Fw: [Norton AntiSpam] New FactCheck Article: Liberal Ad Against Alito: True As Far As It Goes

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True As Far As It Goes

Liberal Ad Against Alito: True As Far As It Goes - FactCheck.org

Liberal Ad Against Alito: True As Far As It Goes

We supply background that's missing from the 30-second spot.

November 21, 2005

Summary

A mostly liberal group's ad says Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito made
a ruling "to make it easier for corporations to discriminate" and also
"voted to approve the strip search of a 10-year-old girl."

As is often the case with 30-second ads, there's more to it than that.

Alito did dissent from a 1997 ruling that allowed an African-American
woman to sue Marriott Corp. for discrimination because a white woman got
the supervisor's job she wanted and thought she had been promised at a
hotel in New Jersey. Alito agreed that the black woman may have been
"treated unfairly" by her employer, but ruled that she had produced too
little evidence of racial discrimination to allow her lawsuit to go
forward. Marriott argued that the white woman whom they brought in for the
job had more training, had worked at a larger hotel and had supervised
higher-ranking employees.

Alito also objected to allowing a Pennsylvania couple to sue local police
for strip-searching their daughter during a methamphetamine raid in 1998.
Although no drugs were found in the raid, police argued that their warrant
allowed them to search "all occupants" of the house. And while Alito
said the warrant allowed the search, he made clear he disapproved the
search on a personal level, expressing a "visceral dislike" for
such intrusive methods.

The ad also notes, quite accurately, that as a government lawyer 20 years
ago Alito wrote that the Constitution "does not protect the right to an
abortion."

Analysis

This ad was announced Nov. 17 by the Coalition for a Fair and Independent
Judiciary, which consists of mostly liberal groups including People for
the American Way, the American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO, Moveon
PAC, NARAL Pro-Choice America and others.

Coalition For a Fair & Independent Judiciary's Ad "West Wing"

Announcer: Washington . The Right Wing has taken over the West Wing.
George Bush gave extremists a veto over Supreme Court nominations.

(On Screen: Pictures of Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh, and Gary Bauer)

(On Screen: "Bush Gives Right Wingers What They Want," Pittsburgh Post
Gazette 11/1/05)

Announcer: And they chose Samuel Alito. As a judge, Alito ruled to make it
easier for corporations to discriminate.

(On Screen: "Make it easier for companies to discriminate, Bray v.
Marriott Hotels")

Announcer: Even voted to approve the strip search of a ten year old girl.

(On Screen: "Approved strip search of a ten year old girl, Doe v. Groody")

Announcer: As a government lawyer, Alito wrote, 'The Constitution does not
protect the right to an abortion.'

(On Screen: "The constitution does not protect the right to an abortion,"
Alito Application for Deputy Asst. Attorney General, 1985)

Announcer: The Right Wing has already taken over the West Wing. Don't let
them take over your Supreme Court.

(On Screen: Paid for by IndependentCourt.org)

The group said the 30-second ad, "West Wing," would run nationally on
cable news channels and local stations in Maine and Rhode Island. The
Coalition's website, [http://www.independentcourt.org/]
IndependentCourt.org , says these two states are targeted because they are
"represented by senators expected to play key roles" in the confirmation
process of Judge Alito. Those senators are Republicans Olympia Snowe and
Susan Collins of Maine, and Republican Lincoln Chafee and Democrat Jack
Reed of Rhode Island. The Coalition also says the ad will run in other
states in the future.

Discrimination

The ad says that Alito ruled to "make it easier for corporations to
discriminate" in Bray v. Marriott Hotels. In that case Beryl Bray, an
African-American woman who was housekeeping manager at the Park Ridge
Marriott in New Jersey, applied for an open position to be the hotel's
director of services - a promotion. Bray argued that she had been told
she was the top candidate for the job at a lunch meeting with one of the
members of the panel reviewing her application. She testified that she also
discussed what
she would do in the new job after she was officially promoted. She said
Marriott's written policies required that after being informed that she
was the top applicant, she should either be given the job or notified
formally that she had been rejected.

Bray was not given the promotion, however, nor was she given formal notice
that she was rejected. Instead, the review panel brought in a white woman,
Therese Riehle, who was hired April 10, 1993. Riehle had been the
Assistant Director of Services at the Marriott Marquis in New York, a
larger hotel than the Park Ridge . Bray claimed she was denied the
promotion because she was black and filed a lawsuit against Marriott for
discrimination.

