1 edition of CNN's Late Edition that workers who entered into the Galveston system "are getting 50 percent to 200 percent more in benefits than they would have with Social Security."

In fact, the $10 trillion figure has been debunked by the American Academy of Actuaries, and the privatized systems in Chile and Galveston have provided lower retirement benefits for low- and middle-income workers than the guaranteed benefits in the systems that they replaced.


Misleading claims regarding privatization in Chile and Galveston, Texas

Galveston and two other Texas counties opted out of the U.S. Social Security system in 1981, creating a system of private annuities that President Bush has touted in various appearances, most recently in an April 29 "town hall" meeting in Falls Church, Virginia.

But reports by the Government Accounting OfficePDF file (GAO) and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, as well as testimony by Brookings Institution senior fellow Henry Aaron, point out serious shortcomings in the Galveston program. The GAO report determined that only higher-wage earners' benefits and initial disability benefits would increase under the Galveston plan, while all other groups would receive lower benefits than under Social Security.

A recent Democratic congressional analysis, in coordination with the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, also found the Galveston model lacking. As the report, released by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), noted:

Americans at every income level are clearly better off with Social Security's guaranteed, inflation-protected benefit. The only exception is high income earners. And that is true only initially; over the course of retirement, even higher income earners are better off with Social Security.

Even a Galveston newspaper opposed implementing the model nationwide: An April 24 editorial in the Galveston County Daily News stated: "We're open to changes in Social Security but don't think the Galveston Plan is the best model for change."

Further, several Texas news reports have cast doubt on whether the Galveston model is even comparable to Bush's proposal for private accounts. As the Dallas Morning News noted on April 27, the Galveston model differs from Bush's proposal in that it has a "safety net" for workers who become disabled, die, or receive poor returns on their private investment accounts. Similarly, an April 27 Houston Chronicle editorial argued that the two plans are "apples and oranges" with "different aims and results."

As Media Matters for America previously documented when Hannity and New York Times columnist John Tierney touted the Chilean pension system, that country's program of private accounts has been less effective for poor and middle-class workers than the pension program that preceded it.

False claims regarding a $10 trillion unfunded Social Security liability

On CNN's pre-press conference coverage, Blitzer failed to correct Grassley's claim that "we have overpromised, by $10 to $12 trillion, what we can deliver for our children and grandchildren." Earlier that evening, Blitzer failed to correct Coleman as he distorted the numbers to an even greater degree, claiming: "We have a $15 -- $10 to $15 trillion unfunded liability from Social Security." Similarly, following Bush's press conference, Northup asserted on Fox News that "there's a $10 trillion unfunded liability."

The Social Security trustees' determination of a $10.4 trillion unfunded liability over an "infinite horizon" is misleading, according to the American Academy of Actuaries, the country's leading association of insurance and demographics experts:

[T]he new measures of OASDI's [Social Security's] unfunded obligations included in the 2003 report provide little if any useful information about the program's long-range finances and indeed are likely to mislead anyone lacking technical expertise in the demographic, economic and actuarial aspects of the program's finances into believing that the program is in far worse financial condition than is actually indicated.

— A.S.

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NY Times glossed over existing conservative presence in public broadcasting

mediamatters.org/

NY Times glossed over existing conservative presence in public broadcasting

In an article documenting efforts by the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to correct perceived "liberal bias" at the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR), The New York Times failed to mention the presence of conservative media figures with a record of misinformation on these outlets.

Media Matters for America previously noted that the May 2 Times article on efforts by Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, CPB's Republican chairman, "to correct what he and other conservatives consider liberal bias" at CPB, omits key facts about CPB's two new ombudsmen. But in addition, the Times focused heavily on conservative allegations of "liberal bias" without noting that CPB has itself funded several PBS programs that feature conservative commentators with extensive histories of inaccurate and misleading statements.

Specifically, Media Matters has documented evidence of conservative misinformation by Paul A. Gigot, the Wall Street Journal editorial staff, David Brooks, and Tucker Carlson.



