Progressive News Digest - Nov 26, 2007
stri...@comcast.net
Date: Mon, November 26, 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 #25 Monday, Nov. 26, 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:
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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.
Here you go ... enjoy and see you next week! Check the site for constant
updates each day:
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NEWS
01 - CNN profiles anti-gay minister’s conversion to tolerance
02 - Obama says his health package does more
03 - SC: Ex-Black militant becomes Eagle Scout
04 - GA: Judge may void election over transgender candidate
05 - TN: Belmont to host presidential debate in ‘08
06 - UN to admit overstating AIDS
07 - Africa: Kenyan police ‘killed thousands’
08 - UK: Child database plan under attack following missing discs debacle
09 - Fred Thompson calls for flat tax
10 - Australia: Rudd win ushers in new era for politics
11 - Preview: Next year’s new citizenship test
12 - Economist: Podhoretz misquotes Ahmadinejad
13 - Diamond tells all: “Sweet Caroline” was Kennedy
14 - Crowded Mexican prisons may hamper US drug war thugs
15 - CA: Plastic bag ban begins in San Francisco stores
16 - Fred Thompson puts stock in South, Midwest
17 - In New Hampshire, the swing voters who count first
18 - FBI’s forensic tool was flawed, inquiry finds
19 - Gas station owner dies after fast against oil giants
20 - CA: Ballot measure targets eminent domain & rent control
21 - MA: “Success” could put health plan in the red
22 - OH: GOP, Christian group want AG to apologize
23 - OPEC’s lost sway over oil prices
24 - Poll: Class divisions outweigh race among black Americans
25 - CA: Tree-sitter, supporters arrested in scuffle with police
26 - Driver’s licenses for migrants? Not in Mexico
27 - ND: Chancellor would dump “Fighting Sioux” logo
28 - “Pork” still reigns on Capitol Hill
29 - MA: Voters could decide casino isssue
30 - MA: Few drivers using new U-turn ramp
COMMENTARY
31 - Medicare as a model? Heaven forfend!
32 - Welcome to the jackboot state
33 - Paternalists just don’t understand
34 - Congress and the Disappeared
35 - Kids LOL @ Navy recruiters
36 - Look back in awe
37 - People before prophets
38 - Don’t ignore Hamas
39 - Let’s hear it for good news from Iraq
40 - The “invisible hand” goes toy shopping
41 - A pox on the (Iowa) polls
42 - Desecration
43 - The press dog that didn’t bark
44 - lib*er*tar*ian
45 - Southern inhospitality: Playing the immigration issue
46 - Rape: Just another prerogative of the state
47 - The immigration con artists
48 - Ron Paul rising
49 - The Democrats’ foreign (policy) wars
50 - They’ve slept on it
51 - The anti-crusader
52 - The Dems need an Iran strategy ASAP
53 - Excuse me, please, I’m having a bad decade
54 - A matter of trust
55 - A real values debate
56 - Un-selling the surge
57 - Free Kosovo -- Without a fight
58 - Thanksgiving: A holiday at war with our culture
59 - The fugitive
60 - Casualties of the corrupt drug war
NEWS
01 - CNN profiles anti-gay minister’s conversion to tolerance
Raw Story
“Reverend Dennis Meredith used to condemn homosexuality in his sermons, reports CNN’s Dan Lothian in a video from CNN’s Sunday morning broadcast, but had a change of heart due to a family secret. Nothing is understated about Reverend Meredith of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Atlanta: not the bright yellow Harley he drives to work, not the music, and definitely not his message. ‘If you can come down the aisle, holding your partners hand,’ Rev. Meredith yells into a microphone as he pulls a church-goer to his feet, ‘I’m happy for you.’ … The Reverend has come full circle: he used to condemn homosexuality from the same pulpit.” (11/25/07)
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02 - Obama says his health package does more
Boston Globe
“Democratic Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, seeking to distance himself from his leading rivals, touted his healthcare expansion package as doing more to cut costs and deal with root problems facing consumers ‘than any other proposal in this race.’ Obama’s two main rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination — Senator Hillary Clinton of New York and former senator John Edwards of North Carolina — have offered universal healthcare plans, while his stops short of mandating everyone have health insurance. Obama routinely describes his rivals’ plans as similar in thrust, but he began sharpening those differences as he opened his latest campaign swing yesterday.” (11/25/07)
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03 - SC: Ex-Black militant becomes Eagle Scout
San Francisco Chronicle
“Cleveland Sellers called himself a black militant in his autobiography, and he was convicted — and later pardoned — of sparking a 1968 civil rights protest in which three students were gunned down by state troopers. These days, however, he has a doctorate in education and is director of the African American Studies program at the University of South Carolina. On Dec. 3, the 64-year-old man will become an Eagle Scout, an achievement he hopes will add an important layer to a personal narrative that to many people will always be linked to the protest known as the Orangeburg Massacre. … Sellers was on the path to becoming an Eagle Scout until his paperwork was lost nearly four decades ago.” (11/25/07)
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04 - GA: Judge may void election over transgender candidate
Fox News
“Two unsuccessful city council candidates in Riverdale say a fellow candidate committed fraud when she ran as a woman. Georgia Fuller and Stanley Harris — who lost bids for council seats — filed petitions in Clayton County Superior Court last week asking the judge to stop the upcoming runoff election. The lawsuit alleges that incumbent Michelle Bruce — who identifies herself as transgendered and goes by Michelle Mickey Bruce — misled voters by identifying herself as a female during the Nov. 6 election. The suit, which identifies her as ‘Michael Bruce,’ asks a judge to rule the November election results invalid and order another general election.” (11/20/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312298,00.html
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05 - TN: Belmont to host presidential debate in ‘08
Tennessean