The district court threw out Bray's lawsuit, granting summary judgment in
Marriott's favor on the basis that Bray had failed to produce the
necessary evidence that racial discrimination was the reason she didn't
get the promotion. Bray appealed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals,
which heard the case Oct. 1, 1996 and ruled in Bray's favor April 11,
1997 - sending her lawsuit back to district court where she and
Marriott later settled on undisclosed terms.

Alito was the lone vote in Marriott's favor. He conceded that Marriott had
failed to follow its own rules, but said that was not enough to allow a
claim of racial bias to go to trial:

Alito: This evidence does not show any more than the fact that Marriott
did not comply with its internal rules by failing to inform Bray that she
had been rejected before interviewing and hiring another candidate. The
majority, however, sees this evidence as combining with other evidence
from depositions to warrant reversal of the district court's grant of
summary judgment to Marriott.

Alito said the majority opinion weakened the burden of proof on Bray and
other plaintiffs to the point where "all the plaintiff needs to do is to
point to minor inconsistencies or discrepancies in terms of the employer's
failure to follow its own internal procedures in order to get to trial."
Alito would argue that he wasn't making it easier for employers to
discriminate, as the ad claims, but merely maintaining current standards
of proof. However, his reasoning in this case comes down solidly on the
side of the employer and against "disgruntled employees:"

Alito: I have no doubt that in the future we are going to get many more
cases where an employer is choosing between competing candidates of
roughly equal qualifications and the candidate who is not hired or
promoted claims discrimination. I also have little doubt that most
plaintiffs will be able to use the discovery process to find minor
inconsistencies in terms of the employer's having failed to follow its
internal procedures to the letter. What we end up doing then is converting
the anti-discrimination law into a 'conditions of employment' law, because
we are allowing disgruntled employees to impose the costs of trial on
employers who, although they have not acted with the intent to
discriminate, may have treated their employees unfairly. This represents
an unwarranted extension of the anti-discrimination laws.

Strip Search

The ad claims that Alito voted to "approve the strip search of a
ten-year-old girl" in 1998. The case, Doe v. Groody, centered on whether
a Pennsylvania couple had the right to sue local police officers
who searched their home, themselves and their daughter for
methamphetamines on the basis of a tip from an informant claiming to have
bought drugs at the house. Officers of the Schuylkill County Drug Task
Force obtained a search warrant that named only the husband (identified
in court papers only as "John Doe," not his real name). But they argued
that a magistrate had approved the warrant based on a police officer's
affidavit that sought permission "to search all occupants of the residence
and their belongings" (emphasis added.)

Officers entered the home and searched "John Doe," his wife and their
ten-year- old daughter Mary. The strip search of the wife and
daughter was conducted by a female officer, in private, in an upstairs
bathroom. No contraband was found.

"John and Jane Doe" filed a civil suit in District Court against the
officers for violation of their and their daughter's Fourth Amendment
rights. The officers moved for summary judgment arguing the searches fell
within the scope of the search warrant and therefore they were covered by
qualified immunity, which protects them from civil liability for actions
performed during the execution of their duties.

The District Court denied the officer's motion for summary judgment and
the officers appealed.The case was heard by the Third Circuit Court of
Appeals in September 2003. The Third Circuit upheld the District Court's
ruling - clearing the way for the lawsuit to go forward - with Alito
filing a dissenting opinion.

The central issue was whether the police officer's affidavit requesting
the search warrant widened the parameters of the search beyond what was
stated in the warrant itself. Here's what it said:

Affidavit: This application seeks permission to search all occupants of
the residence and their belongings to prevent the removal, concealment,
or destruction of any evidence requested in this warrant. It is the
experience of your co-affiants that drug dealers often attempt to do so
when faced with impending apprehension and may give such evidence to
persons who do not actually reside or own/rent the premises. This is done
to prevent the discovery of said items in hopes that said persons will not
be subject to search when police arrive.

The majority ruled that since only "John Doe" was named in the search
warrant, and since the warrant makes no reference to the attached
affidavit, the officers lacked probable cause to search the wife and
daughter and therefore violated "their clearly established Fourth
Amendment rights."

Alito dissented, saying that a "commonsense and realistic" reading of the
warrant gave the officers the impression that "all occupants" of the home
were to be searched, and that they were acting within their professional
duties in searching the wife and girl.

