Progressive News Digest - Nov 19, 2007
stri...@comcast.net
Date: Mon, November 19, 2007
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 #24 Monday, Nov. 19, 2007
Welcome to another edition of Progressive News Digest, still rolling along in
its fourth year without an appreciable pause. If the impulse strikes you,
we could still use donations, both here and at our parent-site:
http://www.rationalreview.com/news
We appreciate your support, in any amount … but subscribing contributors really
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* * * * * * *
I am continuing to publish now with a contents list, without attempting a
summary of the highlights. It still takes a little time to prepare this, and
then let you do the browsing. This will pertain for the foreseeable future,
due to your editor's full-time day-job and his return to having a more
successful and fulfilling life otherwise.
Here you go ... enjoy and see you next week! Check the site for constant
updates each day:
=====
NEWS
01 - MA: Success could put health plan in the red
02 - OH: GOP, Christian group want State Attorney General to apologize
03 - OPEC’s lost sway over oil prices
04 - Poll: Class divisions outweigh race among black Americans
05 - CA: Tree-sitter, supporters arrested in scuffle with police
06 - Driver’s licenses for migrants? Not in Mexico
07 - ND: Chancellor would dump “Fighting Sioux” logo
08 - “Pork” still reigns on Capitol Hill
09 - MA: Voters could decide casino isssue
10 - Pollsters, pundits retreating from Ron Paul juggernaut
11 - SC: Thompson urges million-member ground force for military
12 - AZ: Idiot Know-Nothing law faces federal test today
13 - TN: IRS has $1.46 million in unclaimed refund checks
14 - Could the Solar Bug bring the sun to the car market?
15 - MA: Activist sets up phone talks between US, Iranian citizens
16 - CA: Victim killed for standing still on escalator
17 - TN: AG says state can’t use the chair unless prisoners want it
18 - Life on Earth came from Mars?
19 - America’s war returnees: many troubles but more help
20 - WashPost critic apologizes for e-mail
21 - NH: Methodical style sets Romney apart from GOP rivals
22 - MA: Patriots set to put green power into play
23 - MO: Journalism prof admits plagiarism
24 - Arizona, other states want to get tough on auto emissions
25 - AK: Corruption scandal spreads
26 - CA: Oil-spill helpers galore, but limits on their use
27 - Will it be deal or no deal on spending bills?
28 - IA: Edwards, Obama vie for anti-Clinton vote
29 - NH: Romney, Clinton hold shaky leads in poll
30 - AZ: Outspoken ASU prof draws ire
COMMENTARY
31 - Heading towards the police state
32 - Hear me, hear me
33 - The Cheese Bomb Incident: Terror and the TSA
34 - Democratic leaders poised to sabotage hope for renewable energy
35 - Ron Paul: The pragmatic choice
36 - Come on people! Bill Cosby is right
37 - If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
38 - A history of nonviolence
39 - Hold off on the Clinton coronation
40 - Global warming’s bottom line
41 - Why I think Hillary will win
42 - Arc de truculence
43 - Blue Dogs and greenbacks
44 - A Peace Amendment to the Constitution: An idea for our time
45 - Dems cowed by scare tactics on immigration
46 - A primer on the law of torture
47 - Thank you, Ehren Watada
48 - Gold, Ron Paul and prosperity
49 - The quirky candidate
50 - Bush stands by his dictator
51 - Rudy Giuliani: Criminal or liar?
52 - Loving Pat Robertson
53 - Hillary’s secret weapon in Iowa
54 - $1 trillion to the rescue
55 - Memo to Obama: No rush to “fix” Social Security
56 - Why we write
57 - Studs Terkel: Curiosity didn’t kill this cat
58 - Stop hating Bush!
59 - How Cookie crumbled
60 - Writers strike, silence falls
NEWS
01 - MA: Success could put health plan in the red
Boston Globe
“Enrollment in the state’s new subsidized health plan is growing so quickly that
the state could face a funding gap as large as $147 million by the end of the
fiscal year, according to a state projection. An aggressive outreach campaign by
the state, hospitals, community groups, and advocates, including an extensive
push in the last few weeks, has put enrollment on a path that could reach nearly
180,000 by June 30. Even if signups slow, the program will probably still be
over budget — a victim of its own success — because the state has already
enrolled nearly as many people as expected for the fiscal year.” (11/18/07)
=====
02 - OH: GOP, Christian group want State Attorney General to apologize
Fox News
“The Ohio Christian Alliance and state Republican Party have demanded an apology
from the state attorney general for telling his communications director that
some of the bad press the spokesman got was worse than Christ’s crucifixion. The
Dayton Daily News obtained reams of e-mails sent and received by Democratic
Attorney General Marc Dann at his office. The e-mails were released after a
lengthy battle over public records access. On April 6, Dann wrote to his
director of communications, Leo A. Jennings III, about an editorial in the
Youngstown, Ohio, newspaper that yielded a series of unflattering online
postings about Jennings. ‘Jesus had it better on Good [sic] Friday,’ Dann wrote
in the e-mail — which was written on the Christian holiday commemorating
Christ’s crucifixion and death. Following the Daily News’ publication of the
exchanges, Ohio Christian Alliance President Chris Long drafted a letter
demanding that Dann apologize.” (11/18/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312104,00.html
=====
03 - OPEC’s lost sway over oil prices
Christian Science Monitor
“A rare meeting of the heads of state of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries (OPEC) in Saudi Arabia this weekend was predictably focused on prices.
