Penn State censors exhibit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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On Mary McCarthy and the Bush League Players

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Democrats want more cargo inspection abroad

Reuters
Democrats want more cargo inspection abroad
By Susan Cornwell

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'WE WANT A REAL BILL'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(additional reporting by Peter Kaplan)

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Watchdogs say House ethics reform is a "scam"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the Net:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A New Round of McCarthyism

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

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

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

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

Except now she is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jos Cafe makes the inevitable Plame comparison:

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

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

"One is innocent.

"One is guilty.

"The Difference?

"One is a Republican

"One is a Democrat.

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

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

"Whodunnit?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

" . . . according to former government officials.

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

" . . . another former senior CIA official said.

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

" . . . said a senior CIA officer.

" . . . one intelligence official said.

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

" . . . said the intelligence official.

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

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

Yes. It's called protecting confidential sources.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So much for fair and balanced.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Compromise? In an election year? Hahahahaha.

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

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

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

The lame excuses are starting younger too.

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Many seniors unaware of deadline for Medicare drug plan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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How Not to Cure an Addiction

The New York Times
How Not to Cure an Addiction

During his State of the Union speech last January, President Bush correctly diagnosed America's oil consumption as an addiction. Unfortunately, Mr. Bush is balking at taking the steps to cure the abuse.

Yesterday, the president told an audience of the Renewable Fuels Association in Washington that he would try to lower gasoline prices by increasing the supply of oil available to Americans this summer. His plan is to refrain from topping off the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve, but it could backfire. The reserve has a capacity of 727 million gallons but is nearly full already, so skipping a few deposits won't appreciably affect supply or prices. In the event of a true energy emergency, however, a less than full reserve could add to nervousness in the market, which could push up prices.

Mr. Bush's other recommendations were similarly off point. For instance, he acknowledged that higher prices reflected global demand. But he offered no strategy to combat demand-driven price rises. The obvious solution, to increase fuel efficiency standards for ordinary cars, was not mentioned. The current standard, 27.5 miles per gallon, on average, has not been raised in more than two decades.

Instead, Mr. Bush pledged to crack down on price gouging in local markets. That's a sideshow. He also offered some veiled environmental rollbacks as a way to increase supply and lower prices. He proposed to loosen the rules on "boutique fuels": formulations that are required in some areas but not in others. That would make the market more flexible. But if specially formulated blends were eliminated without imposing a higher overall environmental standard for gasoline, the result would be more pollution. Similarly, Mr. Bush's suggestion to streamline the refinery approval process would also amount to an environmental end run, if, as is suspected, it simply allowed refiners to avoid meeting established standards.

The president made no mention of the Iraq war, which pushes up prices by reinforcing the market's anxiety over political upheaval in oil-producing areas. But he did make another pitch for drilling in protected Alaskan wilderness.

The alternative energy technologies Mr. Bush emphasized — biofuels, hybrids, hydrogen power — are important and promising. What's missing is a plan to get us from here to there. That means oil and gas prices will continue to rise, as America leads the world in draining the planet's petroleum resources.

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Specter helped win OK for $200,000 grant for client of staffer's son

USA TODAY
Specter helped win OK for $200,000 grant for client of staffer's son
By Matt Kelley, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Sen. Arlen Specter obtained a $200,000 grant last year for a Philadelphia foundation represented by the son of one of Specter's top aides,the latest example of how the Pennsylvania Republican has helped clients of lobbyists related to members of his staff.

Bill Reynolds, Specter's chief of staff, said an investigation found two lobbyists who sought financial favors and who were related to staff members. Specter has changed his office rules to ban lobbying by staffers' relatives.

"The better practice is what we have now. We're living and learning," Specter said in an interview.

In February, USA TODAY reported that Specter helped get almost $50 million in funding for clients of a lobbying firm run by the husband of Specter's top appropriations aide, Vicki Siegel Herson. After that, Specter called for a Senate ethics investigation of his office and asked his chief of staff to determine whether there were other potential conflicts of interest.

Lobbyist Eric Wallace, a former Specter intern, is the son of Specter's Scranton office chief, Andy Wallace. Lobbyist Shannon Meadors Oscar is the wife of Michael Oscar, former head of Specter's Philadelphia office. Eric Wallace sought money for 13 projects, Reynolds said. Specter helped win approval for one: a $200,000 grant to Impact Services, a Philadelphia non-profit firm, for housing homeless veterans. Both Wallaces declined to comment.