“Today, presidential candidates are focused on Iowa, but less than a year from now, they’ll have to turn their attention to Belmont University. Belmont President Bob Fisher announced Monday that the school will host one of three presidential debates in 2008, marking the first such event in Tennessee. ‘We’re joining an elite group of institutions by being selected to host this debate,’ Fisher said at a news conference inside the Curb Event Center, where the debate will be held Oct. 7. The debate’s town-hall meeting format will allow members of the audience to question the candidates directly. [editor’s note: If this event features ONLY the expected two authoritarians, I don’t think I wanna be in town that night - SAT] (11/20/07)
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06 - UN to admit overstating AIDS
Arizona Republic
“The United Nations’ top AIDS scientists plan to acknowledge this week that they have long overestimated the size and the course of the epidemic, which they now believe has been slowing for nearly a decade, according to U.N. documents prepared for the announcement. AIDS remains a devastating public-health crisis in the most heavily affected areas of sub-Saharan Africa. But the far-reaching revisions amount to a partial acknowledgment of criticisms long leveled by outside researchers who disputed the U.N. portrayal of an ever-expanding global epidemic. The latest estimates, due to be released publicly Wednesday, put the number of annual new HIV infections at 2.5 million, a cut of more than 40 percent from last year’s estimate, documents show. The worldwide total of people infected with HIV, estimated a year ago at nearly 40 million and rising, now will be reported as 33 million.” (11/20/07)
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07 - Africa: Kenyan police ‘killed thousands’
BBC
“A human-rights organisation has claimed that Kenyan police killed as many as 8,040 people by execution or torture during a crackdown on a banned sect.The group said a further 4,070 people had gone missing as security forces tried to wipe out the Mungiki sect.The deaths and disappearances occurred over five years up to August 2007, said the Oscar Foundation Free Legal Aid Clinic-Kenya. ” (11/26/07)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7112183.stm
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08 - UK: Child database plan under attack following missing discs debacle
Independent [UK]
“A review of security has been ordered over Government plans to put the personal details of 11 million schoolchildren on to a database. The move comes in the wake of the HM Revenue and Customs missing discs debacle. … Parents’ groups have protested against putting their children on the database, fearing it could be dangerous. But the loss of the personal details of 25 million people receiving child benefit prompted fresh demands from parents for a rethink of the entire scheme.” (11/26/07)
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3196251.ece
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09 - Fred Thompson calls for flat tax
Fox News
“Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson proposed an income tax plan Sunday that would allow Americans to choose a simplified system with only two rates: 10 percent and 25 percent. Thompson’s proposal, announced on Fox News Sunday, would allow filers to remain under the current, complex tax code or use the flat tax rates. Asked whether the plan would cut too deeply into federal revenues, the former Tennessee senator and actor said experts ‘always overestimate the losses to the government’ when taxes are cut. ‘We’ve known for years any time we have lowered taxes and any time we’ve lowered tax rates, we’ve seen growth in the economy,’ Thompson said. Thompson added that money would be saved by his Social Security reform plan.” (11/25/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312785,00.htmlf
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10 - Australia: Rudd win ushers in new era for politics
Christian Science Monitor
“A tumultuous 24 hours propelled Australia into a new political era Sunday, with prime minister-elect Kevin Rudd offering generational change and fresh ideas on issues ranging from climate change to education. Mr. Rudd will distance Australia from the United States in some respects by signing the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and withdrawing troops from Iraq. The former diplomat and Labor Party leader, who is expected to be sworn in and to name his cabinet Thursday, swept to power in Saturday’s federal election, bringing to an end 11 years of conservative government under John Howard.” (11/25/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1126/p07s02-woap.html
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11 - Preview: Next year’s new citizenship test
Arizona Republic
“The federal government is launching a new citizenship test next year. The questions are aimed at better measuring how well immigrants understand what it means to be an American rather than how well they can memorize answers. Here are some samples and a list of possible answers. … Sample questions: Q: What is the supreme law of the land? A: The Constitution. Q: What is one right or freedom from the First Amendment? A: (choose one) Speech, religion, assembly, press, petition the government.Q: What are two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy? A: (choose among) Vote, join a political party, help with a campaign, join a civic group, join a community group, run for office, write to a newspaper. [The 100 study questions for the new test can be found at www.uscis.gov/files/nativedocuments/100q.pdf.]” (11/24/07)
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1124newtestbox.html
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12 - Economist: Podhoretz misquotes Ahmadinejad
Raw Story
“One of the country’s most prominent neoconservative pundits has been accused of using a fabricated quote from Iran’s supreme religious leader in pushing his argument that a US invasion is the only recourse to deter that country’s nuclear ambitions. Norman Podhoretz is among the most vocal in urging President Bush to bomb Iran, and he has predicted the president will launch an attack before his term is up. Podhoretz’s argument is based on his belief that a nuclear-armed Iran would not be deterred from launching its missiles because its leaders do not fear their country’s destruction. The Economist has called into question an oft-cited statement Podhoretz attributes to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini, saying it is likely ‘bogus.’” (11/20/07)