But the price most often discussed wasn’t the cost of oil, but rather the
plummeting US dollar. As oil hovers near $100 a barrel, it’s causing global
jitters. Some economists worry that price, which depending on whose math you use
is either near or above an inflation-adjusted record, could push many world
economies into recession. But the organization that was created in 1960 to
stabilize prices, today wields less clout than it once did over the cost of
crude. The 13-nation cartel once controlled prices often by just talking about
pumping more or less oil. But now its leaders say booming world demand — largely
from India and China — and concern over a possible US attack on Iran are driving
prices.” (11/19/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1119/p01s01-wogn.html
=====
04 - Poll: Class divisions outweigh race among black Americans
Raw Story
“A recent poll of black Americans has found that two-thirds believe racism is
very prevalent when they seek jobs or housing and half say they have encountered
discrimination even in stores and restaurants. This contrasts strongly with the
beliefs of white Americans, only about a quarter of whom think that blacks still
face discrimination in housing and employment. … Despite their own experiences
of discrimination, 53% of black Americans say that blacks are responsible for
their inability to get ahead, a striking turnaround from the situation in 1994,
when 60% said discrimination was the major factor.” (11/15/07)
=====
05 - CA: Tree-sitter, supporters arrested in scuffle with police
San Francisco Chronicle
“Three people were arrested early today during a scuffle with UC Berkeley police
near Memorial Stadium, where tree-sitters have been camped out in a grove for 11
months. Protesters said the clash happened after about 50 people walked over to
grove late Wednesday as a show of support for the sitters, who are hoping to
save about 100 trees from a proposed $125 million sports training center.
Protesters and their supporters have been engaged in a waiting game with
university officials after a judge ruled last month that the university can
remove the tree-sitters, even if they are not identified in a court order by
name. Wednesday night’s clash was not an attempt by authorities to clear the
tree-sitters from the grove, however.” (11/15/07)
=====
06 - Driver’s licenses for migrants? Not in Mexico
Arizona Republic
“The question of whether to give driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants ignited
a national debate in the United States. But in Mexico, the largest source of
U.S. immigrants, there’s no question: Here, you must be a legal resident to get
a driver’s license. All of Mexico’s 31 states, along with Mexico City, require
foreigners to present a valid visa if they want a driver’s license, according to
a survey of states by The Arizona Republic. … Immigrant drivers zoomed into the
national spotlight after presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton said a move by the
New York governor to give licenses to illegal immigrants ‘makes a lot of sense’
during an Oct. 30 debate. On Wednesday, Clinton backed off that plan.” [editor’s
note: And precisely why SHOULD the US care about the details of a third world
socialist kleptocracy’s system? OUR system was initially allegedly based on
certifying the competence of prospective drivers, something to which nationality
is irrelevant - TLK] (11/15/07)
=====
07 - ND: Chancellor would dump “Fighting Sioux” logo
Fox News
“Bill Goetz, North Dakota’s university system chancellor, said Thursday at a
Board of Higher Education meeting he will support retiring University of North
Dakota’s ‘Fighting Sioux’ logo and nickname in less than three years if the
school and Sioux tribes cannot agree to keep it. The school’s $104 million
dollar hockey arena may be forced to remove hundreds of images of ‘The Fighting
Sioux,’ the university’s 70-year-old logo, if officials can’t reach an agreement
with tribal councils.” (11/15/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311887,00.html
=====
08 - “Pork” still reigns on Capitol Hill
Christian Science Monitor
“After moving earlier this year to make the federal budget process more
transparent to the public, Congress is falling short of its goal of full and
timely disclosure of lawmakers’ pet projects, or earmarks. Despite lawmakers’
promises to slash earmarks by half, the spending bills for this fiscal year —
now wending their way through the appropriations process — include at least
12,000 earmarks totaling more than $24.7 billion, according to the White House
Office of Management and Budget. Moreover, say watchdog groups and some members,
Congress has waived its own new rules on these spending add-ons, meaning the
public is unable to see earmarks on a searchable database before they come up
for a vote.” [editor’s note: I’m shocked … shocked … - SAT] (11/15/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1116/p01s05-uspo.html
=====
09 - MA: Voters could decide casino isssue
Boston Globe
“Massachusetts voters would get a chance to voice their opinion on Governor
Deval Patrick’s casino plan as soon as Feb. 5, the date proposed for the state’s
presidential primary, under an amendment pushed by two lawmakers who support the
licensing of casinos. Senator Michael W. Morrissey of Quincy and Representative
Brian P. Wallace of South Boston, both Democrats, will seek to amend a bill
scheduled for debate in the state Senate today and in the House next week that
would change the state’s presidential primary from March 4 to Feb. 5. The
amendment calls for a nonbinding referendum that would ask primary voters: ‘Do
you support the establishment of up to three resort casinos in Massachusetts?’”
(11/15/07)
=====
10 - Pollsters, pundits retreating from Ron Paul juggernaut
USA Daily
“Pollsters and media pundits have been slowly starting the inventible retreat
from the Ron Paul juggernaut. Throughout the campaign, media pundits and
pollsters have been claiming that Ron Paul did not have support and was at only
1-4% in polls.Two new polls in New Hampshire have now placed Paul at 7% and John
Zogby told Sean Hannity today that he thinks Paul can get 15-18% in New
Hampshire.” (11/14/07)
http://www.usadaily.com/article.cfm?articleID=162633
=====
11 - SC: Thompson urges million-member ground force for military
Boston Globe
“Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson called yesterday for a
million-member military ground force and more funding to equip and care for
service members and veterans. Thompson said he wants a military ground force of
775,000 in the Army and 225,000 Marines, 23,000 more Marines than the Pentagon
is seeking. ‘Some would say this plan is too much and too big,’ Thompson said at
The Citadel, a military college. ‘I don’t believe that’s the case, not at all.’