Paul Gigot and The Wall Street Journal

Gigot, who previously wrote for the National Review, is the editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page. He is a former political commentator on PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and is the host of the CPB-funded PBS program The Journal Editorial Report. According to CPB, the show incorporates "reports from the field" by members of the Journal's editorial board, as well as "a panel discussion of either the field piece or a recent news story with members of the Journal's editorial board who represent a diverse range of expertise, interests and backgrounds."

Media Matters has documented the Journal editorial page's distortions and misstatements:

* WSJ editorial falsely claimed Abu Ghraib report absolved senior officials
* WSJ editorial page again wrongly attacked DeLay aides' prosecutor Ronnie Earle as a "partisan Democrat"
* WSJ editorial claimed Clinton pioneered Bush rendition policy, revived bogus accusation that Clinton declined Sudan's offer of Bin Laden
* WSJ provided false cover for Rumsfeld, falsely asserted that vehicle armor production is at "full capacity"
* Wall Street Journal falsehood: Bush would've won under every recount scenario

In addition, Media Matters has documented Gigot's own distortions, as well as one by senior editorial page writer Kimberley A. Strassel, who has appeared on The Journal Editorial Report:

* Gigot's wishful thinking: that Clinton thinks "[I]t was right for President Bush to go into Iraq"
* On PBS, WSJ's Strassel exaggerated significance of potential ANWR oil production

David Brooks

Brooks is senior editor at The Weekly Standard and began writing a column for The New York Times in September 2003. He is currently a political commentator on PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Media Matters has documented numerous distortions and misstatements by Brooks:

* Kerry Tora Bora comment ripped out of context (Brooks later apologized for the misrepresentation)
* NYT's David Brooks, in NewsHour panel, falsely claimed Kerry said "Republicans don't value their families"
* NY Times' Brooks cited defender of eugenicists in touting new political constituency
* Brooks, Gaffney cut and run from the truth on Kerry speech

Tucker Carlson

Carlson is the former co-host of CNN's Crossfire and soon-to-be host of a public affairs show on MSNBC. He is also a regular contributor to The Weekly Standard. He is the host of the weekly PBS series Unfiltered. (WETA, the Washington, D.C., PBS affiliate that produced the show, has announced that its yearlong run will end in June.) Media Matters has documented numerous Carlson distortions and misstatements:

* Carlson, Wash. Post misinformation on Social Security's 'solvency' furthered Bush administration's crisis rhetoric
* Conservatives distorted DNC manual to accuse Dems of dirty tricks
* Tucker Carlson lied about Bob Dole's lies; Dole falsely claimed that '96 campaign didn't promote his war record
* Tucker Carlson's amnesia: "Nobody prevented anyone from voting' in Florida"

Media Matters has also documented several inflammatory remarks by Carlson:

* Tucker Carlson: "grouchy feminists with mustaches" control the Democratic Party
* Conservatives equated Mary Cheney's sexual orientation with abortion, adultery, alcoholism, and now obesity
* Carlson to Brazile: Dems "keep track of racial data more assiduously than Himmler ever did"

— J.K.

Posted to the web on Tuesday May 3, 2005 at 2:05 PM EST

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Defense Department Invokes Geneva Conventions to Withhold Torture Photos

Defense Department Invokes Geneva Conventions to Withhold Torture Photos
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: media@aclu.org

CIA Improperly Refusing to Confirm or Deny Existence of Documents Reported in the Media, ACLU Says

NEW YORK -- In a federal court brief filed late last night, the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the government's claim that turning over photographic evidence of detainee abuse in Iraq would violate the Geneva Conventions.

"Until now, this administration has shown only contempt for the Geneva Conventions, and it has built its policies dismissing the application of international humanitarian law," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "It's simply astounding that the Defense Department has now invoked the Geneva Conventions to suppress evidence that prisoners have been abused. The government cannot cloak its attempts to protect itself from public embarrassment in a newfound concern for the Geneva Conventions."


