Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Drug Benefit Disaster

via washingtonpost.com: "Good policy can make for good politics, and bad policy can make for bad politics. Republicans may be about to discover this truism with their Medicare drug benefit, passed by Congress in 2003 and scheduled to take effect in January. As policy, the drug benefit is a calamity. It worsens one of the nation's major problems (paying baby boomers' retirement costs) while addressing a nonexistent 'crisis' (allegedly oppressive drug costs for retirees). Its purpose was mostly political: to bribe the elderly or soon-to-be-elderly to vote for Republicans in 2004. Now it may backfire on Republicans."

Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2005

via Technology News Daily: "If enacted, the proposed Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2005 would enhance the Department’s ability to pursue crimes and protect the intellectual property rights of citizens and industries. The Act includes provisions to: Implement broad forfeiture reforms to ensure the ability to forfeit property, including illicit proceeds, derived from or used in the commission of criminal intellectual property offenses; Criminalize intellectual property theft motivated by any type of commercial advantage or private financial gain; and Strengthen restitution provisions for victim companies and rights holders in order to maximize protection for those who suffer most from these crimes."

Courting Spyware

via Traceroutes: "Cyberlaw Clinic, we’ll have no shortage of claims to pursue against our chosen defendants. However, focusing on the data gathered will allow us the unique chance to establish some precedent for interpretation of the California Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act, the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2003, and the federal Wiretap Act (part of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986). Click to read more about the claims that Sasha might enable us to make regarding these statutes….."

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

7 Steps to Help you Better in Writing

via lifehack.org : "Do you want to be a fast writer? Do you want to write effectively? Does it take you hours to think of what to write and when you get something on paper, and then you tear it off? Well, if you’re interested in writing faster, more effectively and efficiently, then you have come to the right place."

Secrets of organized families: Insider strategies for getting your house in order

via some site: "In this increasingly hectic world, the phrase 'organized families' can seem like a contradiction in terms. But you know they exist: They're the ones who show up at school on time each day, remember the Little League coach's birthday, and file their taxes in January. And though they make everyone else look bad, you secretly wish you were more like them, together and in control.

Why get organized? Because you can't afford not to, especially when you're juggling work, school, and competing schedules. To get you on the road to efficiency, we asked families and professional organizers to share their secrets, room by room. "

Geek to Live: The Usable Home

via Lifehacker: "As a computer programmer in a new apartment, I’ve taken the same approach to setting up my home as I would developing a software application: with a focus on usability. Like any good software package, my home should be a tool that helps me get things done, a space that’s a pleasure to be in and a launch pad for daily tasks as well as my life goals.

Whether the task at hand is to relax after work, phone a family member, or keep track of a dry cleaning receipt, there are lots of simple ways to create a living space that makes getting things done a breeze.

I’m no home organization expert, but here are a few tips I’ve gleaned over time that can help make your house a Usable Home."

OSDL Launches Patent Commons Site

via CNET News.com: "Concern has grown over the past year that Linux could be under legal threat from claims it infringes certain software patents.

No court cases have been filed, but the issue is serious enough that several companies have pledged not to use their patent portfolios against the open source operating system.

An industry consortium devoted to Linux, Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) has decided to coordinate this process. OSDL launched a Web site last week to help developers check which patents have been pledged. Patent Commons contains more than 500 patents so far, but that may not be enough to significantly affect the problem.

Some activists have claimed that the whole concept of patent pledges is misguided. ZDNet UK spoke with OSDL Chief Executive Stuart Cohen to understand the wider aims of the project."

The Shaver Wars

via brandchannel.com: "In May 2004 Gillette released M3Power, the first battery-operated shaver, and launched a global campaign with testimonial superstar David Beckham. Late November 2004, the District Court of Hamburg, Germany, granted an interim injunction against Gillette and in favor of Wilkinson Sword. In the challenged M3Power advertising campaign, Gillette claimed that the new M3Power wet shaver uses electrical micropulses and guarantees a closer shave than any other wet shaver. Wilkinson Sword presented test results that showed a thoroughness advantage of 0.0143 mm of the M3Power compared to the Quattro; however, the resulting time advantage of 1.27 hours in 24 hours using 0.27 mm daily beard growth as a base is neither visible nor noticeable to the consumer, and therefore too slight to justify a superiority claim. The District Court of Hamburg judged this superiority claim as misleading and competitively undue, and released a cease and desist order concerning Gillette’s advertising campaign.

