Keith Olbermann of MSNBC offers a new, special comment on Michael Chertoff's "gut feeling" report on terror threats to the US.
Friday, July 13, 2007
White House sacrifices science for politics
Former Surgeon General, Richard H. Carmona, reported in sworn testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform earlier this week that top officials in the Bush administration repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports for political considerations.
It’s not the first time that the Bush administration has been caught suppressing science to promote its political agenda. Bush political appointees have watered down or suppressed reports on global warming and the ineffectiveness of abstinence and charter schools.
Dr. Carmona, who served as surgeon general, the nation’s public health educator and advocate, from 2002 to 2006, said White House officials would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues because of political concerns.
Bush administration officials also delayed for years and attempted to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand tobacco smoke.
Dr. Carmona also testified that he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of every speech he gave. Those must have been real barn burners!
He was also asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings, at least one of which included Karl Rove, the president’s senior political adviser. Administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to the Kennedy family.
As blogger Jim Rowen wrote:
"It's a little like finding out that White House operatives made NASA deny astronomy, or told the CIA to shelve electronic espionage in favor of Tarot cards.
There is a clear Wisconsin connection to this story, and to presidential campaigning, because Carmona worked under then-Health and Human Services secretary Tommy Thompson"
The New York Times suggested in an editorial that Congress should ban "...any effort to censor or delay the surgeon general's reports and speeches."
We've come a long way from founders like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin who believed that America's democratic promise was integrally connected to its study and application of science. This White House gang respects neither science nor democracy.
It’s not the first time that the Bush administration has been caught suppressing science to promote its political agenda. Bush political appointees have watered down or suppressed reports on global warming and the ineffectiveness of abstinence and charter schools.
Dr. Carmona, who served as surgeon general, the nation’s public health educator and advocate, from 2002 to 2006, said White House officials would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues because of political concerns.
Bush administration officials also delayed for years and attempted to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand tobacco smoke.
Dr. Carmona also testified that he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of every speech he gave. Those must have been real barn burners!
He was also asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings, at least one of which included Karl Rove, the president’s senior political adviser. Administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to the Kennedy family.
As blogger Jim Rowen wrote:
"It's a little like finding out that White House operatives made NASA deny astronomy, or told the CIA to shelve electronic espionage in favor of Tarot cards.
There is a clear Wisconsin connection to this story, and to presidential campaigning, because Carmona worked under then-Health and Human Services secretary Tommy Thompson"
The New York Times suggested in an editorial that Congress should ban "...any effort to censor or delay the surgeon general's reports and speeches."
We've come a long way from founders like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin who believed that America's democratic promise was integrally connected to its study and application of science. This White House gang respects neither science nor democracy.
Bush admits his administration leaked CIA agent's name
When it was first disclosed that someone had leaked the name of an undercover CIA operative, Valerie (Wilson) Plame, President Bush said he would fire anyone in his administration who had participated in the leak. Shortly before Plame's cover was blown in 2003, her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former Ambassador, had accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence to exaggerate the threat from Iraqi weapons and thus help justify the war. Wilson has said he believes his wife's identity was disclosed in retaliation.
Yesterday, President Bush publicly acknowledged that someone in his administration had been the first to leak the operative’s name.
A lengthy investigation found that several high ranking administration officials revealed Plame's identity. White House political adviser Karl Rove and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage were the primary sources for a 2003 newspaper column outing Plame. Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer also admitted telling reporters about her. Scotter Libby was the only one charged in the matter and not for leaking. And his sentence was commuted by President Bush last week.
But surprise...no one has been fired. Instead the President announced: “Its (the investigation) run its course. And now we are going to move on.”
Evidently the decider has decided that he didn’t really mean what he said about firing anyone way back then when the press and public were demanding to know what he would do if his staff was involved. The decider has decided to do nothing; nothing that is but cover up a crime.
Yesterday, President Bush publicly acknowledged that someone in his administration had been the first to leak the operative’s name.
A lengthy investigation found that several high ranking administration officials revealed Plame's identity. White House political adviser Karl Rove and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage were the primary sources for a 2003 newspaper column outing Plame. Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer also admitted telling reporters about her. Scotter Libby was the only one charged in the matter and not for leaking. And his sentence was commuted by President Bush last week.
But surprise...no one has been fired. Instead the President announced: “Its (the investigation) run its course. And now we are going to move on.”
Evidently the decider has decided that he didn’t really mean what he said about firing anyone way back then when the press and public were demanding to know what he would do if his staff was involved. The decider has decided to do nothing; nothing that is but cover up a crime.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Michael Moore demands that CNN tell the truth!