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13 - Diamond tells all: “Sweet Caroline” was Kennedy
San Francisco Chronicle
“Neil Diamond held onto the secret for decades, but he has finally revealed that President Kennedy’s daughter was the inspiration for his smash hit Sweet Caroline. ‘I’ve never discussed it with anybody before — intentionally,’ the 66-year-old singer-songwriter told The Associated Press on Monday during a break from recording. ‘I thought maybe I would tell it to Caroline when I met her someday.’ He got his chance last week when he performed the song via satellite at Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg’s 50th birthday party. Diamond was a ‘young, broke songwriter’ when a photo of the president’s daughter in a news magazine caught his eye.” [editor’s note: And now it’s a standard 8th-inning song at Fenway Park, and a few other places as well … so good … so good! - SAT] (11/20/07)
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14 - Crowded Mexican prisons may hamper US drug war thugs
Arizona Republic
“Dangerous, overcrowded and corrupt prisons raise questions about Mexico’s ability to handle a $1.4 billion, U.S.-funded crackdown on drug smugglers that aims to put even more people behind bars. Prison overcrowding is the highest it has been in at least a decade, with nearly 217,000 inmates in prisons built for 164,000, according to Mexican government figures. Violence, drug-dealing and corruption among guards are rampant as wardens struggle to control inmates. ‘In every 6- by 8-meter (20- by 26-foot) cell there were six beds and 10 guys. And that was a VIP room,’ said Alberto Orozco, 25, who spent six weeks in a Mexico City prison for robbery. ‘All we did was fight with the guards. Nothing but shouting and beatings.’ Arrests in Mexico have soared since President Felipe Calderon began sending troops into drug-smuggling hotspots a year ago. The U.S. government has promised a $1.4 billion aid package, dubbed the Merida Initiative, to help the anti-drug effort. But of the first $500
million that the Bush administration has requested from Congress, only $3 million is destined for the prison system, according to a memo obtained by the Reforma newspaper. None of that money is going for building prisons.” (11/20/07)
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15 - CA: Plastic bag ban begins in San Francisco stores
San Francisco Chronicle
“Attention San Francisco shoppers: Plastic grocery store bags are going, going, gone. Starting Tuesday, large grocery stores in the city can no longer use the traditional plastic bags that are a staple of the supermarket checkout line, as a city ordinance passed earlier this year to ban the bags takes effect. ‘People are used to getting free bags and thinking there is no real consequence to them, but there is a cost,’ said Jack Macy, commercial recycling coordinator for the city’s Department of the Environment, which is implementing the new policy. The 180 million plastic bags city officials estimate are handed out in the city each year end up as litter on city streets, clog storm drains, harm wildlife, and contaminate and jam machines used in recycling, Macy said.” [editor’s note: Paper bags were fine for years, then they trashed them to save trees and you had to ask special for them … and we wonder why we don’t trust the “reformers” - SAT] (11/19/07)
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16 - Fred Thompson puts stock in South, Midwest
Tennessean
“Remember how Fred Thompson skipped the New Hampshire Republican debate in September so he could make his political debut on Jay Leno’s couch instead? New Hampshire remembers. ‘He is so disliked. He’s the most disliked Republican in the state,’ said New Hampshire political talk show host Arnie Arnesen. ‘He hasn’t connected with a soul up here.’ Thompson is trailing in a state that will hold the first presidential primary. He’s in better shape in Iowa: fourth place, trailing Mitt Romney but within spitting distance of Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani.” (11/19/07)
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17 - In New Hampshire, the swing voters who count first
Christian Science Monitor
“As schoolteacher Betty Ward evaluates the 16 candidates running for president, uppermost in her mind is: Who will get US troops out of Iraq? She’s mulling over whom to vote for. Donna Richards will vote for someone who can be trusted and whose aim is to bring about peace. Her choice: undecided. Attorney Andre Gibeau is seeking a candidate with courage to return to Congress much of the power he believes was usurped by President Bush. Meet some of New Hampshire’s freethinking and increasingly dissatisfied independents, who quite possibly hold the key to the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. They dwarf the ranks of registered Democrats or Republicans in this state. What they’re thinking may well signal which themes will strike a chord with the roughly 20 percent of voters nationwide who consider themselves independents.” (11/20/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1120/p01s04-uspo.html
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18 - FBI’s forensic tool was flawed, inquiry finds
Washington Post
“Hundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that was discarded more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing, a joint investigation by the Washington Post and 60 Minutes has found. The science, known as comparative bullet-lead analysis, was first used after President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. The technique used chemistry to link crime-scene bullets to ones possessed by suspects on the theory that each batch of lead had a unique elemental makeup.” (11/18/07)
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19 - Gas station owner dies after fast against oil giants
San Jose Mercury News