Those lobbyists are banned from contacts with the Specter's office under new rules he imposed after USA TODAY reported that Specter helped direct $48.7 million in Pentagon spending to the clients of lobbyist Michael Herson, Vicki Siegel Herson's husband.

Reynolds said he investigated and found no violations of the law or Senate rules by Siegel or Herson. On March 7, Specter sent the matter to the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, which has announced no action. Rob Walker, the committee's chief of staff, said he can't comment on individual cases.

Reynolds said Oscar also asked Specter to help get federal money for one of her clients. That client, the ALS Hope Foundation, a Philadelphia charity for people with Lou Gehrig's disease, did not receive federal money. Oscar declined comment. Her husband, who now works for Rep. Michael Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., said his wife had "no special access" to Specter's office.

Specter is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which writes federal spending bills. He's chairman of the subcommittee that oversees spending for the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education. That gives him power to insert special measures called "earmarks" into spending bills directing federal money to certain projects.

Specter banned earmarks from the Labor, Education and Health and Human Services funding bill last year because of budget cuts and a disagreement with the House of Representatives. In a news release in November, he called it the toughest choice he has made in the Senate.



Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-24-specter-probe_x.htm

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Friend: Fired CIA Officer Mary McCarthy Was Not Source for Story About Secret Prisons

ABC News
Friend: CIA Officer Not Source on Prisons
Friend: Fired CIA Officer Mary McCarthy Was Not Source for Story About Secret Prisons
By KATHERINE SHRADER
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The CIA officer fired last week for unauthorized contacts with the media denies allegations that she provided information leading to The Washington Post's award-winning story on secret CIA detention centers, according to a friend speaking on her behalf.

"She was not the source for that story," said Rand Beers, who has talked with his former colleague, Mary McCarthy, a veteran intelligence analyst.

Beers headed intelligence programs at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration. He said McCarthy authorized him to make the brief statement, but he declined to discuss the issue further.

In a message distributed to the agency work force Thursday afternoon, CIA Director Porter Goss expressed his deep concern over the "critical damage being suffered" from media leaks and informed his staff of the firing of an unidentified official.

"A CIA officer has acknowledged having unauthorized discussions with the media, in which the officer knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence, including operational information. I terminated that officer's employment with the CIA," Goss said, adding that he took no pleasure in reporting the action.

In January, Goss directed the CIA's security office to conduct polygraph examinations on officers involved in certain sensitive intelligence programs. He said criminal reports were also filed with the Justice Department on "the most egregious media leaks that contained classified intelligence and national security information."

McCarthy was days away from retirement. Her statement, through Beers, was first reported by Newsweek magazine.

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Bush's approval rating hits new low

Reuters
Bush's approval rating hits new low

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's public approval rating has fallen to 32 percent, a new low for his presidency, a CNN poll showed on Monday.

The survey also showed that 60 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job.

Bush's poll numbers have languished below 40 percent in the last couple of months, hit by growing public opposition to the Iraq war, his support for a now-abandoned plan for a Dubai firm to take over major U.S. port operations and American anger over gas prices now topping $3 a gallon at the pump.

Continuing fallout from the Bush administration's mishandling of the initial response to Hurricane Katrina has also hurt his popularity.

Bush's approval rating as measured by CNN's poll dropped from 36 percent in March. His lowest job performance measure has been 32 percent, in a Fox News poll this month.

Bush has launched a shake-up of his White House staff in an effort to revive his popularity and stave off concerns of fellow Republicans that they could lose control of both houses of Congress in a November midterm election.

Bush's response to the gas crisis has been to warn Americans to expect a tough summer, vow that price gouging will not be tolerated and try to promote energy alternatives that will take years to get to consumers.

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Rumsfeld sued over Pentagon's recruiting database

Reuters
Rumsfeld sued over Pentagon's recruiting database
By Daniel Trotta

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Six New York teen-agers sued Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld on Monday, alleging the U.S. Department of Defense broke the law by keeping an extensive database on potential recruits.

The suit in federal court in Manhattan follows a series of allegations last year of misconduct by recruiters, who have experienced difficulty meeting targets because of the war in Iraq.

The Pentagon last year acknowledged it had created a database of 12 million Americans, full of personal data such as grades and Social Security numbers, to help find potential military recruits.