Thompson didn’t say how he would pay for the increase, but added that military
spending should be set at 4.5 percent of the value of the goods and services the
nation creates. His campaign said that would be the equivalent of increasing
military spending by as much as $150 billion a year, but that those increases
would be phased in and depend on economic growth.” [editor’s note: YEEK! Will
someone please shut this idiot up? Bush might hear and take him seriously - SAT]
(11/14/07)
=====
12 - AZ: Idiot Know-Nothing law faces federal test today
Arizona Republic
“As Arizona’s employer-sanctions law goes under the legal microscope today, it
is attracting a national spotlight for its potential effects on jobs, workers
and policies nationwide. ‘If it passes federal muster here, it’ll be coming to a
state legislature near you,’ said Farrell Quinlan, who represents a coalition of
business groups working to make sure the law gets stopped in court. The hearing
begins at 10:30 a.m. before U.S. District Judge Neil Wake in the downtown
Phoenix federal courthouse. Late Tuesday, court officials scheduled the hearing
for a larger courtroom to accommodate what is expected to be a big crowd. A key
issue in the case is whether Arizona is within its constitutional limits to use
the state’s business licenses as the way to punish any employer found to have
knowingly hired illegal workers.” (11/14/07)
=====
13 - TN: IRS has $1.46 million in unclaimed refund checks
Tennessean
“The federal government is looking to distribute $1.46 million worth of
unclaimed refund checks from 1,900 Tennessee taxpayers, a 29% increase from last
year. An IRS spokesman, Dan Boone, attributed the increase to a new telephone
excise tax refund for the 2006 tax year that brought out new people to claim the
refund. Those who don’t have to file a return, normally because their incomes
are too low, were able to file this year for the one-time refund based on past
tax collections on long distance phone bills. The standard refund for the tax
was $30 to $60.” [editor’s note: They use a similar ploy to rake in petty
criminals, expecting a lottery payoff - SAT] (11/14/07)
=====
14 - Could the Solar Bug bring the sun to the car market?
Christian Science Monitor
“In the local airport parking lot, Steve Titus clicks shut the lightweight
fiberglass door of his fireman-yellow ‘Solar Bug.’ It looks like another bug — a
Volkswagen one — that got sliced in half by a band saw, then pinched front to
back by the Jolly Green Giant. Mr. Titus straddles the saddle-style seat and
revs the Hi-Torque Pancake motor. It whirs away quietly, reaching a top speed of
40 miles per hour in a few seconds. On display at a recent alternative-car expo
here, this is Titus’s second and latest rendering of a solar-powered car
concept. It gets up to a fourth of its 60-mile capacity from 200 watts of
roof-mounted solar panels. Titus is among those entrepreneurs trying to create
and market an affordable, renewable-energy vehicle — a step beyond gas-electric
hybrids.” (11/14/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1115/p01s10-ussc.html
=====
15 - MA: Activist sets up phone talks between US, Iranian citizens
Boston Globe
“A Somerville peace activist with a knack for political theater set up a display
yesterday with a simple proposition: Let anyone who passed by pick up the phone
and talk to Iranian citizens, giving regular citizens in both countries a chance
to do what the activist said the country’s leaders have failed to do: talk to
each other. Most people passing the Boston Common’s Park Street T stop shrugged
at the display: a red telephone with a retro design, symbolic of the hotline
established between the White House and the Kremlin during the Cold War. It sat
on a small table with a white table cloth and a sign out front, which proclaimed
‘Direct Line to Iran.’ An MIT student stood to its left, listened in on
headphones and provided English-Farsi translation. The activist, Nick Jehlen,
had connected the display phone to a cellphone, which he used to dial the
numbers of people in Iran he had met online. The idea was that random Bostonians
could chat directly with Iranian citizens.” (11/14/07
)
=====
16 - CA: Victim killed for standing still on escalator
San Francisco Chronicle
“A 15-year-old San Francisco youth facing charges in the weekend slaying at the
Metreon shopping center told police that he opened fire after he got into an
argument over the victim’s having not traveled fast enough down an escalator,
investigators said Monday. The victim, Michael Price Jr., 18, of Oakland was
leaving the gaming arcade at the complex at Fourth and Mission streets with his
cousin and friends at the time of the shooting at 7 p.m. Sunday. As Price was
going down the escalator, the unidentified teenage suspect behind him complained
to a friend who was with him about the man ahead simply standing on the
escalator step rather than walking as the escalator went down. Once they were
down the escalator, an argument began. Witnesses said the youth threatened to
open fire during the argument, saying, ‘I’ll pop a cap in your ass.’ The suspect
told police that Price turned around and appeared to take a fighting position
and that was when the 15-year-old got out the gun and fire
d.” (11/13/07)
=====
17 - TN: AG says state can’t use the chair unless prisoners want it
Tennessean
“Tennessee cannot currently use the electric chair on prisoners unless they
chose that method of death, the state attorney general said Tuesday in a written
opinion. Prosecutors have been calling on the state to use the electric chair as
a back-up after a U.S. District Court in September found Tennessee’s lethal
injection procedures to be unconstitutional. But in his six-page written
opinion, state Attorney General Bob Cooper said that the law ‘does not allow
substitution based on rulings of a federal district court or a state trial
court.’ The law says that the chair back-up is triggered only if the Tennessee
Supreme Court or the U.S. Supreme Court find or let stand rulings that hold
lethal injection unconstitutional, the opinion said.” (11/13/07)
=====
18 - Life on Earth came from Mars?