Through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the ACLU and the New York Civil Liberties Union have sought the release of photographs and videotapes, in addition to documents, that would shed light on the systemic abuse of detainees held by the United States overseas. The Defense Department has refused to turn over photographic evidence, stating that to do so would violate the government's obligations under the Geneva Conventions.

In its reply brief, the ACLU argued that the release of photographs would not infringe the personal privacy of the detainees depicted if all identifying details were redacted. The ACLU also submitted declarations from leading international law experts stating that releasing the photographs would be consistent with the Geneva Conventions. One expert noted that photography exposing inhumane conditions at German and Japanese concentration camps played a powerful role in the historical development of the Geneva Conventions themselves.

The ACLU also questioned the sincerity of the government's commitment to the Geneva Conventions, pointing to previous declarations from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the Conventions do not apply to detainees held at Guantánamo Bay or in Afghanistan. Recently, the ACLU obtained a memo signed by Lieutenant General Ricardo A. Sanchez authorizing 29 interrogation techniques for use in Iraq, including several techniques that the group says clearly violate the Geneva Conventions. Among other things, the Sanchez memo allowed interrogators to use military dogs "to exploit Arab fears" and to subject detainees to painful stress positions and extended isolation.

"The Geneva Conventions were intended to protect prisoners, not to provide governments with a basis for withholding evidence that prisoners have been maltreated," said ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer. "It's disgraceful that the Defense Department is attempting to contort the Conventions in this way."

The ACLU also charged in its brief that:

The CIA has improperly refused to confirm or deny the existence of documents that have been reported on by the press. The CIA has invoked a legal argument known as the "Glomar" response to avoid acknowledging even the existence of two Justice Department memos regarding the legality of certain interrogation techniques. It has also invoked Glomar with respect to an order from President Bush authorizing the CIA to set up detention facilities outside the United States.
The Defense Department has improperly withheld documents pertaining to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The ACLU is seeking Defense Department documents that were generated in response to concerns raised by the ICRC over the treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. Although the ICRC reports themselves are confidential, the ACLU has argued that memos produced by the Defense Department in response to the ICRC findings cannot be withheld from the public.
The CIA has failed to justify the withholding of documents on "Ghost Detainees." The ACLU is seeking the release of documents relating to CIA Director George Tenet's request that Secretary Rumsfeld hold an Iraqi prisoner but not list him on the prison rolls, as well as Secretary Rumsfeld's order implementing that request. Neither the Defense Department nor the CIA has provided an adequate response to this request, and the ACLU is asking the court to order the immediate release of these documents.
U.S. District Court Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein will address the ACLU's charges and hear oral arguments from attorneys in New York next month.

To date, the Defense Department and other government agencies have released more than 30,000 pages of documents in response to Judge Hellerstein's order directing the government agencies to comply with a year-old FOIA request filed by the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The New York Civil Liberties Union is co-counsel in the case.

Earlier this month, the ACLU and Human Rights First filed a lawsuit charging Secretary Rumsfeld with direct responsibility for the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. military custody. The action was the first federal court lawsuit to name a top U.S. official in the ongoing torture scandal in Iraq and Afghanistan; many of the charges are based on documents obtained through the FOIA lawsuit. The ACLU has also filed separate lawsuits naming Brig. Gen. Karpinski, Col. Thomas Pappas and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez. Details about the lawsuits are online at www.aclu.org/rumsfeld.

The FOIA lawsuit is being handled by Lawrence Lustberg and Megan Lewis of the New Jersey-based law firm Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione, P.C. Other attorneys in the case are Jaffer, Amrit Singh, and Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU; Arthur N. Eisenberg and Beth Haroules of the NYCLU; and Barbara Olshansky and Jeff Fogel of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

For copies of the ACLU's reply brief, as well as government documents submitted in this case, go to www.aclu.org/torturefoia.

originally released April 29, 2005

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Time to Leave the Table

washingtonpost.com

Time to Leave the Table

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, May 3, 2005; A21

There is a name for those who continue to sit at a gambling table even after they learn that the game is fixed. They are called fools.