In his first interview on CNN in three years, Michael Moore demands that Wolf Blizter and the station apologize to the American people for their failure to ask hard questions about medical care and the War in Iraq.
Private Sector Practices Wreak Havoc at the Smithsonian
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard someone say that educational institutions and government need to be more like the private sector, I’d be a very rich man; although probably not as rich as Larry M. Small!
Mr. Small is a former Citicorp/Citibank executive and president and chief operating officer of Fannie Mae. The Smithsonian, our venerable national museum, hired him to bring corporate practices to the public sector.
Mr. Small, unlike previous secretaries, had zero credentials as a scholar and no experience with nonprofit research or educational institutions. He was recently forced to resign after disclosures about lavish spending, the misuse of public funds and, incredibly, a decline in private donati0ns!
The “private sector practices” Mr. Small implemented included spending $15,000 to replace two French doors at his home and $48,000 for two chairs, a conference table and upholstery for his office suite. He also used public funds to clean his chandelier, heat his pool, and pay his chauffeur; took 70 vacation days a year; denied crucial information to the Smithsonian’s general counsel, inspector general and chief financial officer; earned $5.7 million serving on other corporate boards; and decorated his office with a stuffed Bengal tiger from the Natural History Museum.
Among the Small housing invoices sent to the Smithsonian was a $5,700 bill from a contractor to patch a roof, repair a skylight and redo walls in Mr. Small's house in January 2005.
Those repairs came three months before the Government Accountability Office reported that roof leaks were plaguing Smithsonian art museums, archives and the National Air and Space Museum.
Small's spending came to light amidst reports describing a broad decline in the Smithsonian's physical plant and the implementation of institution-wide austerity measures.
During Mr. Small’s tenure, directors of seven museums submitted their resignations. Congress also intervened after Small's cutbacks included the proposed closure of the institution's animal biodiversity research facility.
Commercial sponsorship of museum exhibitions has been another bone of contention. Donations from Fujifilm, Kmart, General Motors, and Catherine B. Reynolds for a "Hall of Achievers," sparked a flurry of letters, including an open letter from a group of 170 scholars, authors, and academics to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the chancellor of the Smithsonian's Board of Regents. "If Mr. Small is permitted to continue his agenda," it read, "the Smithsonian will become much like a shopping mall, with virtually every inch devoted to the promotion of a corporation or its product."
These and other practices were criticized in two damning reports that according to the New York Times “…describe a chief executive run amok…” who “…took the corporate approach too far by concentrating power in his office and abusing perks.”
Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley commented: "Mr. Small's champagne lifestyle turns out to be Dom Perignon…The authorized expenses are over-the-top by any measure. The manipulation of the audit might be even worse."
With a salary of more than $900,000, one would think that Mr. Small could afford to pay for cleaning his chandelier or the entire house for that matter.
But that isn’t the way the private sector works as the sordid details of corporate CEO compensation practices and malfeasance at Worldcom, Tyco, Enron and Healthsouth among others have been exposed. At least, that isn’t how the private sector works if you’re a CEO!
The next time you hear someone say government needs to do it more like the private sector remind them about that happened at the Smithsonian, when accepted corporate CEO practices were adopted! Then ask them who picks up the bill for cleaning their chandeliers?
Mr. Small is a former Citicorp/Citibank executive and president and chief operating officer of Fannie Mae. The Smithsonian, our venerable national museum, hired him to bring corporate practices to the public sector.
Mr. Small, unlike previous secretaries, had zero credentials as a scholar and no experience with nonprofit research or educational institutions. He was recently forced to resign after disclosures about lavish spending, the misuse of public funds and, incredibly, a decline in private donati0ns!
The “private sector practices” Mr. Small implemented included spending $15,000 to replace two French doors at his home and $48,000 for two chairs, a conference table and upholstery for his office suite. He also used public funds to clean his chandelier, heat his pool, and pay his chauffeur; took 70 vacation days a year; denied crucial information to the Smithsonian’s general counsel, inspector general and chief financial officer; earned $5.7 million serving on other corporate boards; and decorated his office with a stuffed Bengal tiger from the Natural History Museum.
Among the Small housing invoices sent to the Smithsonian was a $5,700 bill from a contractor to patch a roof, repair a skylight and redo walls in Mr. Small's house in January 2005.
Those repairs came three months before the Government Accountability Office reported that roof leaks were plaguing Smithsonian art museums, archives and the National Air and Space Museum.
Small's spending came to light amidst reports describing a broad decline in the Smithsonian's physical plant and the implementation of institution-wide austerity measures.