Fox News
“Home sweet home? H.G. Wells might not have been that far off when he wrote
about aliens from Mars coming to Earth. ‘It may not be likely,’ NASA researcher
David Morrison told National Geographic News, ‘but we cannot exclude the
possibility that we are, in effect, all Martians.’ Panspermia, or the idea that
Earth was ’seeded’ by life from outer space, is centuries old but until lately
has not had much scientific evidence to support it. But a European experiment
last month demonstrates that microscopic life could indeed survive inside rocks
hurtling through space.” (11/13/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311317,00.html
=====
19 - America’s war returnees: many troubles but more help
Christian Science Monitor
“Nearly five years into the war in Iraq, the US Army has taken steps to improve
the process by which it screens soldiers returning from war. Many have trouble
transitioning from combat dangers to a normal routine at home. But sometimes
just identifying the problem is the issue. The Army has improved its process by
adding a second mental-health assessment three to six months after its initial
screening, which is completed as soon as a soldier returns from war. This second
screening has allowed the Army to unmask troubling trends among its soldiers: a
fourfold increase in relationship problems compared with those reported in the
first assessment, a surge of major depression among many, and increased alcohol
abuse.” [editor’s note: This seems like an effort to whitewash the execrable
conditions (VA, Walter Reed, etc.) of current government services to returning
injured veterans - SAT] (11/14/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1114/p01s09-usmi.html
=====
20 - WashPost critic apologizes for e-mail
Raw Story
“A Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic for The Washington Post has apologized
for sending an angry e-mail in which he called District of Columbia Council
member Marion Barry a ‘crack addict.’ Tim Page wrote to Barry’s aide last week
after receiving a press release about the former mayor’s views on the
financially troubled Greater Southeast Community Hospital. ‘Must we hear about
it every time this crack addict attempts to rehabilitate himself with some new —
and typically half-witted — political grandstanding?’ the e-mail said. ‘I’d be
grateful if you would take me off your mailing list. I cannot think of anything
the useless Marion Barry could do that would interest me in the slightest, up to
and including overdose.’” (11/13/07)
=====
21 - NH: Methodical style sets Romney apart from GOP rivals
Boston Globe
“Mitt Romney made millions in business with meticulous planning, serious
salesmanship, and shrewd execution. As a candidate for president, he is applying
the same techniques, courting voters with a tightly mapped strategy that governs
nearly every step of his campaign. Each week, his aides announce a theme — such
as strengthening America’s families or promoting a ‘Reagan zone of economic
freedom’ — and Romney sounds the message on the stump as TV and radio ads echo
his platform. He recites textbook GOP positions on national security and
terrorism, taxes and spending, and abortion and gay marriage to build what he
calls a ‘three-legged stool’ of support, made up of military conservatives,
economic conservatives, and social conservatives.” [editor’s note: “stool” is a
good image here, since no “conservative” (at least none worthy of the definition
it once held) should want anything to do with this crap-slinging hypocrite! -
SAT] (11/13/07)
=====
22 - MA: Patriots set to put green power into play
Boston Globe
“To the fans who brave frigid, blustery nights to cheer for the Patriots at
Gillette Stadium, it might feel as if there is enough bone-chilling wind gusting
overhead to power a small city. But today, the Kraft Group will announce that
Midwestern wind will fuel the Gillette Stadium lighthouse, the 612 blazing light
bulbs shining down on the field, the scoreboards, and more than 40 concession
stands that are juiced with enough power during each game to run 2,269
households for a day. The Patriots signed a four-year deal to buy
renewable-energy credits from distant windmills to match all their game-day
electricity needs, the latest example of the business community’s push to make
environmentalism a staple of corporate responsibility.” [editor’s note: For us
long-suffering expatriate New Englander fans, this is just another smile; for
those who are sick of the current “Boston domination” (Sox, Pats, Celts,
Minutemen, et alia) of the sports world … maybe not so much - SAT] (11/12/07)
=====
23 - MO: Journalism prof admits plagiarism
Fox News
“A distinguished University of Missouri-Columbia journalism professor will no
longer write a weekly newspaper column after admitting he plagiarized material
from a student reporter. John Merrill, a professor emeritus at the university’s
School of Journalism, wrote a Sunday column for the Columbia Missourian, a
community newspaper affiliated with the school. His Nov. 4 column about the
university’s women’s and gender studies program used three quotes and other
phrases taken directly from an Oct. 5 article in The Maneater, an independent
student newspaper, according to the Missourian’s executive editor, Tom
Warhover.” (11/12/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,310956,00.html
=====
24 - Arizona, other states want to get tough on auto emissions
Arizona Republic
“In Arizona, cars seem to figure prominently in the big issues facing residents,
from road-building and sprawl to air pollution and once again last week, global
warming. State officials Thursday joined California and 13 other states in a
suit demanding authority from the Environmental Protection Agency to more
strictly regulate auto emissions. The rules aim to slow the effects of climate
change. Auto exhaust in Arizona is the largest single contributor of carbon
dioxide and other greenhouses gases emitted into the air, a fact Gov. Janet
Napolitano cited when she ordered state agencies to develop emission standards
like California’s.” (11/12/07)
=====
25 - AK: Corruption scandal spreads
Washington Post
“When the FBI came looking for corruption in Alaska politics, it found an
excellent perch in Suite 604 of the Baranof Hotel in Juneau, the state capital.
There, a profane septuagenarian named Bill Allen did business throughout a 2006
special session called to set taxes on the oil industry. With hundred-dollar
bills in his front pocket for ease of access when lawmakers turned up with their
hands out, the oil-services company executive turned in a bravura performance
before the pinhole camera that federal agents installed opposite his favorite
chair. … On another tape, Pete Kott, the former Republican speaker of the Alaska
House of Representatives, crowed as he described beating back a tax bill opposed
by oil companies. ‘I had to cheat, steal, beg, borrow and lie,’ Kott said.”
(11/12/07)
=====
26 - CA: Oil-spill helpers galore, but limits on their use
Christian Science Monitor
“When a shipping accident last week dumped 58,000 gallons of oil in San
Francisco Bay, it washed onto shores that are home to a great concentration of
America’s environmentalists. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that volunteers
poured forth to help — yet officials still seemed flummoxed when it happened.
Callers overwhelmed a volunteer hot line within an hour. Public meetings
devolved at times into heated exchanges when officials told would-be volunteers
essentially ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you’ if their help was needed. And other
residents armed with rubber gloves and pooper-scoopers stormed the closed
beaches, calling their oil cleanup work a form of ‘civil disobedience.”
(11/13/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1113/p01s02-usgn.html
=====
27 - Will it be deal or no deal on spending bills?