A superiority claim is admissible and not misleading if it is based on facts, if the advertiser has a distinct lead over competitors, and if this lead is of certain duration.

Wilkinson Sword filed a similar lawsuit in the Netherlands, whereupon Gillette reacted with a countersuit attacking Wilkinson's Dutch ads for the Quattro shaver, which said “Independent tests and consumer research have shown that no other shaving system shaves smoother and softer than Quattro.” The judge allowed both ads, but said they would not necessarily be believed. 'By a good legal tradition, some exaggeration is permissible, as long as it is not misleading in nature, because it will be skeptically received by the average consumer,' Judge Schepen said in his ruling, adding that the buying public has become practically immune to the tendency for commer"

Monday, November 14, 2005

Man on Fire--Not!

Larry Johnson via TPMCafe: "I think Dick Cheney has been watching too many Hollywood flicks that glorify torture. He needs, instead, to get on the ground and talk to the folks he is ostensibly trying to empower to torture. Unlike Dick I have spoken with three CIA operations officers in the last three months--all who have worked on terrorism at the highest levels--and not one endorses torture or believes it will help us. In fact, they believe it will hurt us on many levels.

Two of my friends served in Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of 9-11. If the suicide bombing of the World Trade Centers was not enough justification for hooking Haji up to battery cables, I don't know what is. My friends recognized correctly that their mission was to gather intelligence not create new enemies. If you inflict enough pain on someone they will give you information, but, unless you kill them, they will hold a grudge. As far as the information goes there is no guarantee it will be correct.

What real CIA field officers know from their work with actual sources is that whatever short term benefit can be derived from torture will be offset by the new enemy you have created. It is better to build a relationship of trust, no matter how painstaking, rather than gain a short term benefit that puts you on par with a Nazi concentration camp guard."

In e-mails, consultant claims link to Cornyn

via statesman.com :
WASHINGTON -- Former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed claimed in a 2001 e-mail to a lobbyist that he choreographed John Cornyn's efforts as Texas attorney general to shut down an East Texas Indian tribe's casino.

The lobbyist was Jack Abramoff, who is under federal investigation, along with his partner Michael Scanlon, on allegations of defrauding six Indian tribes of about $80 million from 2001 to 2004. The e-mail, along with about a dozen others, was released last week as part of the investigation.

In 2001, Abramoff was working as a lobbyist for the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana to prevent rival gaming casinos from siphoning off its Texas customers. He paid Reed as a consultant, and Reed lobbied to get the Alabama-Coushatta and Tigua casinos closed in Texas.

In the Nov. 30, 2001, e-mail, Reed told Abramoff that 50 pastors led by Ed Young, of Second Baptist Church in Houston, would meet with Cornyn to urge him to shut down the Alabama-Coushatta tribe's casino near Livingston. He said Young would back up the request in writing.
* * *
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee blocked out references to Cornyn in the e-mails it released last week. But in previous Reed e-mails released by the committee, Cornyn's name was not removed.

The previously released e-mails showed that in 2002, Abramoff and Scanlon secretly funneled millions to Reed to help fund the campaign to get the Tigua casino shut down. The lobbyists then persuaded the Tiguas to hire them to reopen it.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

That Marginal Revolution guy asks: Could I ever become a Democrat?

Unlikely. He's a moron.

Marginal Revolution: Could I ever become a Democrat?: "I suspect Mr. Cowen has a nice fat corporate health insurance policy and thinks that is the result of 'economic laws', you know, the one that says, 'Them that has, gets.'

