Progressive News Digest - APRIL 14 2008
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Date: Mon, April 14, 2008
PROGRESSIVE NEWS DIGEST
The latest news, commentary & event listings
(from slightly left of center)
updated daily on the web at
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Volume IV, Issue #45 Monday, April 14, 2008
Welcome to another edition of Progressive News Digest, still rolling along in
its fourth year (just over the halfway-mark of Year 4, BTW, and with rare
exception this has appeared every week at some point).
This week, a full issue complete with contents listing. Not only that, your
editor even found a topic worthy of an editorial at Medical Freedom Channel,
which leads the Commentaries section this week.
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... enjoy and see you next week! Check the site for constant
updates each day:
NEWS
01 - TN: Sales tax applies to less and less
02 - ME: U.S.-Canada turf war set to resume
03 - Rwanda: Visionary doctor moving mountains again
04 - IL: Rev. Wright still ranting
05 - Olympic torch carrier flies Tibetan flag
06 - CA: Power bills to bankroll climate institute
07 - More FAA whistle-blowers coming forward
08 - AZ: Phoenix Mayor Gordon wants FBI investigation of shriff
09 - Elton John backs Clinton, laments American “misogyny”
10 - Dalai Lama begins US visit in Seattle
11 - House OKs western land bill
12 - WI: University student’s slaying sparks debate over homeless
13 - Nepalese turn out in force to vote
14 - MA: Not all parishes are “Talking About Touching”
15 - Physicist: Teleportation possible “within decades”
16 - While reservists serve, jobs don’t always stand & wait
17 - Pentagon issues pocket lie detector to troops
18 - CA: Senate panel OKs protection for journalism teachers
19 - New Zealand: Climate “may hurt beer-making”
20 - State Department confirms Carter to visit Syria
21 - MA: Boston parking fines may jump
22 - AZ: Online mug shots in shoplift cases raising concerns
23 - TN: House committee passes compromise cable bill
24 - CA: DA vows to probe federal crime grant
25 - Ecuador: $16 billion environmental lawsuit tests Chevron
COMMENTARY
26 - Chronic challenges to healthcare maxims
27 - Jefferson was looking out for you
28 - What does it mean to call McCain a “war hero” candidate?
29 - Making up for America’s lost clout
30 - Oprah’s stale definition of charity
31 - A speech even Condi could love
32 - Hillary’s NAFTA pretensions
33 - John Yoo: Spearhead or scapegoat?
34 - McCain’s outreach tour
35 - Cops, former Secret Service agents ran black ops on green groups
36 - The Military-Leisure Golf Complex
37 - Founders favored liberty over restrictions
38 - The biofuel brew ha-ha
39 - Iraq’s realities (whoever is president)
40 - Phil Donahue’s “War”
41 - WTF is feminist porn?
42 - Someone will get the 2024 delegates
43 - TN lawmakers turning scholarships into welfare
44 - Treading carefully with China
45 - The formula for a police state
46 - No, Hillary Clinton shouldn’t be winning
47 - A Superman approach to foreign policy
48 - When free speech offends Muslims
49 - Finding a way to bring Hamas in
50 - Is America a “center-right nation?”
51 - FCC’s puritanical actions should be reined in
52 - Senator Straight Talk won’t go on the record
53 - Pregnant men
54 - If government limits speech, our freedom evaporates
55 - Petraeus, tell us something we don’t already know
NEWS
01 - TN: Sales tax applies to less and less
Tennessean
“When falling trees knock out power to Betty Rule’s rural home, she and her husband light the kerosene-powered Aladdin lamps … that they keep at the ready for blackouts. Eventually, her kerosene stockpile will run out. When it does, Rule will likely head to Wal-Mart for a new bottle, and pay the state’s 7 percent sales tax with it. She might get a small break starting next year, though, if lawmakers add kerosene to other goods exempt from the sales tax. Each year, legislators flood Capitol Hill with bills seeking new sales tax exemptions. … In addition, lawmakers often seek to reduce taxes on groceries; last year, they rolled back food taxes by a half-penny, which went into effect in January.” [editor’s note: Only a Tennessean writer could see this as a dangerous trend, instead of citizens (especially the lowest income ones?) retaining a little more of their own hard-earned money, to spend as they see fit! One also notes the dismissal of reductions in the food tax, which do truly “
help the poor” … as well as everyone else. The only good news: They do include TTR’s Ben Cunningham’s (clearly libertarian) views, later down the story - SAT] (04/13/08)
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02 - ME: U.S.-Canada turf war set to resume
Christian Science Monitor
“Aboard the 46-foot ‘Rebbie’s Mistress,’ John Drouin of Cutler, Maine, will steam southeast from the harbor in town to tend his lobster traps in the cobalt seas near Machias Seal Island –- a 110-square-mile patch of the Gulf of Maine known as the ‘gray zone.’ In spring, the fishing is easy. From July to early November, Mr. Drouin and about 35 lobstermen from Maine will crowd the waters beside a fleet of lobster fishermen from Canada, with tensions high because both sides claim they’re fishing their own nation’s waters. Because Canada and the United States have never settled ownership of Machias Seal Island, a 19-acre rise of rock and pine, and the maritime boundary south of the Bay of Fundy, the gray zone has become for the past six summers the scene of tangled gear, allegations of vandalism, and mutual concerns that such intense lobstering and differing management regulations will eventually overwhelm the crustaceous population.” (04/14/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0414/p02s01-usgn.html
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03 - Rwanda: Visionary doctor moving mountains again
Boston Globe
“It was November 2004, and Dr. Paul Farmer had agreed to bring his world-renowned Partners in Health model to Rwanda, which was still reeling from the aftershocks of the genocide a decade earlier. Now here he was, with Rwandan health officials, to scout out a location for a hospital to serve the poorest of the poor. Farmer, who teaches at Harvard, was taken to Ruhengeri, in the country’s northwest corner. But there was already a clean hospital there, with employees and even an X-ray machine. ‘No, no, no. You don’t understand,’ Farmer recalls saying. ‘Find me the worst possible place in the country.’ So they took him to Rwinkwavu, a remote area two hours east of Kigali. Even Farmer — who works in the world’s worst regions — was taken aback.” (04/13/08)
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04 - IL: Rev. Wright still ranting
Fox News
“Rev. Jeremiah Wright was briefly back in the pulpit on Saturday where he blasted America’s founding fathers for slavery and white supremacy and received standing ovations for attacking FOX News for covering his anti-American sermons. Delivering a eulogy for a late congregant of Trinity United Church of Christ — former appellate judge R. Eugene Pincham — Barack Obama’s former pastor said America’s mistreatment of blacks is the result of the founding fathers, who ‘planted slavery and white supremacy in the DNA of this republic.’ First reported by The Chicago Sun Times, Wright said that Thomas Jefferson, who partook in ‘pedophilia,’ would also be considered unpatriotic these days because he wrote, ‘God would punish America for the sin of slavery.’ He also quoted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said that the U.S. has a ‘congenital birth defect.’” [editor’s note: OK, now he’s slamming Tom Jefferson; this clearly means war! - SAT] (04/13/08)