Christian Science Monitor
“With its approval ratings dropping into single digits, Congress heads into a
wall of presidential veto threats this week, and neither side appears near the
blinking point. The standoff covers nearly all the spending bills for fiscal
year 2008, as well as $50 billion for military operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan that Democrats plan to unveil this week. President Bush has signed
just five vetoes during his presidency. Last week, Congress easily overturned
one of them: a $23.2 billion bill to authorize new water projects, including
help for the Gulf Coast, still recovering from hurricane Katrina. But Democrats
aren’t expecting that level of Republican support in the spending battles to
come, which are already breaking down along partisan lines.” (11/13/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1113/p03s03-uspo.html
=====
28 - IA: Edwards, Obama vie for anti-Clinton vote
Boston Globe
“Only a half hour after an impassioned John Edwards made his pitch to a
standing-room-only crowd squeezed into a community college function room, a
cheerful Barack Obama took the microphone amid a sea of voters on a middle
school basketball court. Many of those in Edwards’s audience in Sioux City on
Friday gave up the chance to line up for the former senator’s autograph, so they
could rush to the Obama event a few miles away in the far west of Iowa, near
South Dakota and Nebraska. The two men running for president have trained most
of their fire on their party’s front-runner in national polls, Hillary Clinton.
Obama was especially harsh Saturday night at the fall’s marquee Democratic
event, the Jefferson Jackson dinner in Des Moines, where he suggested that the
New York senator has failed to embrace strong principles.” (11/12/07)
=====
29 - NH: Romney, Clinton hold shaky leads in poll
Boston Globe
“Republican Mitt Romney and Democrat Hillary Clinton remain the clear
front-runners in the New Hampshire presidential primary, but both have
vulnerabilities that could erode their support among voters in the weeks ahead,
a new Boston Globe poll indicates. Two months before the New Hampshire primary,
Romney leads his nearest rival, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, 32 percent
to 20 percent, with Senator John McCain of Arizona third at 17 percent. Among
Democratic voters, Clinton, the New York senator, leads Senator Barack Obama of
Illinois, 35 percent to 21 percent, with former senator John Edwards of North
Carolina third at 15 percent.” (11/11/07)
=====
30 - AZ: Outspoken ASU prof draws ire
Arizona Republic
“Arizona State University climatologist Robert Balling attended the premiere of
Al Gore’s global-warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. He served on the
United Nations’ climate-change panel and studies how drought and warmer
temperatures will affect the West. He bikes to work and eats organic food. But
environmentalists hate him. Balling, 54, has spoken and written extensively
against the widely held scientific view that the documented rise in global
temperatures is the result of human activity and that serious consequences will
result. Even if humans are warming the planet by causing the buildup of
greenhouse gases, he says, the doomsday scenarios forecast by many climate
scientists may never happen.” [editor’s note: And so he’s an evil demon to the
enviro-thugs whose industry is being threatened, just as this editor once was to
the early days of the stop-animal-cruelty movement (PETA’s origins), due to my
wearing of leather belts and shoes, and non-vegan eating habits - SAT]
(11/11/07)
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1111balling1111.html
COMMENTARY
31 - Heading towards the police state
Future of Freedom Foundation
Bart Frazier
“Every year the United States becomes less free; the state controls more of our
lives, takes more of our money, and takes from us more choices of how we are to
live our lives. This is not the result of some government plot to establish a
dictatorship but simply the natural progression of the state. Unless freedom is
defended diligently, it disappears and is replaced by the police state.”
(11/14/07)
http://www.fff.org/comment/com0711f.asp
=====
32 - Hear me, hear me
Slate
Dahlia Lithwick
“Two murders — on opposite sides of the country — have transfixed the media in
recent weeks, as only the most gruesome family tragedies do. In each case, a
parent was murdered while dropping off a child for a court-ordered custody
switch; and in each case, the surviving parent quickly became a suspect and
almost immediately lost custody. Both families had been tumbling around for
years in the family courts. And both murders followed immediately upon custody
proceedings in which the surviving parent felt they’d gone completely unheard by
a family court judge. Two dead parents, two orphaned children, and two surviving
adults certain they were robbed of a chance to be heard-out in court. It hardly
justifies murder or even threats of murder. But it does go a long way toward
explaining why family law judges have the toughest job on earth — persuading
both sides they were fully heard, while making fundamental changes to the
structure of their lives.” (11/15/07)
http://www.slate.com/id/2177971/
=====
33 - The Cheese Bomb Incident: Terror and the TSA
Mother Jones
Ted Genoways
“Now, nobody wants to be the guy who lets the next Mohammed Atta sail through
security, so maybe each of these tsa episodes can be chalked up to
overzealousness or even proper zealousness. But the real question remains
unanswered: Why was a bogus report — based on false alarms as old as 10 months —
delivered by ‘a government source’ to NBC and CNN for broadcast on the evening
of July 24? In answering that question, it is helpful to remember the
administration’s history of conveniently timing the release of sensational
terror threats.” (11/07)
=====
34 - Democratic leaders poised to sabotage hope for renewable energy
AlterNet
Kelpie Wilson
“Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid said that they would jettison
the renewable energy provisions in both the House and Senate versions of the
2007 energy bill, in the interest of passing a bill before the Thanksgiving.”
[editor’s note: I’m hard-pressed to sympathize with a bill that adds new
subsidies for new sucklers at the government teat, rather than eliminating
subsidies to Big Oil et al - TLK] (11/15/07)
http://www.alternet.org/environment/67793/
=====
35 - Ron Paul: The pragmatic choice
Op Ed News
Michael Mejia
“Of the multitude of mainstream 2008 Presidential candidates, there are only
three who are truly antiwar. Two of them are running as Democrats, one as a
Republican. The two Democrats have little money in the bank, are polling in the
low single digits and are clearly headed nowhere fast. The antiwar Republican
was in much the same boat as Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel the first few weeks
of his Presidential bid. But now his campaign has started to gain momentum: he
has broken through the media wall of silence with recent fundraising success and
his poll numbers are moving up in the early states of New Hampshire and Iowa.