Out here in the real world, if you lose your job, you lose your insurance (if your previous job even offered insurance). If you get divorced, you often lose your insurance. If your employer's insurance company decides to raise premiums 50% in one year and your employer balks, you lose your insurance. If you're self-employed, you very likely can't get insurance for less than $1000 a month per family, and that insurance will usually exclude nearly everything that you'd go to a doctor for. (Mine excludes any prescription that doesn't happen during a hospital stay, that is, all prescriptions I get. But then, it's also got a $10K deductible even for hospital stays, so ...) If you have any illness or condition at all, and you can't get group insurance, you will probably either get a policy that excludes that condition forever... or they won't give you a policy at all and you are uninsured. When you're uninsured, you not only have to pay every penny of your healthcare, you generally pay twice as much as the insured pay because your provider has negotiated deals with all the insurance companies to charge them less, and the doctor has to make it up somewhere, hence charging me $160 for a routine office visit that my insured friend's insurance company pays $60 for.

People die because they don't have insurance or have inadequate insurance, because health costs are so astronomical that many hospitals can no longer afford to treat you without you paying in cash ahead of time. Sure, there are public hospitals, and they'll stabilize you and send you home-- they're not going to give you a kidney transplant for free.

Hmm. Now what economic law created a system like this, where employers are responsible for insurance, huh? "

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

The Al Queda Lies That Led to War

Olberman via Sic Semper Tyrannis blog: "'Our fifth story on the COUNTDOWN, the guy was not only making it up, but by February of 2002, the government knew he was making it up. Al-Libi was the first al Qaeda big get, arrested in Afghanistan back in November 2001.

Under interrogation, he reportedly told agents that al Qaeda was training in Iraq. In 2004, he recanted. He admitted he had made that up. But far earlier, the Defense Intelligence Agency had already figured out that his information was bogus, two years before his confession.

According to a newly declassified document, the DIA warned that the fact al-Libi didn‘t share any specifics about al Qaeda in Iraq had to have meant one of two things. Quote, “It is possible he does not know any further details; it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers. Ibn al-Shaykh has been undergoing debriefs for several weeks and may be describing scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest.”

That‘s called telling them what you think they want you to hear. The document goes on to note that Saddam Hussein‘s regime was wary of extremist Islamic groups, and that his government was, quote, “unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control.”

The DIA assessment was made available to several agencies, including the CIA, the Pentagon, and the White House.

Yet eight months later, in October 2002, the president used al-Libi‘s information to lay out an al Qaeda link in his speech at Cincinnati, and five months after that, February 2003, the information was still being treated as credible, most notably by then-secretary of state Colin Powell, when he made his case for war to the U.N."

Think Progress posted a rap sheet on that clown Chalabi.

Dems Seek Chalabi Subpoena

via CNN.com : "'It's rather unusual that any prosecutor would pass up the opportunity to grab an absolute key, central witness that's in plain sight,' said Rep. George Miller, D-California.

Miller said Democrats have asked the Justice Department and intelligence committees in both houses of Congress to subpoena Chalabi. He said Chalabi played an 'absolutely central' role in the U.S. decision to invade Iraq based on reasons that 'have turned out to be false, have turned out to be misleading.'

'I think it's important to know whether or not he did this knowing and how he transmitted that information, how he presented that information and what meetings were held,' Miller said."

Treasure Island Highrise?

via San Francisco CITYSCAPE: "A skyscraper in the bay may even be likelier, as it's just one small element of a much greater plan (click here and here), and of an emerging, long past due, and not-at-all illogical alliance between developers and environmentalists who get that sustainability requires density. With development clustered around a cityside ferry landing — development intense enough to fund the landing and provide a critical mass of residents for the services that might make the island self-reliant, thereby reducing auto-dependency and Bay Bridge congestion — 65 percent of the site could be set aside for open space, including wetlands for natural wastewater treatment and organic gardens and wind turbines to help supply the place. "

The Examiner and Chron cover TI.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Party For Sale

via TomPaine.com : "What is so disturbing about the Abramoff scandal isn’t just the way he fleeced his Indian clients, but how the apparatus for doing so was so neatly in place. Abramoff simply had to plug his marks into a circular web of money and influence that connected interest groups, lobbyists, Congress and the White House. When Abramoff told them to give money to this or that conservative interest group or Republican candidate, they went along, and the recipients were glad to help."