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05 - Olympic torch carrier flies Tibetan flag
New York Daily News
“The brainy South Bronx activist who stirred an Olympic torch-bearing ruckus in San Francisco said Thursday her conscience fueled her surprise anti-China protest. … One of three New Yorkers chosen to bear the Beijing Olympic torch in San Francisco on Wednesday, Carter foiled an elaborate attempt by police to avoid thousands of demonstrators by pulling a Trojan horse-type ploy. Once she got her hands on the Olympic flame, she pulled a Tibetan flag from her sleeve to protest China’s human rights abuses in the Himalayan province. A Chinese paramilitary squad escorting the torch quickly snatched it from her, and cops pushed her into the crowd.” [editor’s note: Um … why isn’t anyone asking why a “Chinese paramilitary squad” is being allowed to operate against American citizens on American soil? - TLK] (04/11/08)
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06 - CA: Power bills to bankroll climate institute
Inside Bay Area
“Are you willing to pay 12 to 30 cents more a month on your utility bill for an institute coordinating energy and climate change technology research across the state? Actually, you don’t have a choice. The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday unanimously approved the $600 million California Institute for Climate Solutions, which will be paid for by money from ratepayers’ monthly electric bills, to the tune of $60 million a year. The institute aims to speed up research into cutting greenhouse gas emissions, such as auto exhaust, that contribute to pollution. This work is already under way at laboratories as well as universities such as University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford.” (04/11/08)
http://origin.insidebayarea.com/ci_8888871
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07 - More FAA whistle-blowers coming forward
McClatchy Newspapers
“More Federal Aviation Administration whistle-blowers are beginning to step forward with fresh allegations of a ‘culture of complacency’ between the FAA and the airlines industry, the head of the government agency charged with investigating whistle-blower complaints said Friday. … But with the FAA under scrutiny by Congress and government investigators … the big question remains: How could this have happened? The FAA was created in 1958 as an independent watchdog over airline safety. But instead the 46,000-employee agency is falling down on the job through a cozy relationship with the industry that has led to a years-long pattern of benign enforcement, say a parade of critics.” [editor’s note: The real question is, “Why is this surprising?” Collusion among regulators and their alleged “targets” has been rampant in every arena, since before the New Deal; the failure to acknowledge this, while continuing to agitate for “government crackdowns,” brings its own rewards - SAT] (04/13/08)
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/33439.html
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08 - AZ: Phoenix Mayor Gordon wants FBI investigation of shriff
Arizona Republic
“In the wake of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office crackdowns on illegal immigrants throughout the Valley, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon is calling on the FBI to investigate whether Sheriff Joe Arpaio has violated any civil-rights laws. In an April 4 letter to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Gordon asked the Justice Department’s civil-rights division and the FBI to probe what Gordon calls a ‘pattern and practice of conduct that includes discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests.’ Justice Department officials promised to review Gordon’s letter but declined further comment. Arpaio said it was ironic that Gordon drafted the letter on the same day that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials from Washington observed his deputies arresting residents and illegal immigrants in Guadalupe and approved of the sheriff’s work.” (04/13/08)
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09 - Elton John backs Clinton, laments American “misogyny”
Reuters
“British pop star Elton John, playing a fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton in New York on Wednesday, said he was amazed at the misogyny of some in America and he hoped that wouldn’t stop her being president. At the fund-raiser which Clinton’s campaign manager said raised $2.5 million, John said there was no one more qualified to lead the United States into the next era. ‘Having said that, I never cease to be amazed at the misogynistic attitude of some people in this country. And I say to hell with them,’ he said, drawing cheers from the crowd at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan.” (04/09/08)
http://www.reuters.com/article/peopleNews/idUSN0926923920080411
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10 - Dalai Lama begins US visit in Seattle
Raw Story
“The Dalai Lama arrived in the United States on Thursday for the first time since the recent turmoil in Tibet, serenaded by fellow Tibetans as he prepared to anchor an ambitious conference on compassion. The exiled Tibetan spiritual leader came here a day after demonstrators disrupted the Olympic torch run in San Francisco in a protest of China’s treatment of his people. The Dalai Lama will be attending a five-day conference that begins Friday. With the Dalai Lama in town, some community leaders said they expected counter-demonstrations from pro-China groups. But all was peaceful when he arrived at a downtown hotel Thursday, telling local Tibetans who sang to him that he supports nonviolent demonstrations but was saddened by the protests in San Francisco.” (04/10/08)
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11 - House OKs western land bill
Arizona Republic
“About 26 million acres of national monuments, historic trails and wilderness areas in the West could get additional protection under a bill the House approved Wednesday. The 278-140 vote would officially designate the areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management as the National Landscape Conservation System. The lands include a portion of the Grand Canyon in Arizona, the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto mountains in Southern California, the California coastline, the Black Rock Desert of northern Nevada and the Grand Staircase in Utah. … Conservation advocates say the congressional recognition, already given to national parks and wildlife refuges, would ensure a steadier source of funding for the system.” [editor’s note: Extending federal welfare (and control) in the process, rather than privatizing and allowing ownership to take over responsibly; the travesty of the commons? - SAT] (04/10/08)
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12 - WI: University student’s slaying sparks debate over homeless
Fox News
“The slaying of a college student in a downtown neighborhood frequented by beggars has forced this liberal city to ask a difficult question: Has Madison been too nice to the homeless? A debate over the city’s friendly treatment of its transient population had been under way for months, but last week’s killing of University of Wisconsin student Brittany Zimmermann started something of a backlash against the homeless. Police have arrested dozens of transients on unrelated charges as part of the investigation, but none are considered suspects in the death. The city also announced plans Wednesday to confront problems at a nearby park where the homeless congregate, although those efforts were in the works before the murder.” (04/10/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,349890,00.html