That candidate’s name is Congressman Ron Paul of Texas.” (11/15/07)
=====
36 - Come on people! Bill Cosby is right
In These Times
Laura S. Washington
“As a controversy, Bill Cosby’s Come on People: On the Path from Victims to
Victors is hardly controversial. The new book, co-authored with Harvard
psychiatrist Alvin F. Poussaint, is an old-fashioned, conservative cultural
critique that offers an eat-your-vegetables, teach-your-children,
pull-your-pants-up polemic. In 2004, Cosby roiled the racial waters when he
blasted the pathology of black failure at an NAACP dinner in Washington, D.C.
The iconic comedian, known as the jolly JELL-O man and playful patriarch of The
Cosby Show’s Huxtables, stunned the nation with a bitter diatribe against
low-income African-American families. He hung our dirty laundry out to dry.
Three years later, his words still sting: ‘The lower economic people are not
holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting,’ he ranted at
the stone-faced crowd of America’s black elite. ‘They are buying things for
their kids — $500 sneakers for what? And won’t spend $200 for Hooked on
Phonics!’” (11/1
5/07)
=====
37 - If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
Heartland Institute
Maureen Martin
“The campaign to eliminate childhood lead-based paint poisoning — under way all
over the country through government and private-sector initiatives –is becoming
one of the great American public health success stories. It is a largely untold
one. Reports on children undergoing chelation because they are lead-poisoned,
such as the one in the October 29 edition of USA Today, are heart-wrenching. To
be sure, no child should have to endure such torture.” (11/17/07)
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=22329
=====
38 - A history of nonviolence
The American Prospect
Matthew Duss
“Naim Ateek had just turned 11 when forces of the Haganah, the pre-Israel
Zionist paramilitary organization, occupied his village of Beisan in Palestine.
Days later, the villagers were informed that they were to be ‘evacuated,’
forcibly moved off land that Palestine’s Jewish minority now claimed for its own
state. Ordered to gather in the village center, the Ateeks took what they could
carry, and joined the other frightened families, all clutching heirlooms,
photographs, jewelry, and awaiting an uncertain future, away from the homes in
and lands on which their families had lived for generations. It is perhaps
surprising then, that even after this experience of forcible dispossession, and
even after the shock of the 1967 war, in which thousands more Palestinians were
displaced and the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem came under military
occupation, even after years of witnessing and enduring brutality at the hands
of Israeli soldiers and settlers, Ateek has been a constant advoca
te of nonviolence as the only course for Palestinian independence.” (11/15/07)
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=a_history_of_nonviolence
=====
39 - Hold off on the Clinton coronation
Boston Globe
Dan Payne
“For months, Democrats have asked one another, ‘Is it over? Does Hillary Clinton
have it wrapped up?’ For months the answer was, probably. Not any more: (a) One
night in Philadelphia. You could feel the inevitability slipping from Clinton
the night of the Oct. 30 debate in Philadelphia, when she ducked and dodged on
allowing illegal immigrants to get driver’s licenses. Incredulous, her opponents
on the stage pounced immediately. She also disingenuously blamed the National
Archives for not releasing White House correspondence between her and her
husband. … (b) Iowans at the gate. In the tight, three-way race in Iowa, only
one non-Hillary will emerge, either Barack Obama or John Edwards. The gate
keepers in Iowa will determine which Democrats go on. Iowa will be decisive.”
(11/15/07)
=====
40 - Global warming’s bottom line
Fox News
Steven Milloy
“Sen. Hillary Clinton last week proposed that publicly-owned companies should be
required to disclose to shareholders the financial impacts of global warming.
Financial reality, however, is already overtaking the financial fantasy of
climate alarmists. … Putting aside that weather-related events can’t be tied to
man-made emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), and that it’s the
Democrat-supporting environmental advocacy groups that are banging the drum for
global warming-related litigation, Sen. Clinton’s proposal completely ignores
the real climate-related threats to business: the alarmism itself and attendant
government regulation.” (11/15/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311870,00.html
=====
41 - Why I think Hillary will win
FreedomWorks
Dick Armey
“If the 2008 presidential election were held today, Hillary Rodham Clinton would
win. Hillary’s minor stumbles in the MSNBC debate notwithstanding, she is simply
running the most disciplined and effective campaign. She’s one of the most able
politicians in America, and no one should underestimate her desire to be
President and her calculating focus. What you need to understand is that Hillary
Clinton is, quite simply, craftier and more aggressive than the rest of the
field.” (11/13/07)
=====
42 - Arc de truculence
Christian Science Monitor
staff
“The French are at it again: transit strikes and student barricades this week;
work stoppages for teachers, hospital workers, and judges next week. Oh yes, the
French are all for the reform agenda of their feisty new president, Nicolas
Sarkozy — as long as it doesn’t affect them personally. French voters knew what
they were getting with Mr. Sarkozy. From the day he started campaigning last
year to his election in May, he’s talked about ‘rupture’ with an inflexible
workforce and overburdened social system. And who would want more of the same —
more decades of unemployment hovering at 10 percent, for instance? More years of
ballooning deficits to float a weighty welfare state where 1 in 4 people work
for the government? The French don’t really want that, and that’s why voters
gave Sarkozy a strong mandate.” (11/15/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1116/p08s01-comv.html
=====
43 - Blue Dogs and greenbacks
Tom Paine
Al Meyerhoff
“Perhaps Ralph Nader was right. The leadership of the Democratic party recently
had the rare opportunity to significantly recast the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC). It was a highly watched choice in certain quarters — and in
many boardrooms. Which Democrats would show up? Those favoring broad and
systemic reform of our nation’s markets? Or ‘Blue Dog’ business Democrats, happy
with shifting campaign contributions and seeming more like Republicans every
day? Unfortunately for the country, it was the Blue Dogs by a mile. Created as
part of the New Deal, the SEC, with future Supreme Court Justice William O.