Monday, November 07, 2005

Pope: Evolution is Biblical

via News.com.au: "THE Vatican has issued a stout defence of Charles Darwin, voicing strong criticism of Christian fundamentalists who reject his theory of evolution and interpret the biblical account of creation literally.
Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said the Genesis description of how God created the universe and Darwin's theory of evolution were 'perfectly compatible' if the Bible were read correctly.

His statement was a clear attack on creationist campaigners in the US, who see evolution and the Genesis account as mutually exclusive.

'The fundamentalists want to give a scientific meaning to words that had no scientific aim,' he said at a Vatican press conference. He said the real message in Genesis was that 'the universe didn't make itself and had a creator'.

This idea was part of theology, Cardinal Poupard emphasised, while the precise details of how creation and the development of the species came about belonged to a different realm - science. Cardinal Poupard said that it was important for Catholic believers to know how science saw things so as to 'understand things better'.

His statements were interpreted in Italy as a rejection of the 'intelligent design' view, which says the universe is so complex that some higher being must have designed every detail."

Open source, open wallet

via CNET News.com: "Open-source business models are booming in the software industry, a rapid rise that has some experts wondering if it's a bubble that will burst.

Venture capital firms are pouring more money into start-ups that adhere to open-source practices, such as giving away technology for free. That rush could result in an investment bubble, similar to that seen in the early days of the Web, several industry executives cautioned at the Open Source Business Conference last week.

For an open-source business to work well, a start-up needs a number of attributes that a closed-source software company doesn't, executives said.

In particular, they have to combine their pursuit of profit with active involvement in a vibrant 'community' of open-source users, some of whom are not paying customers. Not all open-source companies are hitting the right balance between commerce and community, analysts and executives said."

Friday, November 04, 2005

DeLay Asked Lobbyist to Raise Money Through Charity

via New York Times: "Representative Tom DeLay asked the lobbyist Jack Abramoff to raise money for him through a private charity controlled by Mr. Abramoff, an unusual request that led the lobbyist to try to gather at least $150,000 from his Indian tribe clients and their gambling operations, according to newly disclosed e-mail from the lobbyist's files.

The electronic messages from 2002, which refer to 'Tom' and 'Tom's requests,' appear to be the clearest evidence to date of an effort by Mr. DeLay, a Texas Republican, to pressure Mr. Abramoff and his lobbying partners to raise money for him. The e-mail messages do not specify why Mr. DeLay wanted the money, how it was to be used or why he would want money raised through the auspices of a private charity.

'Did you get the message from the guys that Tom wants us to raise some bucks from Capital Athletic Foundation?' Mr. Abramoff asked a colleague in a message on June 6, 2002, referring to the charity. 'I have six clients in for $25K. I recommend we hit everyone who cares about Tom's requests. I have another few to hit still.'

The e-mail was addressed to Tony Rudy, who had been Mr. DeLay's chief of staff in the House before joining Mr. Abramoff's lobbying firm. Mr. Abramoff said it would be good 'if we can do $200K' for Mr. DeLay."

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Abramoff-Scanlon School of Sleaze

via Salon.com News: "'The wackos get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees,' Scanlon wrote in the memo, which was read into the public record at a hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. 'Simply put, we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them.'"

Judicial selection spinning in DeLay case

via Austin Statesmen: "Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace B. Jefferson late Thursday afternoon named a senior Democratic judge from San Antonio to hear the conspiracy case against U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, despite concerns that Jefferson had too many ties to DeLay's political committee to be impartial.

The trial judge will be former state District Judge Pat Priest, a former adjunct professor at St. Mary's School of Law.

Before Jefferson named Priest, the judicial carousel in DeLay's case almost spun out of control as the search for a judge beyond the hint of any political taint reached Jefferson.