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13 - Nepalese turn out in force to vote
Christian Science Monitor
“More than 60 percent of 17.6 million eligible voters in Nepal cast their votes Thursday in the first national election to take place in the country in nine years. Nepal’s former Maoist rebels, who people feared would engage in violence during the election, demonstrated a commitment to multiparty politics by participating in the election in a largely peaceful manner. Unlike past elections that elected a government, the assembly that will be elected by Thursday’s vote will end the country’s 240-year monarchy, write a new constitution, and cap a two-year peace process with former Maoist rebels, who ended their deadly 10-year insurgency in 2006. The insurgency killed more than 13,000 Nepalese. Though the voting opened at 7 a.m. local time, people started queuing up outside polling centers from as early as 5 a.m.” (04/11/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0411/p25s01-wosc.html
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14 - MA: Not all parishes are “Talking About Touching”
Boston Globe
“The third graders sit squirming in their seats, a crucifix on the wall and a bag of Doritos on each desk, as Rose Eames holds up a big picture of two girls and starts to tell a potentially unsettling story. The girls are at a movie, she says, and when their chaperone, an older sister, goes to get popcorn, a man in the row behind them strokes the hair of one of the girls. What should they do? While the question seems straightforward, the very discussion in a weekly religious education class of inappropriate behaviors is causing major headaches for Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston, who has made resolving the abuse crisis a hallmark of his tenure. … Most local parishes … have employed the program … [but one in five parishes in the archdiocese has either refused to implement the program or has seen it fall apart.” (04/10/08)
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15 - Physicist: Teleportation possible “within decades”
The Telegraph [UK]
“Teleportation and forcefields could become scientific realities within decades, and time travel will also be possible in the future, according to one of the world’s leading physicists. Professor Michio Kaku of City University in New York has studied a range of scientific ‘impossibilities’ and concluded that most will almost certainly be achieved as our knowledge expands. Applying the rule that unless something breaks a law of physics ‘then it’s not only possible, it is sure to be built someday,’ Prof Kaku has established a hierarchy of ‘impossibilities,’ separating those phenomena that are sure to remain science fiction from those which are likely to become reality at some point in the future. Teleportation, telepathy, forcefields and invisibility are Class 1 impossibilities, meaning they are likely to be realisable within a few decades or at most a century. Class II impossibilities may take centuries or milennia to perfect, while Class III impossibilities are truly impossible.” (
04/09/08)
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16 - While reservists serve, jobs don’t always stand & wait
Christian Science Monitor
“Steve Duarte worked in human resources for the same company for 19 years. But within months of returning from Iraq with his Marine Reserve unit in 2003 -– his second military deployment in two years -– he was told his job was ending in a week. ‘There was that initial shock -– and then the shock of ‘What am I going to do?” recalls Mr. Duarte of Littleton, Colo., whose expenses at the time included tuition for his son at the University of Denver. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan grind on, tensions are mounting between the military’s civilian volunteers, trying to step back into their professions, and employers, straining at times to cope with a growing cadre of workers who are away at war for months then expect to regain their former jobs.” (04/10/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0410/p01s03-usmi.html
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17 - Pentagon issues pocket lie detector to troops
The Raw Story
“The Pentagon is planning to give US troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan ‘hand-held lie detectors’ aimed at rooting out potential insurgents and terrorists. But polygraph experts doubt the system’s accuracy and Defense Department memos show results of the few tests that were run were manipulated to demonstrate more success with them than was achieved, according to an MSNBC investigative reporter. ‘The Defense Department says the portable device isn’t perfect, but is accurate enough to save American lives by screening local police officers, interpreters and allied forces for access to U.S. military bases, and by helping narrow the list of suspects after a roadside bombing,’ MSNBC’s Bill Dedman reports. ‘The device has already been tried in Iraq and is expected to be deployed there as well.’” (04/09/08)
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18 - CA: Senate panel OKs protection for journalism teachers
San Francisco Chronicle
“A state Senate committee has approved a San Francisco lawmaker’s proposed legal protections for high school and college journalism teachers after hearing instructors’ complaints of retaliation for hard-hitting articles in student newspapers. ‘Allowing a school administration to censor in any way is contrary to the democratic process and the ability of a student newspaper to serve as the watchdog,’ Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, said after the Judiciary Committee sent his bill to the Senate floor Tuesday. The measure, SB1370, would prohibit school officials from punishing teachers for allowing students to publish articles that are covered by California’s guarantee of freedom of the press on campus. Teacher and student organizations and labor unions support the bill, while the Association of California School Administrators opposes it.” (04/09/08)
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19 - New Zealand: Climate “may hurt beer-making”
Arizona Republic
“The price of beer is likely to rise in coming decades because climate change will hamper the production of a key grain needed for the brew, especially in Australia, a scientist warned Tuesday. Jim Salinger, a climate scientist at New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, said climate change likely will cause a decline in the production of malting barley in parts of New Zealand and Australia. Malting barley is a key ingredient of beer. ‘It will mean either there will be pubs without beer or the cost of beer will go up,’ Salinger told the Institute of Brewing and Distilling’s convention. Similar effects could be expected worldwide, but Salinger spoke only of the effects on Australia and New Zealand. He said climate change could cause a drop in beer production within 30 years as dry areas become drier.” [editor’s note: They’ve tried everything else to promote “GW terror” … maybe this will work! - SAT] (04/09/08)
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20 - State Department confirms Carter to visit Syria
Fox News