Douglas as its Chairman, was the ultimate Depression era watchdog — safeguarding
the public from the fraud and dishonesty that so characterized Wall Street in
those sad times and in these times too.” [editor’s note: The mere fact that this
writer extols the virtues of the SEC renders his thoughts ignorable - SAT]
(11/15/07)
=====
44 - A Peace Amendment to the Constitution: An idea for our time
Liberty For All
Joey B. King
“One of my favorite anti-war pieces is War is a Racket (WIAR) by Marine Major
General (MG) Smedley Butler. MG Butler was the only person to win the
Congressional Medal of Honor two times, so he knew a thing or two about war.
Interestingly, after he retired from the USMC, Butler came to view himself as a:
‘high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In
short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.’ He worked for peace in the 1930’s
before his death in 1940. As a warrior-turned-pacifist myself, my own sentiments
are similar to Butler’s.” (written 07/05; posted 11/15/07)
http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=1037
=====
45 - Dems cowed by scare tactics on immigration
New York Daily News
Juan Gonzales
“Republican leaders, fearing a complete rout of their party in next year’s
national election, are determined to ride public anger over undocumented
immigrants in the same way they rode anger over gay marriage in the 2004 race.
Look at all those illegal Salvadoran gardeners and Mexican bus boys and Jamaican
nannies and Haitian sugar cane cutters — all those weapons of mass destruction
aimed at America. Terrorists abroad. Alien invasion within. Danger everywhere.”
(11/15/07)
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/col/gonzalez/index.html
=====
46 - A primer on the law of torture
Truthout
Anthony Piel
“Torture, within the meaning of the 1984 Convention Against Torture, continues
to be secretly and systematically inflicted and condoned by various officials at
the highest levels of the Bush administration. Most of these high-level
officials have no experience of combat, of imprisonment or of interrogation.
They have trashed the reputation of America around the globe. As a result, they
are contributing to the rise of international terrorism. These leaders and
actors appear to lack the imagination, intellectual capacity and moral compass
to understand what is at stake, and keep America on the moral high ground. They
need a primer on the basics. They better learn quick, because there is no
statute of limitations on war crimes and crimes against humanity, and as our US
president has himself said, in a not-dissimilar context, ‘They can run, but they
can’t hide.’” (11/15/07)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/111507A.shtml
=====
47 - Thank you, Ehren Watada
CounterPunch
Ben Terrall
“On November 9 in San Francisco’s Chinatown, supporters of Iraq war resister Lt.
Ehren Watada made a presentation to community press and local activists that
included good news for their cause. On November 8, Judge Benjamin Settle of the
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington issued a grant of a
preliminary injunction in favor of Lt. Watada, the first commissioned officer to
publicly refuse deployment to the Iraq War.” (11/14/07)
http://www.counterpunch.org/terrall11152007.html
=====
48 - Gold, Ron Paul and prosperity
Strike the Root
George F. Smith
“[G]old has served as the principal medium of exchange throughout history
because its value does not depend on a government fulfilling its promises.”
(11/15/07)
http://www.strike-the-root.com/72/smith/smith3.html
=====
49 - The quirky candidate
Boston Globe
Scot Lehigh
“Ron Paul has just reached the peak of geek chic. Having delivered a passionate
paean to libertarianism at Oyster River High School, Paul has been presented
with a pair of sporty two-tone sunglasses. ‘Put them on!’ the students yell. The
72-year-old Republican presidential candidate obligingly dons the youthful
shades — then stands there beaming as the assembly hall erupts in delight.
Moments later, the kids flock around him, seeking autographs. Later that
afternoon, Paul earns another enthusiastic reception from a capacity crowd at
the University of New Hampshire. So what explains Paul’s appeal?” [editor’s
note: Nothing an MSM slug like you would ever comprehend, Scot. In other news in
the same paper, NH Independent voters are registering in droves for the GOP
primary … which those wise Globe pundits claim is “good news for McCain” - SAT]
(11/14/07)
=====
50 - Bush stands by his dictator
Truthdig
Robert Scheer
“‘The war on terror’ … made me do it. That’s the excuse that works for George W.
Bush to rationalize his assaults on the rule of law, from arbitrary arrest to
torture. So why not try some war-on-terror obfuscation to bail out his
president-dictator buddy over in Pakistan? That’s the card Bush played at his
Saturday press conference when he once again celebrated Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf as a strong ally in the war on terrorism. … Of course Bush’s
statement was utter nonsense. Al-Qaida has been having a very good experience
with its CEO Osama bin Laden — whom Bush had promised to get ‘dead or alive’ —
being still very much alive and apparently moving with his minions quite easily
across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.” [editor’s note: OR, Osama being “very
much dead” these last 5 or so years, while his “threat” is repeatedly drawn back
out each time Shrubbo needs an excuse for more tyranny? - SAT] (11/14/07)
=====
51 - Rudy Giuliani: Criminal or liar?
In These Times
Lindsay Beyerstein
“Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani raised serious questions about
his record as a public servant when he announced on television that he had used
‘intensive questioning techniques’ on New York mobsters and other criminals, and
that his brand of intensive interrogation was difficult to differentiate from
torture. … Was Giuliani implying that he conducted these interrogations while he
was Mayor? Or perhaps when he was the number three official in the Reagan
Justice Department? The references to ‘mafia guys’ and the New York crime rate
may be an attempt to evoke Giuliani’s career as U.S. Attorney for the Southern
District of New York, where he made a name for himself as mafia-busting
prosecutor.” [editor’s note: Does it really matter? Either way, he’s a dangerous
wanna-be emperor - SAT] (11/14/07)
=====
52 - Loving Pat Robertson
The American Prospect
Paul Waldman
“It has become a familiar ritual: highly ideological political actor says
something shocking or controversial; media demand that establishment figures of
the same political stripe repudiate the remarks; the other side attacks the
establishment figures for their tolerance of extremists in their midst. One
might think this is the natural reaction of those champions of moderation and
centrism, the pleadings of the reasonable middle to marginalize the extremes.