But even he has deep partisan ties: He shared the same campaign treasurer and consultant as DeLay's Texans for a Republican Majority. One of his largest campaign donations — $25,000 — was from the arm of the Republican National Committee that's at the center of the allegation that DeLay and his co-defendants laundered corporate money into political donations in 2002. He also was endorsed by DeLay's committee, Texans for a Republican Majority, and made campaign appearances with DeLay's co-defendant, John Colyandro, and attended a Houston fund-raiser with the chairman of the Republican National Committee."

In the Company of Friends

via MSNBC.com: "President Bush last week appointed nine campaign contributors, including three longtime fund-raisers, to his Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, a 16-member panel of individuals from the private sector who advise the president on the quality and effectiveness of U.S. intelligence efforts. After watching the fate of Michael Brown as head of FEMA and Harriet Miers as Supreme Court nominee, you might think the president would be wary about the appearance of cronyism—especially with a critical national-security issue such as intelligence. Instead, Bush reappointed William DeWitt, an Ohio businessman who has raised more than $300,000 for the president’s campaigns, for a third two-year term on the panel. Originally appointed in 2001, just a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, DeWitt, who was also a top fund-raiser for Bush’s 2004 Inaugural committee, was a partner with Bush in the Texas Rangers baseball team."

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Moglen: Open-source risks overblown

via CNET News.com: "NEWTON, Mass.--Eben Moglen, a prominent open-source software lawyer, argued that legal risks from using free and open-source software have been minimized by the General Public License.

During a keynote speech at the Open Source Business Conference on Tuesday, the Columbia University Law School professor said that for users of open-source software, the 'risk perception has diverged from risk reality.'

He said that many of the potential risks to users of free and open-source software are misplaced, as they have been addressed over the years in the General Public License, which is used in many products, including Linux."

CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons

More evidence of our moral authority, via The Post:
The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.
* * *
The CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which captives are held. Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long.

While the Defense Department has produced volumes of public reports and testimony about its detention practices and rules after the abuse scandals at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantanamo Bay, the CIA has not even acknowledged the existence of its black sites. To do so, say officials familiar with the program, could open the U.S. government to legal challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of political condemnation at home and abroad.
* * *
[T]he arrangement has been increasingly debated within the CIA, where considerable concern lingers about the legality, morality and practicality of holding even unrepentant terrorists in such isolation and secrecy, perhaps for the duration of their lives. Mid-level and senior CIA officers began arguing two years ago that the system was unsustainable and diverted the agency from its unique espionage mission.

"We never sat down, as far as I know, and came up with a grand strategy," said one former senior intelligence officer who is familiar with the program but not the location of the prisons. "Everything was very reactive. That's how you get to a situation where you pick people up, send them into a netherworld and don't say, 'What are we going to do with them afterwards?' "

It is illegal for the government to hold prisoners in such isolation in secret prisons in the United States, which is why the CIA placed them overseas, according to several former and current intelligence officials and other U.S. government officials. Legal experts and intelligence officials said that the CIA's internment practices also would be considered illegal under the laws of several host countries, where detainees have rights to have a lawyer or to mount a defense against allegations of wrongdoing.

Reform Tax Packages Unveiled

via The Post:
The first proposal, labeled a "simplified income tax plan," would reduce the number of tax rates for individuals to four from six and set the top rate at 33 percent, down from 35 percent. The second proposal, called a "growth and investment tax plan," would slice the number of individual tax brackets to three and set the top rate at 30 percent.

Both plans would consolidate the personal exemption, the standard deduction and the child care credit into a single "family credit." The earned income tax credit and related subsidies for low-income workers would be collapsed into a "work credit."

The long list of tax breaks now available that promote saving -- for education and individual retirement accounts, among others -- would also be simplified into three tax-free accounts: "Save at Work," "Save for Retirement" and "Save for Family." Low-income families would receive an additional "savers credit."


So who will pay for healthcare?