The Pentagon has defended the practice as critical to the success of the all-volunteer U.S. military, and said it was sensitive to privacy concerns.

But the suit alleges the Pentagon improperly collected data on people as young as 16 and kept it beyond a three-year limit, and said that the law does not allow for keeping records on race, ethnicity, gender or social security numbers.

"On the one hand Congress has afforded broad latitude to collect information but on the other hand the Department of Defense has completely flouted those limits," said Donna Lieberman, director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed the suit on behalf of the six plaintiffs.

The Pentagon referred the case to a spokeswoman who was not immediately available for comment.

Although the database was created in 2003, before the U.S. military started missing recruiting targets, the Pentagon first revealed the program in the federal register last year just has it was hit by other recruiting scandals.

The plaintiffs -- all 16- and 17-year-old students from the New York area -- were approached by military recruiters even after demanding that their information be stricken from the database, Lieberman said.

They want the court to declare the database illegal, force the military to stop keeping improper records and pay for their lawyers.

The suit names Rumsfeld; David Chu, the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, and Matt Boehmer, the Pentagon's director of advertising and market research studies.

"There's nothing sinister," Chu said when responding to criticism of the program last year.

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Paper calls for Dick Cheney's early retirement

Reuters
Paper calls for Dick Cheney's early retirement

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A Los Angeles Times editorial on Sunday called for a "far more audacious" makeover of President George W. Bush's administration, saying he should send Vice President Dick Cheney into early retirement.

Earlier this week, Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan resigned and Karl Rove gave up his policy role as part of a White House sweep aimed at reviving Bush's sagging job-approval ratings ahead of November's pivotal mid-term elections.

"The remaking of the president in the public eye likely will require more than last week's game of musical chairs," the editorial said.

"Bush has acknowledged that he has spent much of his political capital on Iraq, and the way to replenish the reserves is to replace the officials most associated with the overreaching that led to the tragedy in Iraq -- and with the administration's broader disdain for diplomacy."

The paper noted broad speculation that Treasury Secretary John Snow will likely be ushered out next, but said a better solution would include the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- whose critics, including retired generals, have demand that he step aside -- and Cheney's ouster.

"Throwing Cheney overboard would be an implicit repudiation of the excessively hawkish foreign policy with which the vice president, even more than Rumsfeld, has been associated," the paper said.

Cheney told CBS television's "Face the Nation" on March 19 he had no intention of resigning. "I didn't ask for this job. I didn't campaign for it. I got drafted," Cheney said.

"I've now been elected to a second term," he told CBS. "I'll serve out my term."

Unlike most vice presidents, Cheney does not aspire to be president, the editorial said, so he would not be giving up a political birthright by agreeing to retire due to health reasons or concern over the publicity surrounding the trial of his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

"No longer proclaiming 'mission accomplished,' Bush has been pursuing a sadder-but-wiser policy in Iraq that many Democrats also endorse," the paper said. "Having changed his tune, the president should also think about changing the company he keeps."

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Bush's Thousand Days

washingtonpost.com
Bush's Thousand Days
By Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

The Hundred Days is indelibly associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Thousand Days with John F. Kennedy. But as of this week, a thousand days remain of President Bush's last term -- days filled with ominous preparations for and dark rumors of a preventive war against Iran.

The issue of preventive war as a presidential prerogative is hardly new. In February 1848 Rep. Abraham Lincoln explained his opposition to the Mexican War: "Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure [emphasis added]. . . . If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us'; but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.' "

This is precisely how George W. Bush sees his presidential prerogative: Be silent; I see it, if you don't . However, both Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, veterans of the First World War, explicitly ruled out preventive war against Joseph Stalin's attempt to dominate Europe. And in the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, President Kennedy, himself a hero of the Second World War, rejected the recommendations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff for a preventive strike against the Soviet Union in Cuba.

It was lucky that JFK was determined to get the missiles out peacefully, because only decades later did we discover that the Soviet forces in Cuba had tactical nuclear weapons and orders to use them to repel a U.S. invasion. This would have meant a nuclear exchange. Instead, JFK used his own thousand days to give the American University speech, a powerful plea to Americans as well as to Russians to reexamine "our own attitude -- as individuals and as a nation -- for our attitude is as essential as theirs." This was followed by the limited test ban treaty. It was compatible with the George Kennan formula -- containment plus deterrence -- that worked effectively to avoid a nuclear clash.