“The State Department confirmed Wednesday that former President Jimmy Carter is planning to visit Syria on an unsanctioned diplomatic trip in mid-April. A State Department official in Israel told FOX News that Carter is scheduled to arrive in Israel on April 12, and is expected to visit Syria and Saudi Arabia while in the region. Meanwhile, a State Department spokesman in Washington, D.C., told FOXNews.com that the department is aware that Carter is planning a stay in the region, but would not disclose details of the trip. That spokesman noted, however, that ‘the State Department has expressed our concerns and advised President Carter that past engagement with the Syrian regime has not produced positive results.’” (04/09/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,348989,00.html
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21 - MA: Boston parking fines may jump
Boston Globe
“Drivers would be slapped with tickets as high as $100 for violating the city’s parking rules in a series of steep fine increases proposed as part of the mayor’s budget for fiscal 2009. Mayor Thomas M. Menino’s $2.42 billion budget, which was filed yesterday, would increase city spending by 5.1 percent and keep funding for basic services largely untouched while sprinkling new cash into several community initiatives. The budget and new fines, which would generate an additional $13 million in revenue, must be approved by the City Council. Menino said the fine increases, such as doubling the penalty for parking in a handicapped ramp from $50 to $100, are overdue. ‘This budget shows stability at a time of real uncertainty,’ Menino said in a telephone interview yesterday. ‘We have got to raise some new revenues to maintain that stability. Some of these fines haven’t been raised in over a decade.’” [editor’s note: This is just too rich, but at least they aren’t claiming it’s about “publi
c safety” - SAT] (04/09/08)
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22 - AZ: Online mug shots in shoplift cases raising concerns
Arizona Republic
“A controversial law-enforcement tactic used to deter crime is now targeting shoplifters, reviving the debate over the civil liberties of people who are singled out for an offense they may or may not have committed. Avondale is the latest police agency to post suspects’ mug shots online. The city publicizes photos of adults arrested and accused of shoplifting, even if they haven’t been convicted. Police officials say they’re helping merchants by cracking down on shoplifting, which peaked at 94 reports in October. But the American Civil Liberties Union and Valley defense attorneys question whether the practice infringes on citizens’ rights.” (04/08/08)
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23 - TN: House committee passes compromise cable bill
Tennessean
“Compromise legislation that seeks to provide statewide cable TV franchising is moving in the House with little debate. The measure unanimously passed the House Commerce Committee on Tuesday after Democratic chairman Charles Curtiss of Sparta had state Comptroller John Morgan address committee members to make sure they understood the bill. The legislation would allow companies like AT&T Inc. to avoid having to seek hundreds of municipal permits to offer TV service. It’s an amendment to a bill that fell apart last year because of disagreements among AT&T, the cable industry and local governments. ‘Every concern that we had last year has been addressed in this legislation,’ Curtiss said before the vote. ‘It’s a better piece of legislation.’ AT&T and other supporters of the proposal say it would allow for more competition for cable consumers.” (04/08/08)
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24 - CA: DA vows to probe federal crime grant
San Francisco Chronicle
“San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said Monday that she is trying ‘to get to the bottom’ of how her office obtained millions of dollars from a grant program for prosecution of border crimes that federal auditors have concluded the city had no right to receive. Federal officials said last week that San Francisco had received $5.4 million since 2004 in grant money intended to reimburse local jurisdictions for prosecuting crimes on behalf of federal authorities. In 2006, the $3.7 million that San Francisco received from the Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative was the most of any county in four states that border Mexico, and it was far more than the total of grants awarded to other Bay Area counties, the audit by the U.S. Justice Department’s inspector general said.” (04/08/08)
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25 - Ecuador: $16 billion environmental lawsuit tests Chevron
Christian Science Monitor
“On a chaotic street in this sweltering jungle town, Emergildo Criollo spent several days near the entrance to a courthouse that looks more like a run-down mall. He was, he says, vigilando: watching. ‘We waited to know the moment he arrived,’ says the middle-aged indigenous man who was raised in this oil-rich Amazonian rain forest near Ecuador’s northern border with Colombia. The man Mr. Criollo and his friends were waiting for is Richard Cabrera, a court-appointed expert who last week poured fuel on an epic environmental lawsuit filed by Ecuadorean indigenous groups against US-based Chevron-Texaco.” (04/09/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0409/p06s01-woam.html
COMMENTARY
26 - Chronic challenges to healthcare maxims
ISIL Medical Freedom Channel
Steve Trinward
“There were several news stories this week worth commenting on here. Each involved the relationship between medicines and the chronically ill, and each served to highlight the fact that conventional allopathic, Big Pharma-created and FDA-approved ‘medicines’ are not getting the job done — at least not to the satisfaction of those who most need the relief they promise. The implications of this may range much further than that segment of our society. … What do these four stories have in common? … [E]ach one addresses a different component of the same societal problem: the increased reliance of everyone on high-potency prescription drugs … and the relatively low effectiveness these have produced. Even the chronically ill, who by all expectations should be most locked into reliance on allopathic methodologies for relief, are now demonstrably seen as seeking out natural and alternative medical channels for the easing of their distress.” (04/14/08)
http://www.isil.org/channels/archives/14216
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27 - Jefferson was looking out for you
Orange County Register
Gen LaGreca
“Each April 13, every American should raise a glass to toast the farmer, architect, scholar, revolutionary and American president born this date in 1743: Thomas Jefferson. One of our greatest founding fathers, Jefferson lovingly crafted much of the government and character of his precious gem, America. He penned numerous documents extolling the revolutionary ideas of his time, including the stirring words on the parchment that is the soul of America, the Declaration of Independence. Yet how many of our current citizens -– and elected officials –- truly understand its meaning? The Declaration launched the first country in history based on principle: that every individual possesses certain unalienable rights.” [editor’s note: Yet for most Americans, the focus is on how to “elect” a new King, rather than on preserving these rights - SAT] (04/13/08)
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28 - What does it mean to call McCain a “war hero” candidate?