On health coverage, the commission proposed to limit the amount of insurance an employer can provide tax-free to employees to $5,000 for an individual and $11,500 for a family. The panel's change would discourage extensive health plans, especially for upper-income individuals. Currently, the benefit has no limit.


Is this be just another effort to "shrink the beast?"

The extra benefits suggested by the panel, especially the rate reductions, would deprive the Treasury of billions of dollars a year. Ending the AMT alone would cost $1.3 trillion over 10 years. But the panel pledged that its plans would neither raise nor lower the federal budget deficit, which has lately exceeded $300 billion a year.


To be fair, it includes reform of the sacred:

The panel urged that the mortgage-interest deduction be reduced for the highest-income taxpayers. Currently, interest paid on mortgages of up to $1.1 million can be written off. Under the plan, only the first $227,000 of a mortgage in inexpensive housing markets could be used to reduce taxes. In pricier places, the cap would be set at $412,000. The panel would also convert the mortgage-interest deduction to a 15 percent credit, which could aid middle-income homeowners.


But the biggest blue states take it in the shorts:

In addition, the panel would terminate the deduction for state and local tax payments, a provision that would fall hardest on high-tax regions, such as New York and California. The last time Congress significantly revised the income tax, in 1986, lawmakers had to back off a proposal to cut the state and local tax deduction because of complaints from local politicians.


They say it like its a bad thing, making housing more affordable. Odd.

Still, the National Association of Realtors said "the value of the nation's residential property could decline 15 percent or more" if the panel's mortgage proposals become law. Gerald M. Howard, chief executive of the National Association of Home Builders, criticized the measures as "the biggest tax hike for homeowners ever considered."


And this is supposed to spur growth of the U.S. economy?

Both plans would assess companies only on their domestic profits, ending the United States' long-held policy of taxing income wherever it originates.


Sounds like good news for Bangalore.







Tuesday, November 01, 2005

The Use of Intelligence and Closing the Senate

Matt Yglesias via TPMCafe: "In case you're looking for examples of the sort of manipulation of intelligence Harry Reid is talking about, a few are remarkably easy to find and clear-cut. This is a report entitled 'Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs' released before the war as an unclassified document. It was based, we were told, on a classified National Intelligence Estimate. Over here, you can read some portions of the original NIE that have since been declassified. Mostly, the declassified bits of the document and the unclassified document are the same. But here are a few salient points that were left out of the unclassified release"

Harry Reid Statement Before Senate Closed Session

"This past weekend, we witnessed the indictment of I. Lewis Libby, the Vice President's Chief of Staff and a senior Advisor to President Bush. Libby is the first sitting White House staffer to be indicted in 135 years.

"This indictment raises very serious charges. It asserts this Administration engaged in actions that both harmed our national security and are morally repugnant.

"The decision to place U.S. soldiers in harm's way is the most significant responsibility the Constitution invests in the Congress.

"The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really about: how the Administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions.

"As a result of its improper conduct, a cloud now hangs over this Administration. This cloud is further darkened by the Administration's mistakes in prisoner abuse scandal, Hurricane Katrina, and the cronyism and corruption in numerous agencies.

"And, unfortunately, it must be said that a cloud also hangs over this Republican-controlled Congress for its unwillingness to hold this Republican Administration accountable for its misdeeds on all of these issues.

"Let's take a look back at how we got here with respect to Iraq Mr. President. The record will show that within hours of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, senior officials in this Administration recognized these attacks could be used as a pretext to invade Iraq.

"The record will also show that in the months and years after 9/11, the Administration engaged in a pattern of manipulation of the facts and retribution against anyone who got in its way as it made the case for attacking Iraq.

"There are numerous examples of how the Administration misstated and manipulated the facts as it made the case for war. Administration statements on Saddam's alleged nuclear weapons capabilities and ties with Al Qaeda represent the best examples of how it consistently and repeatedly manipulated the facts.

"The American people were warned time and again by the President, the Vice President, and the current Secretary of State about Saddam's nuclear weapons capabilities. The Vice President said Iraq "has reconstituted its nuclear weapons." Playing upon the fears of Americans after September 11, these officials and others raised the specter that, left unchecked, Saddam could soon attack America with nuclear weapons.