The Cuban missile crisis was not only the most dangerous moment of the Cold War. It was the most dangerous moment in all human history. Never before had two contending powers possessed between them the technical capacity to destroy the planet. Had there been exponents of preventive war in the White House, there probably would have been nuclear war. It is certain that nuclear weapons will be used again. Henry Adams, the most brilliant of American historians, wrote during our Civil War, "Some day science shall have the existence of mankind in its power, and the human race shall commit suicide by blowing up the world."

But our Cold War presidents kept to the Kennan formula of containment plus deterrence, and we won the Cold War without escalating it into a nuclear war. Enter George W. Bush as the great exponent of preventive war. In 2003, owing to the collapse of the Democratic opposition, Bush shifted the base of American foreign policy from containment-deterrence to presidential preventive war: Be silent; I see it, if you don't. Observers describe Bush as "messianic" in his conviction that he is fulfilling the divine purpose.

But, as Lincoln observed in his second inaugural address, "The Almighty has His own purposes."

There stretch ahead for Bush a thousand days of his own. He might use them to start the third Bush war: the Afghan war (justified), the Iraq war (based on fantasy, deception and self-deception), the Iran war (also fantasy, deception and self-deception). There is no more dangerous thing for a democracy than a foreign policy based on presidential preventive war.

Maybe President Bush, who seems a humane man, might be moved by daily sorrows of death and destruction to forgo solo preventive war and return to cooperation with other countries in the interest of collective security. Abraham Lincoln would rejoice.

The writer, a historian, served as an adviser to President John F. Kennedy.

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House softens lobbying measure

USA TODAY
House softens lobbying measure
By Jim Drinkard, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders have quietly scaled back their plan to limit the political influence of lobbyists, dropping proposed requirements that lobbyists disclose which lawmakers and aides they have contacted and how they have raised money for politicians.

The changes were made public in an amended bill posted on the House Rules Committee website Friday while Congress was wrapping up a two-week recess. Even before the latest move, political ethics experts had called the House plan weaker than a lobbying bill the Senate passed last month.

The legislation is to be considered this week as Congress returns to address a political influence scandal that has gripped Washington. The House bill would leave unchanged current rules that allow members of Congress and their staffs to accept gifts from lobbyists.

In addition, the measure would:

•Freeze junkets paid for by private interests, but only until after the November elections.

•Place no new restrictions on lawmakers and aides who leave Capitol Hill to become lobbyists.

•Leave enforcement of the rules in the hands of a House ethics committee that is paralyzed by partisan tensions.

Ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff landed in legal trouble for wooing members of Congress with lavish trips, expensive meals and sports and entertainment tickets, and by luring top aides to the lobbying world to try to influence their former bosses.

The House bill, like the Senate version approved last month, relies heavily on disclosure to police ties between lobbyists and policymakers. It would require lobbyists to file reports quarterly, rather than semiannually as they do now.

Kevin Madden, spokesman for House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the bill would make the ties between lobbyists and lawmakers more transparent and "rebuild the trust between Congress and the American public."

The House bill is "sleight of hand from a Congress that is more concerned with facing the voters than with facing the problem," said Gary Kalman of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a government watchdog organization. Added Chellie Pingree, president of Common Cause: "They are maintaining the status quo and calling it reform."

Julian Zelizer, a congressional historian at Boston University, said major rule changes usually come only when a scandal hits peak intensity. Congress, he said, is "still clearly hesitating to do anything."

The revised plan finished Friday dropped requirements that lobbyists specify which lawmakers and aides they have contacted; disclose their sponsorship of lavish parties for lawmakers at political conventions; and report their fundraising for candidates for federal office.

Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-23-lobbying_x.htm

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Democrats Suggest Double Standard on Leaks; White House Aides' Actions Are Cited

Washington Post
Democrats Suggest Double Standard on Leaks
White House Aides' Actions Are Cited
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer

Key Democratic legislators yesterday joined Republicans in saying they do not condone the alleged leaking of classified information that led to last week's firing of a veteran CIA officer. But they questioned whether a double standard exists that lets the White House give reporters secretly declassified information for political purposes.

"I don't know this woman and I do not condone leaks of classified information," said Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, referring to the firing of Mary McCarthy.