Christian Science Monitor
Charles Derber & Yale Magrass
“624787. In his first national campaign ad for president, John McCain is shown reciting his rank and serial number as he lies in a Vietnamese hospital bed as a prisoner of war. The ad describes him as ‘a real hero.’ … But inextricably tied to the idea of the war hero for president is a discussion that goes beyond individual soldiers or prisoners of war, such as McCain, to the wars they fight and what their role in the war says about their moral merits as national leaders. This turns out to be surprisingly problematic. We need to distinguish the war hero from the war. Fixed ideas about war heroes get into what we call ‘morality wars,’ crucial struggles about which values should prevail, who should be admired and for what qualities.” (04/14/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0414/p09s01-coop.html
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29 - Making up for America’s lost clout
Boston Globe
Ray Takeyh & Nikolas Gvosdev
“A growing number of nations are engaged in behavior that the United States does not approve of — from selling advanced technologies to ‘rogue states’ to actively supporting groups battling America and its allies. As the presidential candidates attempt to define their grand strategy, they must contemplate what tools the United States has for modifying the behavior of its adversaries. After eight years of the Bush administration’s folly and miscalculation, it appears that America’s kit of coercive tools is limited and diminishing. … In the absence of a credible military card, America could rely on diplomacy and negotiations as a means of restraining its foes.” [editor’s note: Which is of course what libertarians have been recommending for generations, all the way back to the Founding Fathers (& mothers). Strange how even a senior fellow at the allegedly empire-building CFR grasps this - SAT] (04/13/08)
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30 - Oprah’s stale definition of charity
The American Prospect
Courtney E. Martin
“As the Oprah empire started rolling out advertisements for her latest adventure — a reality television show called Oprah’s Big Give — my inbox and voicemail were flooded by friends and family claiming indignantly, ‘Oprah stole your idea!’ They were referring to Oprah’s new show, in which participants compete every week to give away large amounts of her money in a short amount of time — and in a way that will please a team of judges. I wasn’t that mad. … You see, two years ago, I started The Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy. Not so secret, but indeed creative, the project consisted of me giving ten of my friends one hundred dollars and inviting them to, in turn, give that money away. … It was so fun in 2006 that we did it again in 2007, and the second time, some of the original recipients gave away their own hundreds. It’s become a bit like Pay It Forward, without the annoyance of Haley Joel Osment.” (04/11/08)
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31 - A speech even Condi could love
In These Times
Salim Muwakkil
“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently called race-based slavery a ‘birth defect’ that still troubles our nation. Her words were notable — not just for their metaphorical precision, but that she uttered them at all. Conservatives usually are mute on slavery’s lengthening legacy, but Rice let loose. ‘Black Americans were a founding population,’ Rice said during a March 27 interview with the Washington Times. ‘Africans and Europeans came here and founded this country together — Europeans by choice and Africans in chains. That’s not a very pretty reality of our founding.’ Because of this initial inequality, ‘descendants of slaves did not get much of a head start, and I think you continue to see some of the effects of that,’ she continued.” (04/10/08)
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32 - Hillary’s NAFTA pretensions
Fox News
Dick Morris & Eileen McGann
“Hillary was a strong supporter of NAFTA. Her official schedule reveals that she attended meetings designed to promote its passage and her memoir, Living History betrays no hint of any opposition to her husband’s key legislative accomplishment of his first two years in office — the ratification of NAFTA. Hillary and I spoke frequently through all of 1993 and 1994 and together we plotted to help NAFTA ratification. She was deeply involved in the decision to enlist past presidents in supporting the bill and followed the vote count with heightening anxiety as it appeared closer and closer.” (04/11/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,350649,00.html
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33 - John Yoo: Spearhead or scapegoat?