Now that President Bush has proposed Social Security benefit cuts through "progressive indexing," his critics are said to have an obligation to negotiate in good faith to achieve a solution. There are just two problems with that sentence: The words "good faith" and "solution."

Bush's "plan" is still not a plan, just a few ideas. If the president is serious, let him first persuade members of his own party to agree to a detailed proposal so everyone knows what the trade-offs are. If what he has in mind is a good idea, Republicans will be eager to sign on. And if Bush can't get Republicans to go along, might that say something about the merits of his suggestions?

Opponents of Bush's cut-and-privatize project -- they include not only Democrats but also skeptical Republicans -- do have a responsibility. Their task is to subject half-baked concepts to the criticism they deserve and insist that they be fully baked before serious discussions can begin. Social Security, the most successful government program in our history, should not be overturned lightly.


That the president is fixing the Social Security reform game should be obvious. The most basic corruption of the process is the way the Republican congressional leadership has transformed the bargaining that once took place between the House and the Senate.

In the old days, when each house produced different versions of the same bill, a "conference" committee typically including members of both parties from both houses would thrash out the details and reach a compromise. Now the Republicans will concede whatever is necessary to get a bill out of the Senate, even as the lockstep-Republican House produces a right-wing version of the same proposal. In conferences, Republicans routinely freeze out all but the most pliable Democrats. The supposed "compromise" that emerges is not a compromise at all. Democrats who go along become enablers of a game being played with a stacked deck.

The game is also fixed because the president has narrowed the range of Social Security options to protect his most questionable policy choices.

Some press reports have suggested that Bush's willingness to cut Social Security benefits for the wealthy turned him into some latter-day Karl Marx, or at least Ted Kennedy.

This is nonsense.

Bush has refused to put his own tax cuts on the table as part of a Social Security fix. Repealing Bush's tax cuts for those earning more than $350,000 a year could cover all or most of the 75-year Social Security shortfall. Keeping part of the estate tax in place could cover a quarter to half of the shortfall. Some of the hole could be filled in by a modest surtax on dividends or capital gains.

But Bush is resolute about protecting the interests of the truly rich by making sure that any taxes on wealth are ruled out of the game from the beginning. The Social Security cuts he is proposing for the wealthy are a pittance compared with the benefits they get from his tax cuts. The president is keeping his eye on what really matters to him.

The real costs of progressive indexing as currently conceived would be paid by middle-income earners -- those with incomes in the range of $35,000 to $60,000 a year.

Eventually, such earners would face benefit cuts of 20 to 30 percent from what they are promised under the current program. And it gets worse: Rising Medicare premiums are eating up an increasing share of middle-class Social Security checks. Even without the cuts, Social Security payments will, over time, barely cover an individual's Medicare costs.

Last, there are the trillions of dollars that Bush would have us borrow to cover the transition to the private accounts he wants to set up. It's far from clear that cutting future Social Security benefits for younger members of the middle class and saddling them with mounds of new indebtedness would make either them or the country better off. Anyone who is truly conservative might have a question or two about whether this "solution" is worse than the problem it is purportedly addressing.

Walking away from a rigged game is hard for some people, especially when those running it and the respected opinion-makers who support them insist that this time the game will truly be on the level. But, especially when the danger involves gambling away the future of Social Security, the truly responsible thing is to leave the table.

postchat@aol.com

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"The Bushes Offer a Horse Jerk-off Joke But No Words for the Troops...

thenation.com
The George & Laura Show
David Corn

The entry below is a posting from my personal blog at www.davidcorn.com. It was titled, "The Bushes Offer a Horse Jerk-off Joke But No Words for the Troops...and Other Impolite Observations From the White House Correspondents' Dinner."

No mention of the US troops being killed in Iraq but a horse jerk-off joke--that is one way to sum up the First Couple's appearance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday evening.