During Mr. Small’s tenure, directors of seven museums submitted their resignations. Congress also intervened after Small's cutbacks included the proposed closure of the institution's animal biodiversity research facility.
Commercial sponsorship of museum exhibitions has been another bone of contention. Donations from Fujifilm, Kmart, General Motors, and Catherine B. Reynolds for a "Hall of Achievers," sparked a flurry of letters, including an open letter from a group of 170 scholars, authors, and academics to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the chancellor of the Smithsonian's Board of Regents. "If Mr. Small is permitted to continue his agenda," it read, "the Smithsonian will become much like a shopping mall, with virtually every inch devoted to the promotion of a corporation or its product."
These and other practices were criticized in two damning reports that according to the New York Times “…describe a chief executive run amok…” who “…took the corporate approach too far by concentrating power in his office and abusing perks.”
Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley commented: "Mr. Small's champagne lifestyle turns out to be Dom Perignon…The authorized expenses are over-the-top by any measure. The manipulation of the audit might be even worse."
With a salary of more than $900,000, one would think that Mr. Small could afford to pay for cleaning his chandelier or the entire house for that matter.
But that isn’t the way the private sector works as the sordid details of corporate CEO compensation practices and malfeasance at Worldcom, Tyco, Enron and Healthsouth among others have been exposed. At least, that isn’t how the private sector works if you’re a CEO!
The next time you hear someone say government needs to do it more like the private sector remind them about that happened at the Smithsonian, when accepted corporate CEO practices were adopted! Then ask them who picks up the bill for cleaning their chandeliers?
Monday, July 9, 2007
Voce de la Frontera Lauches Reality Tour
While immigration reform may be dead in the US Congress, Voces de la Frontera, a grassroots organization that brings together immigrant and low wage workers to advocate for immigration reform and workers rights, is taking its message to the people of Wisconsin.
On July 8th, Voces began a Reality Tour to engage the people of Wisconsin in a conversation about what the "broken immigration system" does to immigrants, non immigrants and their families.
The tour includes immigrant workers and business owners who were affected by a raid at Star Packaging in Whitewater last year and workers affected by the North American Free Trade Agreement, which went into effect in 1994.
NAFTA critics recognize that the trade agreement has hurt workers in Mexico, Canada and the United States, 25,000 in Wisconsin alone, destroyed 2 million agricultural jobs in Mexico and contributed to increased poverty and mass migration.
The tour will make stops in 10 different cities.
Follow the Voces Reality tour on their blog at:
http://wisconsinrealitytour.blogspot.com/
On July 8th, Voces began a Reality Tour to engage the people of Wisconsin in a conversation about what the "broken immigration system" does to immigrants, non immigrants and their families.
The tour includes immigrant workers and business owners who were affected by a raid at Star Packaging in Whitewater last year and workers affected by the North American Free Trade Agreement, which went into effect in 1994.
NAFTA critics recognize that the trade agreement has hurt workers in Mexico, Canada and the United States, 25,000 in Wisconsin alone, destroyed 2 million agricultural jobs in Mexico and contributed to increased poverty and mass migration.
The tour will make stops in 10 different cities.
Follow the Voces Reality tour on their blog at:
http://wisconsinrealitytour.blogspot.com/
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Libby commuted because he knew too much! NY Times call for withdrawal!
More than four years after The New York Times published a series of news stories that justified a US invasion of Iraq that has left 3,649 American soldiers dead and 29,950 wounded, the newspaper's editorial board has called for an end to the Iraq war.
The editorial says, "President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have used demagoguery and fear to quell Americans' demands for an end to this war. They say withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists. Actually, all of that has already happened - the result of this unnecessary invasion and the incompetent management of this war. It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit."
In a related article Frank Rich writes that President Bush commuted Scotter Libby's prison sentence because Libby knew too much about the lies told to sell the war in Iraq and that "... cowardice, the character trait so evident in his furtive handling of the Libby commutation, is as important to understanding Mr. Bush’s cratered presidency as incompetence, cronyism and hubris."
The editorial says, "President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have used demagoguery and fear to quell Americans' demands for an end to this war. They say withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists. Actually, all of that has already happened - the result of this unnecessary invasion and the incompetent management of this war. It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit."
In a related article Frank Rich writes that President Bush commuted Scotter Libby's prison sentence because Libby knew too much about the lies told to sell the war in Iraq and that "... cowardice, the character trait so evident in his furtive handling of the Libby commutation, is as important to understanding Mr. Bush’s cratered presidency as incompetence, cronyism and hubris."
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