Salon
Glenn Greenwald
“Yoo’s defense that he was merely offering legal opinions, not making any policy decisions, is absurd, since, as he surely knew at the time, the purpose of those opinions was to enable and legally authorize savage and illegal acts. But it is true that he did not act alone, or with supreme authority — really, he lacked authority to implement any policies at all. And it’s also true that he could not have accomplished anything without the highest officials in our government at least implicitly encouraging and supporting what he was doing. In this regard, turning John Yoo into the poster child for the torture regime misses the point and relieves other, at equally deserving officials of responsibility.” (04/12/08)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/12/yoo/
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34 - McCain’s outreach tour
Slate
John Dickerson
“How many points do you get for just showing up? John McCain will get an idea at the end of the month when he travels to venues where Republicans don’t usually campaign. McCain is planning to speak in inner cities, heavily African-American sections of the South, and poor sections of Appalachia. Most of his stops will be in areas where voters have traditionally supported Democrats. Can McCain win over many new voters in these areas? Probably not. … That’s OK, though, because the McCain tour is not aimed at winning a host of black votes. Nor is it primarily about the next obvious play: showing independents that he cares about minorities and the underprivileged, a traditional bank shot candidates take in order to make themselves appealing to moderate voters. The tour, which will include lots of freewheeling town halls, is more like performance art, an attempt to show off authenticity and the unfiltered McCain.” (04/09/08)
http://www.slate.com/id/2188582/
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35 - Cops, former Secret Service agents ran black ops on green groups
Mother Jones
James Ridgeway
“A private security company organized and managed by former Secret Service officers spied on Greenpeace and other environmental organizations from the late 1990s through at least 2000, pilfering documents from trash bins, attempting to plant undercover operatives within groups, casing offices, collecting phone records of activists, and penetrating confidential meetings. According to company documents provided to Mother Jones by a former investor in the firm, this security outfit collected confidential internal records — donor lists, detailed financial statements, the Social Security numbers of staff members, strategy memos — from these organizations and produced intelligence reports for public relations firms and major corporations involved in environmental controversies. In addition to focusing on environmentalists, the firm, Beckett Brown International (later called S2i), provided a range of services to a host of clients.” (04/11/08)
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36 - The Military-Leisure Golf Complex
AlterNet
Nick Turse
“Back in 1975, Senator William Proxmire (D-Wisconsin) decried the fact that the Department of Defense spent nearly $14 million each year to maintain and operate 300 military-run golf courses scattered across the globe. In 1996, the weekly television series America’s Defense Monitor noted that ‘Pentagon elites and high government officials [were still] tee-ing off at taxpayer expense’ at some ‘234 golf courses maintained by the U.S. armed forces worldwide.’ In the intervening twenty-one years, despite a modest decrease in the number of military golf courses, not much had changed. The military was still out on the links. Today, the military claims to operate a mere 172 golf courses worldwide, suggesting that over thirty years after Proxmire’s criticisms, a modicum of reform has taken place. Don’t believe it. In actuality, the military has cooked the books.” (04/12/08)
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/82009/
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37 - Founders favored liberty over restrictions
Democrat and Chronicle
James Ganrielle
“The Supreme Court is poised to decide if Second Amendment rights are violated when citizens are denied firearms ownership for personal use when they’re not affiliated with a state-regulated militia. The Second Amendment … has evoked much debate as to whether it was intended only to preserve a state militia’s right. However, this interpretation is inconsistent with the Bill of Rights. Framers of the Constitution limited government powers and added the Bill of Rights to secure the ‘inalienable’ individual freedoms they believed were essential to a successful Republic.” (04/11/08)
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38 - The biofuel brew ha-ha
Reason
Peter Suderman
“In Germany, they call it ‘liquid bread.’ Here in the U.S., frat boys and hipsters cultivating an ironic air call them brewskies. Most of us just refer to it as ‘beer.’ But whatever your name for the stuff, there’s little point in denying that people in both countries love their beer. The difference right now, however, is that while we Americans can continue to toss ‘em back as we always have, German beer prices are skyrocketing. Who or what is the culprit? Corporate greed, perhaps, or an alcohol tax designed to push German beer drinkers to kick their six-pack habit? It’s something far less spectacular, but potentially more insidious: biofuel subsidies that are pushing more farmers to ditch their barley crops — which are necessary to make beer — in favor of crops that earn them lucrative subsidies from regulators trying to fight global warming.” (04/09/08)
http://www.reason.com/news/show/125911.html
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39 - Iraq’s realities (whoever is president)
Christian Science Monitor
staff
“President Bush all but admitted Thursday that the US has hit another wall in Iraq. This time it’s Army overstretch. He cut future tours for soldiers from 15 to 12 months. And the troop surge? It’s over this summer, despite fragile security in Iraq. So what other walls still remain? Many. And they’re not all in Iraq. They range from war fatigue in the US to weak Iraqi government to the rogue militias of Muqtada al-Sadr. The difficult task of picking which ‘walls’ to ignore and which to break through in order to achieve a US withdrawal was the broad topic this week in Congress over two days of grilling the top US military commander and senior US diplomat in Iraq. Most of the lawmakers’ questions (including those from the three presidential candidates) simply reinforced campaign positions. Indeed, voters have crisp choices on Iraq between Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John McCain. But unlike the last grilling of Army Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker six months ago
, this one had an undertone of serious inquiry as the Bush era in Iraq draws to a close.” (04/11/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0411/p08s01-comv.html
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40 - Phil Donahue’s “War”
The Nation
John Nichols
“During the week that George W. Bush — with an assist from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker — began demanding another $100 billion or so for his Iraq War, Phil Donahue began presenting the real face of the conflict. The daytime television pioneer, who from the 1960s to the ’90s taught America how to discuss uncomfortable topics, was doing it again with a remarkable antiwar documentary, Body of War, which went into national distribution just as Petraeus was telling Congress to forget about the ever mounting human and economic toll and give the war more time. Donahue was not just using his considerable prominence to pitch a project.” (04/10/08)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080428/nichols
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41 - WTF is feminist porn?