This black-tie shindig is an annual ritual. Over two thousand DC media people and government officials mingle with imported Hollywood celebrities--hey there goes Richard Gere!--and the president of the moment shows up and entertains the feeling-good-about-themselves attendees with humorous (often self-deprecating) remarks. Last year, Bush made a crack about my book, The Lies of George W. Bush.

This evening, the Bush White House pulled a switcheroo. Bush started his routine by telling a joke he repeatedly used on the campaign trail. The gag pokes fun at a city slicker lost in a rural area, and what Bush didn't say is that he learned it during his unsuccessful 1978 congressional bid when his opponent told the joke to lampoon a certain Andover, Yale and Harvard grad who was trying to pass himself off as a Texan. As Bush-watchers in the ballroom familiar with this stale chestnut started to groan, Laura Bush stood up, walked to the podium, leaned into the microphone and said, "Not that old joke." She then told her husband to sit down, and she delivered a polished routine that ribbed her old man for being early-to-bed dull. She noted that she had told him, "If you really want to end tyranny in the world, you're going to have to stay up later."

Laura's well-written script included several shots of risque material. After revealing that come nine o'clock at night, "Mr. Excitement is sound asleep, and I'm watching Desperate Housewives," she added, "If those women think they're desperate, they ought to be with George." She then joked that she, Lynne Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice had hit Chippendale's late one night. And moments later--after referring to Barbara Bush as Don Corleone and joking about her husband's aversion to reading--she made fun of her number-one cowboy for knowing little of the ways of ranch life when they bought the spread in Crawford, Texas. Such a greenhorn was George, she explained, "he tried to milk the horse. What's more--it was a male horse."

It was a good performance but weird, for Laura had jabbed at her husband for not reading books, had suggested he was no powerhouse in bed, and had encouraged everyone in the room--and all those children at home glued to C-SPAN--to envision George W. Bush pulling on the penis of a horse. (I wondered how social conservative leader James Dobson, who was scheduled to be at the dinner, reacted.) It was not hard to figure out why the White House decided to have Laura upstage George. Her approval rating is almost twice his, and his number--in the mid-40s--are at a record low. But an HBO routine? Afterward, both Al Franken and Bill Maher were complaining that they could not have gotten away with that horse joke.


Laura's racy act was the talk of the town. But there was something more strange and discomforting about the evening than her channeling of Ellen DeGeneres. Neither she nor her husband once referred to the Americans serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly those who had recently lost their lives implementing Bush's policy and (according to the Bushes) defending the United States from evil. At a high-profile event of this nature, it certainly is customary for a president to joke, but he also often concludes with a serious sentiment. At the radio and television correspondents' dinner several weeks ago, Vice President Dick Cheney, standing in for Bush (who was on his way to the Pope's funeral), took a few stabs at humor then devoted most of his remarks to the deceased Pope. Last year, at one of these galas, Bush joked about his inability to find WMDs in Iraq--yeah, he made fun of the mission for which Americans had lost their lives--but then he saluted troops stationed overseas, noting their sacrifices.

His--and Laura's--non-recognition of the American troops (those dying and those doing the real hard work) was not a one-time phenomenon. Two nights earlier at Bush's first primetime news conference in a year, Bush said nothing about the Americans risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not a word of thanks. Not a word of tribute for those recently killed in action. He did mention troop levels and said, "I believe we're making really good progress in Iraq." But nada regarding the men and women he had dispatched into harm's way. Is this a pattern? Of course, Bush does not have to remind people that Americans are being shot to death and blown up in Iraq and that the violence in Iraq has increased lately. But recent polls disclose that a half of Americans now believe that Bush deliberately misled the public about the (nonexistent) WMDs in Iraq and that a slight majority have concluded that the war was not worth it. With most Americans down on the war as the insurgents mount more deadly attacks and military experts in the United States predict this conflict may last for five to 30 years, is Bush consciously not referring directly to the soldiers and, especially, the fallen Americans? Or has he just forgotten to do so when he has appeared in public?