“Mehdi Shahbazi was a man who championed the consumer and listened to his own counsel as he waged a years-long battle against Exxon Oil and then Shell Oil. The conflicts cost him his eight service stations — from Salinas to San Jose — his home, his health and his life. Shahbazi, 65, died Wednesday at Stanford Hospital due to a fast of more than four months to protest the power of oil companies — and as gas prices approach record highs in California. At his former Marina station — where two years ago he posted a sign that read ‘Consumers’ pain is Big Oil’s unearned profit!’ — customers have erected a memorial of flowers, cards and signs proclaiming love and appreciation. Until a court decision last month that gave Shell legal control over his final station, Shahbazi was positive he would prevail, said his nephew, Kaz Ajir of Marina. But the news devastated him, and his health dramatically declined.” (11/18/07)
http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_7494472
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20 - CA: Ballot measure targets eminent domain & rent control
San Francisco Chronicle
“Property rights activists are once again pushing a ballot measure aimed at restricting government’s use of eminent domain, but this time there’s a secondary target: rent-control ordinances. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, the California Farm Bureau Federation and various property owner groups are expected in the coming weeks to submit more than a million signatures to qualify the measure for the June 3 ballot. Similar to Proposition 90, which state voters narrowly rejected last year, the California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act would seek to ban the ability of state or local government to condemn privately owned land to assist private developers.” (11/18/07)
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21 - 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.” [editor’s note: In the red? Over budget? Ah, the financial travails of “free” health care - TLK] (11/18/07)
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22 - OH: GOP, Christian group want AG 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
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23 - 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
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24 - 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)
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25 - 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)
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26 - 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)
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27 - 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
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28 - “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
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29 - 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)
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30 - MA: Few drivers using new U-turn ramp
Boston Globe
“The Massachusetts Turnpike Authority’s new $1.6 million U-turn ramp … has been used by just a trickle of drivers since the mayor and dignitaries took their inaugural spin. Fewer than 200 drivers a day use the ramp, a third of them illegally. … just a small fraction of the 1,200 to 2,000 vehicles a day it was intended to accommodate. … With the ramp’s opening, those drivers can travel from the Back Bay to Logan International Airport or the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center or vice versa. They can take the turnpike westbound, loop around on the ramp just before the Allston tolls, and use east bound exits directly into the Back Bay and the South Boston waterfront area. The ramp can trim 10 minutes off the trip in both directions, transportation planners have said, and ease congestion on local roads.” (11/19/07)
COMMENTARY
31 - Medicare as a model? Heaven forfend!
ISIL Medical Freedom Channel
Steve Trinward
“The day-job’s at an end — suddenly and abruptly. Suffice to say that the combination of working corporate, and reporting early for extra hours at holiday-times, proved to be my undoing. Back to the drawing-board, but at least there’s a small cushion and no overdue bills outstanding. Perhaps it’s a good time to comment on some more things I learned in that venue, about how the current ethos of ‘entitlement’ will surely be our undoing, unless it is reversed very soon. Full disclosure: The gig I just left, not entirely of my own will, involved processing Medicare forms, and the experience has only strengthened my already-adamant opposition to any ideas being circulated about expanding that benighted program as a model for nationalized health insurance!” (11/26/07)
http://www.isil.org/channels/archives/12159
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32 - Welcome to the jackboot state
CounterPunch
Alexander Cockburn
“Welcome to the jackboot state, not to mention the jackboot campus, anno domini 2007. A doctor gives verbal advice to protect the life of an unconscious man and she duly gets hit with attempted felonies by vindictive campus cops, with the connivance of the University of Michigan. Jury selection for her trial starts on Monday in a county courthouse in Ann Arbor.” (11/25/070
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11242007.html
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33 - Paternalists just don’t understand
Strike the Root
Danny Shahar
“But even if people did use drugs without understanding the costs and risks, or how to minimize them properly, prohibition still wouldn’t be the clear answer. We have driving schools and licensing to help people practice the dangerous activity of driving, and a strong argument could be made that drug use should not be treated any differently.” (11/20/07)
http://www.strike-the-root.com/72/shahar/shahar7.html
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34 - Congress and the Disappeared
Village Voice
Nat Hentoff
“Still waiting for our representatives—and presidential candidates—to address criminal U.S. kidnappings.” (11/20/070
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0747,hentoff,78426,2.html
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35 - Kids LOL @ Navy recruiters
In These Times
Aaron Sarver
“Teenagers, be warned: Military recruiters have armed themselves with ‘Wat up, dude?’ and ‘nmu’ in their effort to lure you to Iraq. (For those who lack daily interaction with teens, ‘nmu’ means ‘Not much. You?’) As headlines reveal that the military is lowering standards to meet its recruiting goals, the Pentagon is trying new techniques to connect with Millennials — those born between 1980 and 2000, formerly known as Generation Y. In September, the website Entropic Memes reported that attendees at last spring’s Annual Navy Workforce Research and Analysis Conference were given a slideshow presentation titled ‘The Road to a 2025 Total Force: Talkin ‘bout Their Generation.’” (11/23/07)