Harman added that "while leaks are wrong, I think it is totally wrong for our president in secret to selectively declassify certain information and empower people in his White House to leak it to favored reporters so that they can discredit political enemies, " she said on Fox News Sunday.

Harman was referring to White House staff members disclosing the classified identity of CIA case officer Valerie Plame in 2003.

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) echoed Harman, saying, "A CIA agent has an obligation to uphold the law, and clearly leaking is against the law. And nobody should leak." But he added: "If you're leaking to tell the truth, Americans are going to look at that, at least mitigate or think about what are the consequences that you . . . put on that person."

McCarthy, while working for CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson, is alleged to have "knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence, including operational information" to journalists including The Post's Dana Priest. Last week, Priest was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting that included the revelation of secret, CIA-run prisons for suspected terrorists in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

Kerry, on ABC's "This Week," said, "Classification in Washington is a tool that is used to hide the truth from the American people." He added, "I'm glad she told the truth," but if she did it will have to face the consequences of breaking the law.

Then drawing a parallel to the Plame case, Kerry said that with McCarthy, "you have somebody being fired from the CIA for allegedly telling the truth, and you have no one fired from the White House for revealing a CIA agent in order to support a lie. That underscores what's really wrong in Washington, D.C."

From 1996 to 2001, McCarthy worked as a senior intelligence aide on the National Security Council staff. She has been denounced by critics for leaking classified material, some of whom suggested she had a political motive and note that she gave $2,000 to Kerry's presidential primary campaign.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence panel, took issue with Harman on the question of a double standard. Appearing on the same Fox program, Hoekstra said the president has the legal authority to decide "what is classified and what is not," whereas "this person [McCarthy] in the CIA thought that they were above the law." As a result, he added, she put the country at greater risk through her alleged disclosures.

Asked about the administration's statements about Iran's fast-advancing nuclear program, Hoekstra and Harman gave support to Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte's prediction last week that it could be the next decade before Tehran has enough fissile material to make a nuclear weapon.

"We really don't know," Hoekstra said, but "we're getting lots of mixed messages." Pressed about the apparent lack of clear intelligence on Iran's Hoekstra said: "Sometimes it's better to be honest and to say there's a whole lot we don't know about Iran that I wish we did know . . . as decisions are being made on Iran."

Harman picked up the point, saying, "Our intelligence is thin. I don't think we have enough sources." Referring to recent statements from Tehran that it had begun enriching uranium, Harman said: "Just the fact that the Iranian government is making a lot of noise doesn't prove their capability."

She compared Iran today to Iraq in 2002, when "the Iraqi government made a lot of noise and they had nothing." She said when the Bush White House did not have a strong case that Saddam Hussein had unconventional weapons, "those who tried to speak truth to power were shut out."

As for Iran, Harman said, "This is not a time to be saber rattling in our government, talking about the military option. We don't know enough."

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Son of the Bridge to Nowhere

The New York Times
Son of the Bridge to Nowhere

It was only last month that the Senate staged a breast-beating debate about the need to control the rampant pork-spending abuse of earmarks — boondoggle appropriations tucked into vital legislation with little public scrutiny. Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, orated on the side of the angels in calling for reform. Well, the angels have lost another player. As the Senate returns from recess it will confront the year's prize porker blithely trotted out by Senator Lott — a $700 million earmark to relocate a Gulf Coast rail line, which was just rebuilt, post-Katrina, at a cost of $250 million.

Invoked in the name of public safety, the project is actually a transparent attempt to tap already scarce hurricane reconstruction funds so the rail bed can be replaced by a touristy "beach boulevard" long sought by Mississippi to aid the casino industry and coastal developers. The railroad relocation dwarfs the $223 million "bridge to nowhere" proposed for the Alaska outback, the giveaway that brought all the vows for reform from Congress.

Even worse, Senator Lott and his fellow Mississippi Republican, Thad Cochran, are attaching this frivolous add-on to a bill that is supposed to be used to pay for emergencies — specifically the war in Iraq and hurricane reconstruction.

Senator Lott angrily resents any description of his pet project as a right of way to the slot machines. He insists the rail line needs higher ground and his constituents better protection. But it seems clear the twin traumas of Iraq and Katrina are being used as cover. Economic development is a fine goal for the Gulf Coast, but it deserves careful consideration, not a devious rush to the pork barrel.