"Obviously we know now their nuclear claims were wholly inaccurate. But more troubling is the fact that a lot of intelligence experts were telling the Administration then that its claims about Saddam's nuclear capabilities were false.

"The situation was very similar with respect to Saddam's links to Al Qaeda. The Vice President told the American people, "We know he's out trying once again to produce nuclear weapons and we know he has a longstanding relationship with various terrorist groups including the Al Qaeda organization."

"The Administration's assertions on this score have been totally discredited. But again, the Administration went ahead with these assertions in spite of the fact that the government's top experts did not agree with these claims.

"What has been the response of this Republican-controlled Congress to the Administration's manipulation of intelligence that led to this protracted war in Iraq? Basically nothing. Did the Republican-controlled Congress carry out its constitutional obligations to conduct oversight? No. Did it support our troops and their families by providing them the answers to many important questions? No. Did it even attempt to force this Administration to answer the most basic questions about its behavior? No.

"Unfortunately the unwillingness of the Republican-controlled Congress to exercise its oversight responsibilities is not limited to just Iraq. We see it with respect to the prisoner abuse scandal. We see it with respect to Katrina. And we see it with respect to the cronyism and corruption that permeates this Administration.

"Time and time again, this Republican-controlled Congress has consistently chosen to put its political interests ahead of our national security. They have repeatedly chosen to protect the Republican Administration rather than get to the bottom of what happened and why.

"There is also another disturbing pattern here, namely about how the Administration responded to those who challenged its assertions. Time and again this Administration has actively sought to attack and undercut those who dared to raise questions about its preferred course.

"For example, when General Shinseki indicated several hundred thousand troops would be needed in Iraq, his military career came to an end. When then OMB Director Larry Lindsay suggested the cost of this war would approach $200 billion, his career in the Administration came to an end. When U.N. Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix challenged conclusions about Saddam's WMD capabilities, the Administration pulled out his inspectors. When Nobel Prize winner and IAEA head Mohammed el-Baridei raised questions about the Administration's claims of Saddam's nuclear capabilities, the Administration attempted to remove him from his post. When Joe Wilson stated that there was no attempt by Saddam to acquire uranium from Niger, the Administration launched a vicious and coordinated campaign to demean and discredit him, going so far as to expose the fact that his wife worked as a CIA agent.

"Given this Administration's pattern of squashing those who challenge its misstatements, what has been the response of this Republican-controlled Congress? Again, absolutely nothing. And with their inactions, they provide political cover for this Administration at the same time they keep the truth from our troops who continue to make large sacrifices in Iraq.

"This behavior is unacceptable. The toll in Iraq is as staggering as it is solemn. More than 2,000 Americans have lost their lives. Over 90 Americans have paid the ultimate sacrifice this month alone - the fourth deadliest month since the war began. More than 15,000 have been wounded. More than 150,000 remain in harm's way. Enormous sacrifices have been and continue to be made.

"The troops and the American people have a right to expect answers and accountability worthy of that sacrifice. For example, 40 Senate Democrats wrote a substantive and detailed letter to the President asking four basic questions about the Administration's Iraq policy and received a four sentence answer in response. These Senators and the American people deserve better.

"They also deserve a searching and comprehensive investigation about how the Bush Administration brought this country to war. Key questions that need to be answered include:

How did the Bush Administration assemble its case for war against Iraq?
Who did Bush Administration officials listen to and who did they ignore?
How did senior Administration officials manipulate or manufacture intelligence presented to the Congress and the American people?
What was the role of the White House Iraq Group or WHIG, a group of senior White House officials tasked with marketing the war and taking down its critics?
How did the Administration coordinate its efforts to attack individuals who dared to challenge the Administration's assertions?
Why has the Administration failed to provide Congress with the documents that will shed light on their misconduct and misstatements?