Although Alito said he thought the search was permissible, he made clear
he would have preferred not to have it happen:

Alito: I share the majority's visceral dislike of the intrusive search of
John Doe's young daughter, but it is a sad fact that drug dealers
sometimes use children to carry out their business and to avoid
prosecution. I know of no legal principle that bars an officer from
searching a child (in a proper manner) if a warrant has been issued and
the warrant is not illegal on its face.

Constitution & Abortion

The ad quotes Alito as writing that "The Constitution does not protect the
right to an abortion." That is from a 1985 application he wrote for a
position as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan
administration, and is accurate:

Alito, 1985: I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases
in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and
ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not
protect the right to an abortion.

It should be noted that Alito has attempted to distance himself from that
20-year-old memo since it became public. After Alito met with Democratic
Sen. Diane Feinstein of California on Nov. 15, she said:

Feinstein: He said, 'I was an advocate seeking a job, it was a political
job and that was 1985. I'm now a judge ... I'm not an advocate, I don't
give heed to my personal views, what I do is interpret the law.'

-by Emi Kolowole and James Ficaro

Sources

[http://www.law.umich.edu/library/news/topics/alito/dissentingopinions/bray1
997.pdf]
Bray v. Marriott Hotels , 110 F. 3d. 986, 990 (3d Cir. 1997)

[http://www.law.umich.edu/library/news/topics/alito/dissentingopinions/doe20
04.pdf]
Doe v Groody, 361 F.3d 232 (3^rdCir. 2004)

"[http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/11/15/politics/main1044170.shtml]
Alito Explains Abortion Statement," CBS News/Associated Press, 15 Nov
2005.

"IndependentCourt.org Launches Alito Campaign with new Ad, Growing
Grassroots Activism," [http://www.independentcourt.org/] Press Release ,
17 Nov 2005

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Fw: Patriot Act Reform Stands in the Balance: Act Today - FCNL

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kathy Guthrie" <kathyguthrie@fcnl.org>
To: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2005 3:33 PM
Subject: Patriot Act Reform Stands in the Balance: Act Today - FCNL

A bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives last week blocked an
attempt by the congressional leadership to steam-roller Congress into
reauthorizing, or renewing, expiring provisions of, the USA PATRIOT
Act. But both chambers of Congress will act on the expiring
provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act when they return from the
Thanksgiving recess in early December. They need to hear from you
during the Thanksgiving recess (before Dec. 5).

In the past two weeks, the majority party leaders met behind closed
doors and devised a congressional maneuver to force the Congress to
reject modest improvements to the Patriot Act contained in the
unanimously adopted Senate version of the Patriot Act reauthorization
bill. The majority party leaders then added new provisions that make
the Patriot Act even worse than the 2001 version.

In a revolt against the draft "conference report" (the revised bill
to be presented by the conference committee to the House and the Senate
for final approval), a bi-partisan group of senators and
representatives are gathering support, refusing to accept the
secretive, steam-roller tactics of the conference committee's
majority. You can help.

TAKE ACTION: Contact your senators and representative while they are
home for the Thanksgiving recess. As a constituent, your voice counts
more than any others. While these members of Congress are at home,
you have many options for action: speak up at town hall meetings, call
them when they are on talk radio, place an op-ed piece in your local
newspaper, join your friends and call on them or their staffs in their
district offices, or send them a message by phone or mail to those home
offices. See FCNL's web site to find the location of your members'
district offices: http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/ Here's a
suggested message:

. Tell your members to join the opposition to the conference report.
. Ask them to send the conference committee back to an open
bi-partisan process .
. Urge them to adopt the preferred Senate version of the USA PATRIOT
Act reauthorization bill (H.R. 3199).
. Tell them about your heartfelt concerns about civil liberties in
the United States in the years since Sept. 11, 2001.

After you contact your members, please email us at field@fcnl.org.
Let us know what you did and any response you received. Thank you!

BACKGROUND:

Just when advocates thought that the Patriot Act reauthorization bill
had reached the end of its legislative process, civil liberties
protectors have been presented with an unexpected opening for positive
action. The USA PATRIOT Act, passed in fear and haste in October 2001
in response to the 9/11 attacks, included 16 provisions that will
expire Dec. 31, 2005, unless reauthorized by Congress. These
"sunsetting" provisions include some, but not all, of the most
controversial sections of the bill. From FCNL's perspective, the
sunsets are helpful because they ensure that Congress examines
controversial provisions carefully, choosing on a case-by-case basis
which provision to extend and which to allow to expire. Note that
these sunset provisions can be extended ("continued") past the
deadline by routine congressional action, so that the deadline can be
easily delayed.