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3417/kids_lol_navy_recruiters/
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36 - Look back in awe
The American Prospect
Mark Schmitt
“Democrats and Republicans are alike in one respect, according to the libertarian writer Brink Lindsey: their shared nostalgia for the 1950s. Except, he says, ‘Republicans want to go home to the United States of the 1950s, while Democrats want to work there.’ … While most of the Republican presidential candidates have life experiences more reminiscent of The Ice Storm than The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, all invoke a vision of the patriarchal, orderly family of post–World War II suburban fantasy…. But even baby boom liberals who spent their youth in rebellion against the tranquilized 1950s have become homesick for its virtues. Ninety-one percent tax rates! Unions! Declining income inequality! Working people in nice big houses. What’s to protest?” (11/22/07)
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=look_back_in_awe
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37 - People before prophets
Opinion Journal
Peggy Noonan
“I was talking with an old friend, a longtime Democrat, and she asked if I knew what religion a certain presidential candidate was. I replied that I didn’t know and hoped I’d never find out. We started to laugh, and she nodded. I didn’t mean it and yet I meant it, for we have come to an odd pass regarding candidates and their faith. It’s not as if faith is unimportant, it’s always important. But we are asking our political figures — mere flawed politicians — to put forward and talk about their faith to a degree that has become odd. We push them against the wall and do a kind of theological frisk on them. We didn’t use to.” (11/23/07)
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/
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38 - Don’t ignore Hamas
Christian Science Monitor
Yossi Beilin
“Hamas’s victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006, and its violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in June, were very bad news for those who believe in Israeli-Palestinian peace. But as Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) prepare to launch formal negotiations on final status — for the first time in seven years — Israel should seek to reach a cease fire with Hamas as soon as possible. This is not an easy position for an Israeli to take. Hamas is a religiously fanatical organization that has used the worst kind of terrorist violence against Israelis. That Hamas won parliamentary elections does not automatically render it politically legitimate. Democracy is about more than winning elections, and Hamas’s violent takeover of the Gaza Strip was a flagrant demonstration of its readiness to defy democratic principles.” (11/26/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1126/p09s02-coop.html
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39 - Let’s hear it for good news from Iraq
Boston Globe
Jeff Jacoby
“The news from Iraq has been so encouraging in recent months that last week even the mainstream media finally sat up and took notice. Can the Democratic Party be far behind? In a story titled ‘Baghdad Comes Alive,’ Rod Nordland reports in the current Newsweek on the heartening transformation underway in the Iraqi capital: ‘Returning to Baghdad after an absence of four months,’ he writes, ‘I can actually say that things do seem to have gotten better, and in ways that may even be durable. … There hasn’t been a successful suicide car bombing in Baghdad in five weeks. … Al Qaeda in Iraq is starting to look like a spent force, especially in Baghdad.’ The signs of life, Nordland acknowledges ‘grudgingly’ — his word — are undeniable.” (11/25/07)
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40 - The “invisible hand” goes toy shopping
Tom Paine/Common Sense
Terrance Heath
“This weekend was our son’s fifth birthday, and we tried something different for his birthday party this year: no toys. Instead we had a book exchange. Each kid brought a book and left with one, and our son opened the presents we bought for him once we got back home. Books, for the moment, are still safe. The worst they can inflict is a paper cut. But in the past year I’ve become aware of a something as a parent. Where toys are concerned, the only people trying to keep our child safe are his parents. You become aware of a lot of things as a parent, like how fast the traffic on your street is all of a sudden, or how much sugar is actually in those breakfast cereals you ate growing up. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, awareness is something parents need even more of.” (11/20/07)
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41 - A pox on the (Iowa) polls
Salon
Walter Shapiro
“I remain a major-league skeptic about Iowa polling for a simple reason: No one knows exactly who will attend the Jan. 3 caucuses, which are being held this close to the holidays for the first time in history. An adroit pollster may paint an accurate portrait of sentiments of the larger universe of Iowa Democratic (or Republican) voters, but miss completely in guessing which of these voters will make the commitment to turn out on a cold Thursday night (there is no absentee voting at a caucus) to put their thumbs on the scale of presidential politics. Every time I read an Iowa poll — such as the overhyped ABC News/Washington Post survey that vaulted Barack Obama into the lead — I think of voters like the petite 75-year-old woman wearing a dark blue dress whom I met at a Hillary Clinton rally Monday night in Tama. The woman in blue, who did not want her name used, talked about how she has been scrupulously studying the candidates and the issues to become an informed voter. But when I
inquired whether she intended to caucus for Hillary, her chosen favorite, the Tama woman asked in a puzzled voice, ‘Where would I go to do that?’” [editor’s note: No mention of it in this article, but I predict that a disparity in “get out the vote” will boost Ron Paul, whose supporters are exceptionally dedicated, considerably above his putative polling numbers in both Iowa and New Hampshire - TLK] (11/24/07)