******

For most of the night, the dinner yielded less disturbing moments. At a pre-dinner reception hosted by Newsweek, I and my colleague Julian Borger of the British Guardian chatted with Dennis Hopper and his wife, Victoria . Months ago, Hopper, a Bush-backer (from Easy Rider to easy street?), had been invited to participate in Bush's inaugural festivities. Then he was dis-invited. Why? The widespread assumption was that the family-values crowd had bitched about Hopper's involvement because they supposedly were not fans of his various on-screen celebrations of perversity. Dennis and Victoria told us they were not able at the time to get an explanation from the inauguration's organizers, but they noted that the head of the Creative Coalition, a group of politically-minded Hollywood stars, was told by Karl Rove that Hopper had been nixed because Victoria is a Democratic Party activist. I wonder if Rove knows that Cheney's daughter is gay?

Borger and I pressed on and nearly found ourselves asphyxiated in a scrum caused by Richard Gere, the celeb who always had the largest crowd about him. We managed to make it to the main ballroom and caught sight of Bill Gertz, a national security correspondent for the Washington Times, chuckling with Donald Rumsfeld. About what? Who knows? Most folks were trying to spot movie stars. I headed straight toward Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence committee. Why, I asked ever-so politely, had his committee not yet completed the so-called Phase II report that is supposed to examine how the Bush White House used--or abused--the intelligence on WMDs. Roberts claimed he wanted to finish the report and get the damn thing off his back. But, he explained, the problem was that he had decided that the committee should look at the prewar statements of a variety of public officials--meaning Democratic members of Congress--and the Democrats now were not so hot to proceed. In other words, Roberts had told the Dems, You want to look at what Bush, Cheney, Rice and the rest said about WMDs before the war? Fine, let's go over 46 statements from prominent Democrats--like Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Bill Clinton, and so on--who also had said there was a WMD threat from Iraq. Very clever, Mr. Chairman. But none of these folks launched an invasion. And it was not their responsibility to ascertain that the intelligence was sound and that it was being represented accurately to the public. And, Roberts went on, he now is overwhelmed with ensuring there's good intelligence on WMDs in North Korea and Iran and overseeing the ongoing reform of the intelligence community's structure. Do we really want to take time and energy away from these crucial tasks, he asked, to go over what was said three years ago? Still, he said, "I'd like to get this done." And I'd like to see Bush milk a horse.

Elsewhere on the floor of the Washington Hilton's grand ballroom, Democrats were feeling pretty giddy due because Bush's poll numbers are lousy and his recent press conference seemingly caused his failing Social Security crusade even more problems. "I wish the election was tomorrow!" exclaimed Representative Rahm Emmanuel, who runs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Former Democratic Party head Terry McAullife declared, "I almost wish I was still chairman."

I found my table and discovered I was siting about ten feet away from deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams, the Iran-contra criminal (pardoned by Bush I) whom George W. Bush had rehabilitated. This past week, I had written for a book proposal a sample chapter in which Abrams plays a special role. (When Abrams worked for the Reagan administration he denied that El Salvador troops trained and equipped by the United States had massacred 800 peasants, mainly women and children. But the massacre had happened. Years later, this fellow who had tried to cover up the existence of one of the most tragic human rights atrocities in the Western Hemisphere in recent decades was given a job on the National Security Council by George W. Bush and placed in charge of coordinating human rights policy.) Borger encouraged me to go talk to Abrams. I really had no questions for him, I said. In retrospect, I realize I should have approached Abrams and said, "How would you feel if your family was slaughtered by soldiers and then two governments denied it ever happened?" But I was perhaps distracted by all the hubbub caused by the latest American Idol celebrity, who was sitting several tables in front of us.

After the dinner, while heading out the hotel, I spotted Paul Wolfowitz. He was walking very quickly and holding a copy of the conservative National Review underneath an arm. The magazine had been opened to a page bearing a story headlined "What Went Right" and written by Rich Lowry, whom I occasionally debate on college campuses. The piece begins, "It is time to say it unequivocally: We are winning in Iraq." Since many military experts note the insurgency could go on for many more years--maybe decades--this may be a slightly premature pronouncement. And ultimately meaningless. A Japanese magazine after Pearl Harbor could have declared, "We are winning." The first quotes Lowry offer are not persuasive. An unnamed "top officer in Iraq" says, "It's not over." (Wow, get this person to the Army War College right away.) And an unnamed administration officials says, "I give us a B minus." I sure hope Wolfowitz is able to get more insightful views than these.