During the summer and fall of 2005, reauthorization measures passed
through the House and the Senate that made most of the 16 provisions
permanent, but also addressed some of the problems with the original
USA PATRIOT Act that the last four years have exposed. Although civil
liberties advocates were disappointed at the modesty of the
improvements to the original bill, the Senate version contained more
favorable provisions.(For a comparison, see
http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=1509&issue_id=68.)

The House and Senate versions were to be reconciled in a "conference
committee," with members named by House and Senate leadership. The
party split in the conference committee reflects the party split in
Congress, with Republicans in the majority. The conference committee
would, following usual congressional order, issue a "conference
report" containing the final version of the bill, and both houses of
Congress would (usually) vote to adopt the report.

The conference committee for the Patriot Act reauthorization bill has
been no exception - so far. First, the House leadership delayed
formally naming the House conferees for weeks, setting up an artificial
hurry-up atmosphere for consideration of the reauthorization bill.
Then, over the weekend of Nov. 12-13, the conference committee's
minority party members were abruptly cut off from participation in the
negotiations, and officials from the Department of Justice and the
White House met with conference committee leaders. A tentative deal was
struck. The majority party conferees began circulation of a draft
conference report mid-week (Nov. 16-17). The draft conference report
not only ignored the unanimous instruction passed by the House (calling
for the Senate's shorter, four-year extensions of three sunset
provisions), but it also ignored the unanimously passed provisions of
the Senate version of the bill, and even added provisions not passed by
either the House or the Senate. Here are some of the problems with the
draft conference report being circulated on Thursday, Nov. 17 for
review by the conference committee:

. The Senate version included a common sense requirement, not in
the original USA PATRIOT Act, that to get permission to search business
records (including library and medical records), the FBI must offer
some facts showing that the records relate to a suspected spy or
terrorist. Unfortunately, that reform was dropped from the conference
report.
. The FBI currently has permission to issue "National Security
Letters" (NSLs) demanding information from telecommunications
providers about use of internet and phone lines. The Washington Post
recently revealed that in the last year, the FBI has issued over 30,000
such NSLs, a one-hundred fold increase. . The conference report not
only does not rein the FBI in, it adds authorization for the FBI to
issue contempt citations for failure to comply with an NSL and criminal
penalties for disclosing its existence to anyone.
. The Senate version would have renewed the sunsets for three
provisions (including the library records provision, roving wire taps,
and the provision for a terrorism investigation of an individual acting
alone) for four years. The conference report lengthens the sunsets to
seven years from now, thus diluting congressional oversight.
. Although the conference report seems to give the right to challenge
orders for records and gag orders, those rights are illusory..
Under the conference report, recipients of record demands could contact
an attorney, but only limited court challenge would be available.
And, because the conference report gives the FBI a "presumption" of
need for secrecy if the FBI claims national security or other
interests, the right to challenge a gag order (telling anyone that
the order was delivered) is ineffectual.
. Fourteen of the 16 sunsetting provisions were made permanent in the
conference report.
. And, in perhaps the most undemocratic stroke of the conference
committee leadership, new provisions (not passed by either the Senate
or the House) were added to the conference report, including expansion
of the number of crimes for which the death penalty can be imposed and
seriously altering the right of habeas corpus for domestic criminal
imprisonments.

By Thursday night, Nov. 17, members of the Senate and House were in
nothing short of a bi-partisan revolt. Experienced "Hill watchers"
reported that they have never seen anything like it. Six senators
(Feingold (D-WI), Craig (R-ID), Durbin (D- IL), Sununu (R-NH), Salazar
(D-CO), and Murkowski (R-AK)) have vowed to use every legislative tool
available, including the filibuster, to fight final approval of the
conference report as circulated. A bi-partisan group of House members
(Sanders (I-VT), Nadler (D-NY), Rohrabacher (R-CA), Scott (D-VA), and
Mack (R-FL)) joined the Senators at a Friday morning press conference,
standing united in the effort to fight the conference report. They
were joined at the press conference by Senate Judiciary Committee
Chairman Specter (R-PA), who hinted that he might oppose Republican
efforts in the Senate to cut off debate on the conference report.