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42 - Desecration
The Free Liberal
Michael Goodspeed
“The author Isak Dinesen commented, ‘I don’t believe in evil, I believe only in horror. In nature there is no evil, only an abundance of horror: the plagues and the blights and the ants and the maggots.’ Of course, horror exists in (and virtually defines) nature, but the deliberate, unnecessary, brutal theft of a life — ANY life — moves beyond the impersonal horror of biologic decay and death, to the realm of DESECRATION, a strictly human behavior that cannot reasonably be characterized as ‘natural.’ According to the ABC news affiliate KATU (Portland, OR), police recently booked two teenage boys on charges of aggravated animal abuse, after they allegedly scalded a kitten with hot water, then cut off its head with a hatchet.” (11/21/07)
http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/003068.html
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43 - The press dog that didn’t bark
Slate
John Dickerson
“[D]espite the uproar, [[former White House Press Secretary Scott] McClellan’s excerpt pretty much tells us what we already knew about the roles of the key players during the relevant two weeks in October. Bush, Cheney, and Card may have been involved in pressing McClellan to push the story, but, as far as McClellan knows, those three were doing so because they too had been misled by Rove and Libby (with possible fuzziness here about McClellan’s view of Cheney). Lost in the excitement is this larger point: Even if the president, the vice president, and Card didn’t know that McClellan was lying during those two October weeks, they certainly knew afterward that his stalwart defense had become inoperative, as reports surfaced that Libby and Rove had talked about the matter with reporters. And if they didn’t know for sure, they should have cared enough to find out when it became clear that Libby and Rove were not as innocent of Plame’s outing as they first claimed.” (11/21/07)
http://www.slate.com/id/2178467/
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44 - lib*er*tar*ian
Washington Post
Nick Gillespie & Matt Welch
“When a fierce Republican foe of the wars on drugs and terrorism is able, without really trying, to pull in a record haul of campaign cash on a day dedicated to an attempted regicide, it’s clear that a new and potentially transformative force is growing in American politics. That force is less about [Ron] Paul than about the movement that has erupted around him — and the much larger subset of Americans who are increasingly disillusioned with the two major political parties’ soft consensus on making government ever more intrusive at all levels, whether it’s listening to phone calls without a warrant, imposing fines of half a million dollars for broadcast ‘obscenities’ or jailing grandmothers for buying prescribed marijuana from legal dispensaries.” (11/25/07)
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45 - Southern inhospitality: Playing the immigration issue
Mother Jones
Bruce Falconer
“On a hot August afternoon at the Prince William County Fair in northern Virginia, Greg Letiecq tried to make eye contact with passersby gorging themselves on funnel cakes and cotton candy. Standing before a booth draped with American flags and ‘Help Save Manassas’ signs, Letiecq was enjoying a kind of local celebrity. The Washington Post had recently run a front-page story on how his blog, Black Velvet Bruce Li, had become the ‘most influential local blog in Virginia.’ (A previous incarnation, Black Velvet Bruce Lee, was taken down in the wake of a slander suit.) Several days earlier, former Virginia Senator George Allen had visited Letiecq’s booth; he and his wife Susan walked away wearing Help Save Manassas stickers. All this notoriety came after Letiecq helped draft a series of tough local ordinances targeting illegal immigrants.” (11/07)
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46 - Rape: Just another prerogative of the state
LewRockwell.Com
John M. Regan, Jr.
“In Saudi Arabia, a young woman is violently gang-raped by strangers. Her rapists receive a light punishment, but she receives punishment as well. When she and her lawyer complain about it, her punishment is increased and the lawyer is disciplined for making such a fuss. The rape victim’s punishment has yet to be carried out. In the meantime, the whole episode is an international outrage. In the United States in the State of New York, a young woman is violently raped at knifepoint by a stranger. Her rapist receives a light punishment but she receives punishment as well. When she and her lawyer complain about it, her punishment is increased and the lawyer is disciplined for making such a fuss. In the United States case, the rape victim is now in prison. Nobody seems to be too worried about it, though, except her and her lawyer. Don’t believe me? It’s all a matter of public record.” (11/24/07)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/regan-j3.html
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47 - The immigration con artists
AlterNet
David Sirota
“I once got suckered by con artists. As I was walking by, they baited me into betting that I could guess which shell a little ball was under. Moving the shells at lightning speed, they diverted my attention and tricked me into taking my eye off the ball. When I lost the bet, I felt bamboozled, just like we all should feel today watching the illegal immigration debate. After all, we’re witnessing the same kind of con. As our paychecks stagnate, our personal debt climbs and our health care premiums skyrocket, We the People are ticked off. Unfortunately for those in Congress, polls show that America is specifically angry at the big business interests that write big campaign checks. So now comes the con — the dishonest argument over illegal immigration trying to divert our ire away from the corporate profiteers, outsourcers, wage cutters and foreclosers that buy influence — and protection — in Washington.” (11/24/07)
http://www.alternet.org/story/68729/
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48 - Ron Paul rising
The Nation Blog
John Nichols