"Unfortunately the Senate committee that should be taking the lead in providing these answers is not. Despite the fact that the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee publicly committed to examine many of these questions more than 1 and ½ years ago, he has chosen not to keep this commitment. Despite the fact that he restated that commitment earlier this year on national television, he has still done nothing.

"At this point, we can only conclude he will continue to put politics ahead of our national security. If he does anything at this point, I suspect he will play political games by producing an analysis that fails to answer any of these important questions. Instead, if history is any guide, this analysis will attempt to disperse and deflect blame away from the Administration.

"We demand that the Intelligence Committee and other committees in this body with jurisdiction over these matters carry out a full and complete investigation immediately as called for by Democrats in the committee's annual intelligence authorization report. Our troops and the American people have sacrificed too much. It is time this Republican-controlled Congress put the interests of the American people ahead of their own political interests."

Rockefeller gets a spine and supports the move.

More background at DailyKos. And still more (via PERRspectives).

, ,

Guantanamo Desperation

via Washington Post

Two dozen Guantanamo Bay detainees are currently being force-fed in response to a lengthy hunger strike, and the detainees' lawyers estimate there are dozens more who have not eaten since August. Military officials say there are 27 hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay, all of whom are clinically stable, closely monitored by medical personnel and receiving proper nutrition.

The hunger strikers are protesting their lengthy confinements in the island prison, where some have been kept for nearly four years and most have never been charged with a crime. The most recent hunger strike came after detention officials allegedly failed to honor promises made during a previous hunger strike.
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Three U.N. experts said yesterday that they would not accept a U.S. government invitation to tour Guantanamo unless they are granted private access to detainees, a concession the U.S. has not been willing to make, citing the ongoing war on terror and security concerns. Last week, the United States invited the U.N. representatives on torture and arbitrary detention to the facility, and the experts said yesterday that they hope to visit in early December. But they described their demand for access to the detainees as "non-negotiable."

"They said they have nothing to hide," Manfred Nowak, U.N. special rapporteur on torture, said yesterday at a news conference in New York. "If they have nothing to hide, why should we not be able to talk to detainees in private?"
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Detainees "see [hunger striking] as the only means they have of exercising control over their lives," Colangelo-Bryan [lawyer for internee Jumah Dossari] said in publicly describing the incident for the first time. "Their only means of effective protest are to harm themselves, either by hunger strike or doing something like this."

Martin said claims that hunger strikers are near death are "absolutely false." He said the latest protest began on Aug. 8 and at one point had 131 participants but is now much smaller.

"This technique, hunger striking, is consistent with the al Qaeda training, and reflects the detainees' attempts to elicit media attention and bring pressure on the United States government," Martin said. The military also has long argued that terrorist groups have instructed fighters to invent claims of abuse if incarcerated.

Dossari has told Colangelo-Bryan that he has endured abuse and mistreatment on par with some of the worst offenses discovered at any U.S. detention facility over the past four years. In declassified notes recording the meetings, Dossari describes abuse and torture that stretches back to his arrest in Pakistan in December 2001, through the time he was turned over to U.S. forces in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and ultimately to his stay in Guantanamo Bay.

Dossari, 26, said U.S. troops have put out cigarettes on his skin, threatened to kill him and severely beat him. He told his lawyer that he saw U.S. Marines at Kandahar "using pages of the Koran to shine their boots," and was brutalized at Guantanamo Bay by Immediate Response Force guards who videotaped themselves attacking him.

The military says the IRF squads are sent into cells to quell disturbances.

Dossari told his lawyers that he had been wrapped in Israeli and U.S. flags during interrogations -- a tactic recounted in FBI allegations of abuse at Guantanamo -- and said interrogators threatened to send him to countries where he would be tortured.

Dossari maintains that he is not connected to terrorism and does not hate the United States. A fellow detainee said that he saw Dossari at an al Qaeda training camp, his lawyer said.

Colangelo-Bryan is a private New York lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents some of the detainees. The group plans a "Fast for Justice" rally today in Washington to bring attention to the Guantanamo Bay hunger strike.



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