San Francisco Chronicle
Violet Blue
“Feminist porn. For many, seeing those words together is like putting together the words ‘comfortable flight,’ ‘lightly scented’ and ‘Bill O’Reilly: journalist.’ We now have Jet Blue and Virgin America, not everyone can smell your panty liners, and there’s no debate about the irony of the last bit — but pretty much everyone wants to know, what the hell are porn and feminism doing in bed together? Some pretty nasty, kinky, shocking and fun things, if the selections from this year’s Feminist Porn Awards are any indication.” (04/10/08)
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42 - Someone will get the 2024 delegates
Fox News
Susan Estrich
“I’ve been to this movie before. Act one: Hillary is way ahead. She’s supposed to win. Big. Then comes the Obama surge. That’s the beginning of Act Two. Instead of writing off the state, he plunges in headlong, spending time and money, collecting a few key endorsements, and great press. The polls start closing up, or at least that’s the way it gets played. Obama people start talking about not only finishing close, but actually winning, knocking Hillary out, how the whole thing could end, right here. In New Hampshire. In California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio or Texas. That’s the end of Act Two.” (04/09/08)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,349114,00.html
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43 - TN lawmakers turning scholarships into welfare
Tennessean
Phil Valentine
“I don’t understand this business of lowering standards to get a lottery scholarship. The state Senate Education Committee passed a compromise bill that would lower grade-point-average (GPA) standards for the lottery HOPE scholarship. If it’s passed by both chambers, which looks likely, students will only have to maintain a 2.75 GPA through their sophomore year to keep their scholarship money. … The Tennessee Higher Education Commission says that 50 percent of students lose their HOPE scholarships after their first year in college and 68 percent by their fourth year. That shows me that we’re already giving too many people scholarships, not too few. … It was originally set up as a merit-based scholarship. Opportunity was supposed to be earned. Now it is quickly degenerating into another welfare program: a welfare program for the middle and upper classes.” (04/06/08)
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44 - Treading carefully with China
Boston Globe
Joan Vennochi
“To highlight China’s repressive policies, protesters are attacking the Olympic torch as it wends its way to Beijing and the summer games. It’s embarrassing for the moment, but China knows the real score. In the long run, the drive for human profit always beats the drive for human rights. Massachusetts offers a tiny but telling glimpse into that broad economic reality. On April 1, University of Massachusetts president Jack M. Wilson announced an agreement with Chinese officials to offer government-sanctioned online classes in the communist nation of 1.3 billion. The deal, UMass officials said, could generate up to $5 million a year for the university. … Just a year ago, UMass trustees voted to divest from Sudan because of government-sanctioned atrocities in the Darfur region. … Today, it’s clear that while Wilson was praising divestiture, UMass officials were negotiating with China, Sudan’s most important economic and political patron.” (04/10/08)
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45 - The formula for a police state
Stress
Anthony Gregory
“Having a double standard that favors police is the formula for a police state. Whether in investigations, arrests, trials, or punishment, police should never get away with anything for which a member of the public would face severe consequences. A police state is at our doorstep when the public fears the government and law enforcers enjoy impunity for negligent or malicious behavior. Freedom and justice are empty promises without equality under the law, including for the lawmen.” (04/07/08)
http://thestressblog.com/2008/04/07/the-formula-for-a-police-state/
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46 - No, Hillary Clinton shouldn’t be winning
Salon
Brad DeLong
“Sean Wilentz is a Yankees fan. I am a Red Sox fan. Perhaps Sean Wilentz could write that the American League championship should go to the team with the most hits instead of the most wins, which would have made the Yankees rather than the Red Sox the real champions last year. After all, isn’t the real point of baseball to hit the ball and get on base? That’s why it’s called baseball, and not run-ball or win-ball, right? I would not find that argument convincing. Wilentz’s winner-take-all gambit is a talking point, not an argument: ‘If my grandmother had wheels, she would be a bus’ is rarely a persuasive line of reasoning. If the rules for winning delegates and the nomination had been different, the candidates would have run different campaigns and put their resources into different places and different proportions.” (04/10/08)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/04/10/wilentz_reply/
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47 - A Superman approach to foreign policy
The American Prospect
Ezra Klein
“Round and round the rhetoric went yesterday. Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker were, if not masterful in their obfuscation, perfectly adequate. Success was never defined, and thus the conditions for withdrawal were never articulated. … Heads we stay in Iraq; tails we never leave. … Aside from the odd, and very occasional, dip into arguments like whether we’ll negotiate with Iran or attend the 2008 Summer Olympics, Iraq exerts near total domination over the foreign-policy discussion. Its presence in the election has actually served to obscure real disagreement over foreign-policy philosophies. Everyone who wants to bring the war to a close is declared a liberal. Those who want to see it continued are considered conservatives. That, however, is a misleadingly narrow space for discussion. There’s a difference between being pro-war, anti-war, anti-this particular war, and anti-this kind of preventive war.” (04/09/08)
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48 - When free speech offends Muslims
Christian Science Monitor
Rondi Adamson
“Everybody favors free speech in the slack moments when no axes are being ground, 20th-century American journalist Heywood Broun once wrote. The real test of mettle is allowing free speech to thrive while axes aggressively grind. Just ask Canadian publisher Ezra Levant and author Mark Steyn. In February 2006, Levant’s conservative magazine, the now-online-only Western Standard, reprinted the Danish Muhammad cartoons. Shortly thereafter, Syed Soharwardy, the national president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, filed a Koranic-verse laden complaint against Mr. Levant with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, claiming discrimination.” (04/10/08)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0410/p09s01-coop.html
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49 - Finding a way to bring Hamas in
Boston Globe
Geoffrey H. Lewis & Seymour D. Reich
“It’s becoming increasingly clearer that reaching an Israeli-Palestinian agreement requires finding a way to bring Hamas into the process. This must be done without compromising Israeli or American interests. Many respected Israeli security officials, including two former heads of Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, arrived at that conclusion some time ago. So have 64 percent of Israelis, who said, according to a Haaretz-Dialog poll taken in February, that they would negotiate directly with Hamas to end the rocket attacks from Gaza, controlled by Hamas since June 2007, and to secure the release of the captive Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who returned to Israel last week to prod Israelis and Palestinians to make progress toward an agreement, seems to have recently made this same determination.” (04/09/08)
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50 - Is America a “center-right nation?”