“The new CNN/WMUR-TV poll of likely GOP Presidential primary voters in New Hampshire has former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney retaining his from-the-neighborhood lead. Arizona Senator John McCain continues to run second in the first primary state, with his numbers unchanged. … Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is in third place, and slipping fast — down eight points since September. So who is in fourth place and rising? Who is displaying the most momentum? … Texas Congressman Ron Paul, the anti-war renegade, has displaced the two more mainstream contenders to take the No. 4 position. … So here’s a question: When is the Washington press corps going to start treating Ron Paul as seriously as it does Fred Thompson? The likely answer is ‘not soon.’ And that’s the most frustrating thing about the way in which the GOP race is being covered by major media. After all, Ron Paul has more to say — and says it better — than any of the other Republicans. With a fair shake from the media,
he’d be rising even faster in New Hampshire and elsewhere. ” (11/20/07)
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=253046
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49 - The Democrats’ foreign (policy) wars
Salon
Walter Shapiro
“Speaking at the Bluegrass Cafe (right down the street from Crystal’s Cowlick Beauty Salon) Monday night, Hillary Clinton promised, ‘As soon as I’m elected, I’m going to ask distinguished Americans in both parties to travel around the world on my behalf with a very simple message: The era of cowboy diplomacy is over.’ Responding to a question at an American Legion hall in Manchester, N.H., Monday afternoon, Bill Richardson declared, ‘We have to find ways again where American diplomacy is not considered cowboy diplomacy, but is considered diplomacy where we’re not the policemen of the world, but the conscience of the world.’ Without calling for a formal investigation by the Plagiarism Police, it is safe to conclude that there is an eerie similarity here. But the probable cause is not rhetorical shoplifting, but the nearly unprecedented similarity in the foreign-policy positions of the major Democratic contenders. Seven years of George W. Bush has achieved something thought impossibl
e during the Cold War or even during the 2004 primary campaigns — he has united the Democrats on national security.” (11/21/07)
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/11/21/foreign_policy/
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50 - They’ve slept on it
Slate
Dahlia Lithwick
“There is almost nothing proponents of gun control and advocates of broad individual gun rights can agree upon. They disagree, for instance, about the interpretation of the Second Amendment’s promise that the government will not infringe upon the right of the people to ‘keep and bear arms,’ and they disagree over what might constitute ‘reasonable regulation’ of those gun rights. Late at night, when the scotch has flowed freely, they have even been known to get bent over the placement of commas in that amendment. But the one thing both sides seem to agree on is that the Supreme Court has been the Second Amendment’s Sleeping Beauty, snoozing it up for close to 70 years as the states have enacted rules, advocacy groups have jumped up and down hollering, and law professors have set their bushy hair on fire, all in efforts to get some clarity. The one thing virtually everyone has come to agree on is that it was time, long past time, for somebody to kiss the damn court and bring it to li
fe. That happened today.” (11/20/07)
http://www.slate.com/id/2178391/
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51 - The anti-crusader
Mother Jones
Josh Harkinson
“At Mikey Weinstein’s home in the suburbs of Albuquerque, the picture window in the living room has been twice shot out. Sometimes Weinstein opens his front door to find dead animals on his porch, feces smeared on his walls, or slashes in his tires. Men have called to threaten his daughter, women to chant rhymes about shooting him in the head, small children to inform him that he will burn in hell. To his critics, he says, ‘Take a number, pack a picnic lunch, and stand in line.’ He’s not going anywhere, and neither is his 5′6″ ex-Marine security guard, Shorty. Weinstein is the middle rung in three generations of soldiers. A former Air Force JAG and White House attorney for Ronald Reagan, he has adopted a shock-and-awe approach to battling efforts by the military to impress Christianity upon American soldiers.” (11/20/07)
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52 - The Dems need an Iran strategy ASAP
AlterNet
Guy T. Saperstein
“Democrats are almost giddy about their prospects of winning the presidency and increasing their majorities in the House and Senate. In fact, in the November/December 2007 issue of Mother Jones magazine, Simon Rosenberg and Peter Leyden of the New Democrat Network even predict a 50-year shift of power to Democrats. Due to the near-complete collapse of conservative ideas and policies, Democrats have an opening and perhaps even a strong hand to play, but they are underestimating the Republican trump card and Bush’s willingness to play it — national security. In fact, Democrats are woefully unprepared for what is likely to happen between now and next November.” (11/21/07)
http://www.alternet.org/audits/68396/
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53 - Excuse me, please, I’m having a bad decade
Common Dreams
Virginia Lockett
“I know: let’s change our own lives into what they might be if we didn’t feel controlled by the corporatocracy! Let’s support worthy causes without consulting the tax code. Let’s find a local farmer and pay ‘too much’ for his home-grown eggs and vegetables. Let’s hang out with ‘disreputable’ characters: homeless guys and Catholic Workers at a Meals on the Street program; Muslims and evangelical Christians at a Habit for Humanity build; Buddhists and secular humanists at a Clean-Up-the-River day; Jews and lesbians at a Free Clinic. Let’s get together and do real work that yields concrete results. Then, standing together with our new-found allies, let’s see where else we can find common ground.” (11/20/07)
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/20/5352/
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54 - A matter of trust
Boston Globe
Derrick Z. Jackson