One might, were it not for the fact that the second step in the pattern — the
media demands for repudiation — seems to happen far more often to Democrats than
to Republicans, who are seldom asked to ‘distance themselves’ from their less
levelheaded brethren. Left-wing extremists (and many not so extreme at all) are
treated with scorn and contempt, their controversial statements held up as dire
threats to the survival of the Republic. Right-wing extremists, on the other
hand, are considered players whose opinions should be sought
and whose endorsements are highly valued.” (11/14/07)
=====
53 - Hillary’s secret weapon in Iowa
Fox News
Susan Estrich
“Almost exactly four years ago, I was sitting in a TV studio in Los Angeles, not
long before the Iowa caucus, and I announced, on television, to my Fox
colleagues who were anchoring from Iowa, and to the audience watching them, that
John Kerry was going to win the Iowa caucus. This was not, to say the least, the
conventional wisdom. Up to the very day of the caucus, people who were supposed
to know what was going to happen before it did were saying that Howard Dean, who
had been the early frontrunner, was going to win Iowa. And of course, I was
saying the wise guys were wrong from a distance of 2,000 miles (not to mention a
50 degree temperature gap), having not set foot in Iowa a single time over the
course of that campaign.” (11/14/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,311762,00.html
=====
54 - $1 trillion to the rescue
Christian Science Monitor
Woody Tasch
“Economists project that the cost of the war in Iraq, when all is said and done,
will come in at $1 trillion or more. I say: Let’s do it again! Let’s allocate
another trillion dollars — but this time for the good of all humanity and all
species. Let’s do it with the same moral urgency and vision that has made
America great at so many critical junctures in history. There’s an emergency and
an opportunity out there that calls for The Next Trillion. It’s about more than
geopolitics and petrodollars. It’s about more than the science of climate
change. It’s about the need for global economic institutions to evolve in
response to the social and environmental challenges of our time: growth in
population, accelerating technological change, accelerating capital flows,
growth in consumption, increasing pollution, widening wealth gaps.” [editor’s
note: Someone needs to acquaint this bonehead where that trillion actually comes
from … every one of us, either at the direct-taxing point, or at th
e cost of everything we buy! - SAT] (11/14/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1115/p09s01-coop.html
=====
55 - Memo to Obama: No rush to “fix” Social Security
AlterNet
Mark Weisbrot
“Despite the defeat of President Bush’s attempt to partially privatize Social
Security, the mass misunderstanding of America’s largest and most successful
anti-poverty program persists. This was evident on Sunday’s Meet the Press with
Tim Russert, which was devoted to an interview with Democratic Presidential
candidate Barack Obama. Obama is no enemy of Social Security. But like most of
the country, he is misinformed on this issue. So he is going after his opponent,
Hillary Clinton, for saying ‘if we just get our fiscal house in order that we
can solve the problem of Social Security.’” [editor’s note: And this yoyo
clearly needs some basic economics training, as does Obama! - SAT] (11/14/07)
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/67860/al
=====
56 - Why we write
Consortium News
Robert Parry
“After three decades as a Washington journalist, one lesson stands out almost
above all others: false narratives get good people killed and, perhaps even
worse, could sound the death knell for the great experiment known as the
American Republic.” (11/13/07)
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/111207.html
=====
57 - Studs Terkel: Curiosity didn’t kill this cat
TruthDig
Amy Goodman
“While he is a man of the 20th century, he continues to write about the 21st
century. In fact, he has just sued AT&T for collaborating with the government in
eavesdropping. Terkel says this is not new. He was wiretapped in the 1950s,
during the McCarthy era. Of the government spies and their telecom allies, then
and now, Terkel says: ‘They are un-American. Thomas Paine, the most eloquent
visionary of the American Revolution, speaks of this country in which a commoner
can look at a king and say, ‘Bugger off!’ I’ve known this before, because my
phone was tapped in the days when the keyword was ‘Commie.”” (11/14/07)
=====
58 - Stop hating Bush!
Salon
Glenn Greenwald
Extreme hypocrisy is far too common to take note of every time one sees it, but
sometimes it is so jaw-dropping that it can’t be ignored. A remarkably petulant
column on today’s Wall St. Journal Op-Ed page is a prime example. … the far more
significant aspect of this whole spectacle is that the WSJ Editors — of all
people — have the audacity to publish a lecture on the grave harms of hatred
towards the President. This is the Editorial Page that, throughout the 1990s,
did more to infect and degrade our public discourse than anyone this side of
Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge. But the WSJ Editors were actually far worse than
Limbaugh and Drudge, because they put a stamp of establishment journalistic
credibility on those rancid dirt-mongers, elevating them to the realm of the
credible and influential.” (11/14/07)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/11/14/wall_st_journal/
=====
59 - How Cookie crumbled
Mother Jones
Bruce Falconer
“Howard ‘Cookie’ Krongard hasn’t failed at much in life. Until recently, in
fact, you would have thought him an unqualified success, a well-bred man who
came from plenty and went on to plenty more. His resume is the definition of
East Coast privilege: Princeton, Harvard, Cambridge, All-American lacrosse
player, and successful corporate attorney. So, it must have been with some
bewilderment that he found himself sitting before the House Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform earlier today, facing charges of corruption,
mismanagement, and incompetence in his latest station in life as the State
Department’s Inspector General. In his performance there, Krongard displayed a
penchant for protecting political allies while obstructing investigations — and
today, he may have committed perjury.” (11/14/07)
=====
60 - Writers strike, silence falls
The Nation
Barbara Ehrenreich
“In solidarity with the striking screenwriters, there will be no laugh lines in
this blog, no stunning metaphors, and not many adjectives. Also, in solidarity
with the striking Broadway stagehands, no theatrics, special effects or
sing-along refrains. Yes, I realize the strike could deprive millions of
Americans of news as Jay Leno, Jon Stewart, and the rest of them are forced into
re-runs. If the strike and the re-runs go on long enough, the same millions of
Americans will be condemned to living in the past and writing in Kerry for
president in 08. But are re-runs really such a bad thing?” (11/12/07)
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071126/ehrenreich
Until next week ...
Peace, Love and Liberty
Steve Trinward, Editor