The American Prospect
Paul Waldman
“John McCain faces a serious challenge in this election year — a struggling economy, a war the public is eager to see ended, a deeply unpopular president, and perhaps most importantly, the natural swing of the pendulum after eight years of Republican rule (only once since the 1940s has a party won three consecutive presidential elections). Nonetheless, conservatives continue to assure themselves that in the end, they reside where the country sits ideologically. McCain, avers George Will, is ‘a center-right candidate seeking to lead a center-right country.’ … The moment for a resurgence of activist government may have finally arrived. But in order to make it happen, Democrats will have to overcome a deep skepticism among the public, not about the relative abilities of the opposition party but about government itself. As the most recent Gallup poll on the subject shows, the public’s faith in government is as low as it has been at any point since they started asking the question thirt
y-five years ago.” [editor’s note: And we libertarians can only hope the skepticism continues, lest these “progressive” (and VERY pro-big-government) agendas really do take hold - SAT] (04/08/08)
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51 - FCC’s puritanical actions should be reined in
Tennessean
Ronald K.L. Collins
“There’s trouble in National Nanny Land. Several networks are challenging the Federal Communication Commission’s indecency rules in the Supreme Court and in the lower federal courts. And Fox Broadcasting, one of the leaders of the rebel charge, has recently refused to pay a $91,000 indecency fine levied against it by the agency. To make matters more complex, the broadcast giant Clear Channel wants the FCC to force XM/Sirius to obey the agency’s indecency laws as a condition of approving the merger between the two satellite radio stations. Meanwhile, On Demand still offers Tony Soprano and his criminal crew who continue to swear like sailors on HBO, which as a cable channel is immune from the FCC’s indecency rules.” (04/08/08)
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52 - Senator Straight Talk won’t go on the record
Mother Jones
Jonathan Stein
“For an advocate of straight talk and government transparency, John McCain has been less than clear with a voter-education nonprofit, on whose board he serves, about why he hasn’t responded to its survey of issue positions. Now, after nine months, 17 phone calls, and 8 emails asking McCain to state exactly where he stands on key issues, Montana-based Project Vote Smart is poised to kick McCain off its board later this week. McCain has served on PVS’s board since the late 1990s, when he replaced a different Arizona Republican, Senator Barry Goldwater, after Goldwater’s death. Richard Kimball, the group’s president and, incidentally, the Democrat who ran against McCain during his first race for Senate, says the Arizona senator has filled out the survey, called the Political Courage Test, in every campaign since its inception in 1992. (Kimball counts McCain as a friend, and has tried to reach the Arizona senator personally three times.)” (04/07/08)
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53 - Pregnant men
AlterNet
Annalee Newitz
“Thomas Beatie is actually not the first man to get pregnant. Almost a decade ago, a San Francisco transgendered man named Matt Rice got pregnant and had a cute son. Several years after that, I met another pregnant transman in San Francisco. He was telling his story, with his wife, at a feminist open mic. So why is Beatie getting all the credit, and why now? Beatie is the first pregnant man most people will ever meet. He’s the guy in People magazine right now looking preggers and hunky, and the guy who was on The Oprah Winfrey Show last week. And it makes sense that he’s the first wonder of tranny obstetrics medical science to hit the spotlight. He’s a nice, small-town Oregon boy, married for five years to a nice, small-town lady, and his full beard and muscles make it quite obvious that he’s a dude. In other words: he’s not a freak from a freaky city like San Francisco. He is, as they say in the mainstream media, relatable.” (04/08/08)
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/81791/
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54 - If government limits speech, our freedom evaporates
Tennessean
staff
“It is easy these days to look at TV programming and feel the urge to clean house. Crime shows lay out the most grisly of acts committed by real or imaginary violent criminals. Reality shows peer into the most embarrassingly personal details (again, real or imaginary) of the lives of would-be or former celebrities. But when the government decides it should do the cleaning in the name of public decency, everyone should be concerned about where we are headed as a nation. This fall, the U.S. Supreme Court will take up the case of the Federal Communications Commission vs. Fox Television Stations, in which the agency fined Fox over ‘fleeting’ use of profanities on live awards shows aired in 2002 and 2003. … For the record, the profanities were variations on the ‘f-word’ and ’s…,’ uttered by Bono, Nicole Richie and Cher, words this newspaper chooses not to spell out — the operative word for purposes of this editorial being ‘chooses.’” (04/08/08)
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55 - Petraeus, tell us something we don’t already know
The American Prospect
Matthew Yglesias
“General David Petraeus’ testimony Tuesday and Wednesday of this week will be another chapter in U.S. foreign policy’s long-running ‘is the surge working?’ debate. The General and Ambassador Ryan Crocker will offer up some good news counterpoints to the not-so-good news out of Basra from the last weekend of March. But in the ways that matter, there’s no need to debate in the present tense — the surge isn’t working, it’s already worked, and the question is what the Democrats plan to do about it. To evaluate the surge, you have to consider its goals.” (04/08/08)
Peace, Love and Liberty
Steve Trinward, Editor