“Elaborating on his diplomacy during a Democratic presidential debate last week, Bill Richardson told the Globe’s editorial board yesterday, ‘There’s policy differences which I believe are legitimate. With Senator Clinton I differ on the war. My plan ends the war. Hers doesn’t. I differ with her on her vote on Iran. I wouldn’t have voted for that resolution …. I don’t believe, for instance, that we’ve gotten safer under President Bush. And I’ve said that. And she has said the opposite. I think those are legitimate policy differences. But when you talk about trust, when you talk about, ‘Oh she’s controlled by special interests,’ when we toss those kind of differences, I think that is, those are, personal attacks.’” (11/20/07)
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55 - A real values debate
Tom Paine
Alan Jenkins
“Progressives have long been criticized for talking issues and constituencies at the expense of vision and values. Linguist George Lakoff has argued for years that progressives have ceded the moral high ground to their detriment. And Thomas Frank has documented how conservatives tell a larger story that connects with working people at a values level, even while undermining their economic interests. That critique has never been fully accurate. The continuing human rights movements led by people of color, women, gay people, and immigrants have always been rooted in the values of freedom, equality, dignity and opportunity. As Van Jones of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights has said, ‘there’s a reason why Martin Luther King Jr.’s greatest speech was not called I have a complaint.’ The modern environmental movement, too, speaks not only of our individual interests but also of our moral responsibility as stewards of the earth and its inhabitants. But it is also true that progressive
political discourse has increasingly moved away from a discussion of shared national values and toward a patchwork of issues and narrow policy fixes.” (11/20/07)
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/11/20/a_real_values_debate.php
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56 - Un-selling the surge
The American Prospect
Matthew Duss
“Despite growing disenchantment with the war in Iraq, the well-organized conservative propaganda machine has been hard at work selling the ’success of the surge.’ After relentlessly promoting the invasion of Iraq in the wake of 9-11, then denying or shifting blame for that invasion’s negative repercussions, the neocons have now begun attacking anyone who challenges their ’surge success’ narrative for being defeatist and dishonoring the troops. Having moved the goalposts all the way up onto the line of scrimmage, the right now condemns anyone who will not recognize a touchdown. At The Weekly Standard, home base of the surgeniks, James Ceaser asks: ‘Will any of the Democratic candidates be able to summon the courage to concede an American victory in Iraq? No one, of course, can know the ultimate outcome of this long war. But the vaunted ‘facts on the ground’ now at least admit a trend leading to what might reasonably be called victory.’ Stirring.” (11/20/07)
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=unselling_the_surge
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57 - Free Kosovo -- Without a fight
Christian Science Monitor
Nik Steinberg
“Ethnic Albanians have a name for Kosovo under international supervision: UNMIKISTAN. A play on the acronym for the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), the name has recently taken on a tone of intolerable impatience. After eight years of waiting for the international community to grant independence, Kosovo’s Albanians are on the verge of declaring it themselves. The US must act swiftly to build international support for their declaration, or the move could destabilize the entire region. The UN is far from Kosovo’s first occupier. Throughout history, the province has been ruled by outside powers. First it was the Romans, then the Byzantines, and later the Serbs. In 1389, when the declining Serbian empire made its symbolic last stand against the rising Ottoman Turks, its army was defeated in Kosovo.” (11/21/07)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1121/p09s01-coop.html
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58 - Thanksgiving: A holiday at war with our culture
Fox News
Susan Estrich
“Thanksgiving? Who’s kidding whom? Thanksgiving is a holiday at war with our culture, an idea at odds with our reality, a notion that challenges the way we live. This is the week we hear everything about what we don’t have and can’t do, about the challenges we face and how ill-prepared and powerless we are to meet them. You know what I mean. Some of it you can laugh at. Most of it isn’t funny, or meant to be.” (11/18/07)l
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312118,00.htm
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59 - The fugitive
Strike the Root
Glen Allport
“Government is an organization built on systematic coercion. For that reason, coercive government is by far the gravest possible threat to love and freedom. It is inevitable that those who wish to use coercion against others strive to capture government power and to increase that power. Government thus tends to grow, at the expense of love and freedom, and to fall into the hands of people who are especially interested in pushing others around by force.” (11/19/07)
http://www.strike-the-root.com/72/allport/allport19.html
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60 - Casualties of the corrupt drug war
Fox News
Radley Balko
“It was one year ago this week that narcotics officers in Atlanta, Georgia broke into the home of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston. They had earlier arrested a man with a long rap sheet on drug charges. That man told the police officers that they’d find a large stash of cocaine in Johnston’s home. When police forced their way into Johnston’s home, she met them holding a rusty old revolver, fearing she was about to be robbed. The police opened fire, and killed her. Shortly after the shooting, the police alleged that they had paid an informant to buy drugs from Ms. Johnston’s home. They said she fired at them first, and wounded two officers. And they alleged they found marijuana in her home. We now know that these were all lies. In fact, everything about the Kathryn Johnston murder was corrupt.” (11/19/07)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,312234,00.html
Until next week ...
Peace, Love and Liberty
Steve Trinward, Editor