This earmark is particularly objectionable considering that Senator Lott, as a principal in the recent ethics debate, helped produce the half-hearted swipe at the problem that the Senate passed as a supposed fix for earmarking. Now Senator Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who has made total disclosure of all earmarks a cause, plans to challenge the railroad money when the $107 billion Iraq spending bill comes to the floor. His colleagues should seize this second chance to take a truly credible stand against pork, while protecting Katrina funds for the real needs of reconstruction.

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Congressional Investigators Are Critical of F.D.A.'s Efforts to Detect Drug Dangers

The New York Times
Congressional Investigators Are Critical of F.D.A.'s Efforts to Detect Drug Dangers
By GARDINER HARRIS

WASHINGTON, April 23 — Disorganization, bureaucratic infighting and an inability to force drug makers to conduct needed safety tests have undercut efforts at the Food and Drug Administration to uncover drug dangers, government auditors say.

When drug safety specialists raise alarms about certain medicines, they sometimes feel that their recommendations fall "into a 'black hole' or 'abyss' " at the agency, according to a report to be released Monday by the Government Accountability Office, the auditing arm of Congress.

Top agency officials sometimes excluded drug safety specialists from presenting findings at public hearings, and tensions between officials who approve drugs and those who ensure that they are safe are common, the report said.

"F.D.A. lacks clear and effective processes for making decisions about, and providing management oversight of" issues involving the safety of popular medicines, the report states.

The F.D.A. told the accountability office that its conclusions were "reasonable," the report said.

Last year, the agency created a drug safety oversight board and asked the Institute of Medicine to examine its drug safety practices. The institute's report is due in July. The accountability office said in its report that the agency's responses so far might help "but will not address all gaps."

Susan Bro, an F.D.A. spokeswoman, said, "The F.D.A. welcomes the G.A.O. report and is currently leading a comprehensive and timely effort to transform the methods our medical and scientific staff use to manage safety issues."

The report comes after a series of drug withdrawals led agency critics and some on Capitol Hill to suggest that the agency was failing in its mission to protect the public from dangerous drugs. Since 2000, pharmaceutical companies have withdrawn 10 drugs after deaths and other injuries belatedly demonstrated that the medicines were unsafe.

Many critics have said that the agency should never have approved these drugs for sale in the first place.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican who is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said the accountability office's report showed that "the F.D.A.'s problems are systemic and cultural, not isolated or easily fixed."

But Representative Joe L. Barton, a Republican from Texas who is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said the report "shows that the drug safety system is not in crisis, but the F.D.A.'s process may need some fine-tuning."

The auditors recommended that Congress vote to give the agency power to force drug makers to undertake or complete drug safety studies. Mr. Grassley has proposed legislation that would do that.

When it approves new drugs for sale, the drug agency often requires manufacturers to study whether the medicines are working as intended and whether they have unwanted side effects once they get into a broader market.

But the agency announced in March that two-thirds of these promised studies had not even been started, and hundreds of trials have been pending for years.

In many cases, pharmaceutical makers had guaranteed they would undertake the studies as a way to speed their drugs' approval.

The Bush administration has opposed efforts to give the agency greater authority to force drug makers to complete these trials, and top agency officials have for years told Congressional committees that the agency did not need any additional authority.

"One senior F.D.A. official and several outside drug safety experts told us that F.D.A. needs greater authority to require such studies," the accountability office's report says.

Dr. Alastair Wood, associate dean of the Vanderbilt medical school, said the report demonstrated that the drug agency needed more authority and should create an independent department that evaluates the safety of medicines.

"It confirms that the current system needs fixing," Dr. Wood said.

The report said the agency lacked the money needed to construct an effective system to monitor the safety of marketed drugs.

Much of the drug agency's functions are financed by fees paid by drug makers, but the industry mostly opposed proposals that would have allowed the agency to use this money to determine whether already approved medicines cause unexpected injuries or deaths. And neither the administration nor Congress has provided enough money to make up the difference.

The accountability office's report said that the drug agency's budget to undertake its own studies of drug dangers amounted to less than $1 million annually from 2002 to 2005, and that this figure was expected to rise to only $1.1 million annually through 2010.

Just one clinical trial to study the long-term safety of one drug can cost as much as $7 million, the report said.

"I think the report is terrific," said Dr. Curt Furberg, a professor of public health sciences at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. "The F.D.A.'s office of drug safety has absolutely no clout and no money, and the report showed that."

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