Next stop was the only after-party to speak of: the Bloomberg reception. This is always the hot ticket. The party used to be hosted by Vanity Fair, but the VFers grew tired of the bother. Bloomberg rushed in. The bash was two blocks from the hotel. Still, there was limo gridlock between the two spots. After all, there was a drizzle underway. But the Bloombergers had thought of everything. They had stationed young men with bags of umbrellas along the route to the party. There was no need for anyone to show up moist.

I trodded the wet sidewalks of Washington with Michael Isikoff, Maureen Dowd and Jill Abramson of The New York Times. The line was forever long when we arrived, and there was more security than at Washington National airport. I quickly sussed out that I would not get in because my contact person was not working the door as I had been told she would be. (Don't ask how a proper invitation did not make it to me.) But--in the nick of time--there was Arianna Huffington. She whisked me into her entourage. I was in--and, in a way, her date for the evening. Which was fine by me. As we moved through the overcrowded party (can't they keep out gatecrashers?), she greeted practically everyone by asking, "You will be blogging for me?" Wesley Clark. John Podesta. Isikoff. We chatted with Al Franken and Bill Maher. Franken discussed his preparations to run for the Senate from Minnesota in 2008. We then spied Matt Drudge. The new HuffingtonPost.com group-blog has erroneously been described as competition to Drudge's site, but we all talked amicably. Drudge told me that he had recently linked to my blog, after having heard me bash John Bolton on all-night BBC radio in London. And in a rare moment of quiet conversation, Huffington asked me what I would ask David Geffen and Quincy Jones to blog about. Both have agreed to be part of her mega-blog. I'm not going to reveal my suggestions. I want it to be a surprise. The site launches on May 9.

It was at the Bloomberg party that I had my favorite Hollywood moment. As Huffington and I entered the soiree, Ian McShane, the star of HBO's gritty and explicit Western, Deadwood, was leaving. Huffington knows him, of course. (No Rolodex--or Blackberry--can hold all her connections!) They talked. Then I introduced myself to him and remarked that I was a big fan and that Deadwood is a "great fuckin' show." I then realized he probably had heard this a million times, for one signature element of the show is its abundant flow of curse words, especially "fuckin'" and "cocksucker." Whoops, I said. He quickly ended my embarrassment by warmly noting he was familiar with my writings and was delighted to meet me. What a gent. Later, as I thought about this encounter, I recalled that in a recent episode of Deadwood one grizzled no-good ruffian was caught masturbating himself alongside a horse. I wondered if a future episode might feature someone actually milking a stallion.

*******************

IT REMAINS RELEVANT, ALAS. SO DON'T FORGET ABOUT DAVID CORN'S BOOK, The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers). A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! An UPDATED and EXPANDED EDITION is AVAILABLE in PAPERBACK. The Washington Post says, "This is a fierce polemic, but it is based on an immense amount of research.... [I]t does present a serious case for the president's partisans to answer.... Readers can hardly avoid drawing...troubling conclusions from Corn's painstaking indictment." The Los Angeles Times says, "David Corn's The Lies of George W. Bush is as hard-hitting an attack as has been leveled against the current president. He compares what Bush said with the known facts of a given situation and ends up making a persuasive case." The Library Journal says, "Corn chronicles to devastating effect the lies, falsehoods, and misrepresentations.... Corn has painstakingly unearthed a bill of particulars against the president that is as damaging as it is thorough." And GEORGE W. BUSH SAYS, "I'd like to tell you I've read [ The Lies of George W. Bush], but that'd be a lie."

For more information and a sample, go to www.davidcorn.com. And see his WEBLOG there.

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