This is an historic moment. Please join the tens of thousands of
civil liberties advocates across the country letting their
congressional delegation know that further increases in law enforcement
authority must not come at the expense of U.S. constitutional rights.
During this congressional recess, tell the members of your
congressional delegation that they must resist the conference report on
the Patriot Act reauthorization bill and insist on further bi-partisan
consultation before voting on the measure.

_______________________________________

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Time to Leave - New York Times
The New York Times

November 21, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist

Time to Leave
By
PAUL KRUGMAN

Not long ago wise heads offered some advice to those of us who had argued
since 2003 that the Iraq war was sold on false pretenses: give it up. The
2004
election, they said, showed that we would never convince the American
people. They suggested that we stop talking about how we got into Iraq and
focus
instead on what to do next.

It turns out that the wise heads were wrong. A solid majority of Americans
now believe that we were misled into war. And it is only now, when the
public
has realized the truth about the past, that serious discussions about where
we are and where we're going are able to get a hearing.

Representative John Murtha's speech calling for a quick departure from Iraq
was full of passion, but it was also serious and specific in a way rarely
seen
on the other side of the debate. President Bush and his apologists speak in
vague generalities about staying the course and finishing the job. But Mr.
Murtha spoke of mounting casualties and lagging recruiting, the rising
frequency of insurgent attacks, stagnant oil production and lack of clean
water.

Mr. Murtha - a much-decorated veteran who cares deeply about America's
fighting men and women - argued that our presence in Iraq is making things
worse,
not better. Meanwhile, the war is destroying the military he loves. And
that's why he wants us out as soon as possible.

I'd add that the war is also destroying America's moral authority. When Mr.
Bush speaks of human rights, the world thinks of Abu Ghraib. (In his speech,
Mr. Murtha pointed out the obvious: torture at Abu Ghraib helped fuel the
insurgency.) When administration officials talk of spreading freedom, the
world
thinks about the reality that much of Iraq is now ruled by theocrats and
their militias.

Some administration officials accused Mr. Murtha of undermining the troops
and giving comfort to the enemy. But that sort of thing no longer works, now
that the administration has lost the public's trust.

Instead, defenders of our current policy have had to make a substantive
argument: we can't leave Iraq now, because a civil war will break out after
we're
gone. One is tempted to say that they should have thought about that
possibility back when they were cheerleading us into this war. But the real
question
is this: When, exactly, would be a good time to leave Iraq?

The fact is that we're not going to stay in Iraq until we achieve victory,
whatever that means in this context. At most, we'll stay until the American
military
can take no more.

Mr. Bush never asked the nation for the sacrifices - higher taxes, a bigger
military and, possibly, a revived draft - that might have made a long-term
commitment
to Iraq possible. Instead, the war has been fought on borrowed money and
borrowed time. And time is running out. With some military units on their
third
tour of duty in Iraq, the superb volunteer army that Mr. Bush inherited is
in increasing danger of facing a collapse in quality and morale similar to
the
collapse of the officer corps in the early 1970's.

So the question isn't whether things will be ugly after American forces
leave Iraq. They probably will. The question, instead, is whether it makes
sense
to keep the war going for another year or two, which is all the time we
realistically have.

Pessimists think that Iraq will fall into chaos whenever we leave. If so,
we're better off leaving sooner rather than later. As a Marine officer
quoted
by James Fallows in the current Atlantic Monthly puts it, "We can lose in
Iraq and destroy our Army, or we can just lose."

And there's a good case to be made that our departure will actually improve
matters. As Mr. Murtha pointed out in his speech, the insurgency derives
much
of its support from the perception that it's resisting a foreign occupier.
Once we're gone, the odds are that Iraqis, who don't have a tradition of
religious
extremism, will turn on fanatical foreigners like Zarqawi.

The only way to justify staying in Iraq is to make the case that stretching
the U.S. army to its breaking point will buy time for something good to
happen.
I don't think you can make that case convincingly. So Mr. Murtha is right:
it's time to leave.
Posted by MIriam V.

Is Withdrawal Inevitable?

Christopher Dickey, who seems to have a good ear for goings-on in the Middle East, has this twist on the debate over when and how the U.S. should withdraw from Iraq. Basically, he says, the United States is no longer in the driver's seat:

So topsy-turvy is the policy at this point that we’re not going to imagine leaving until the Iraqi government demands that we go—and you can be sure the Iraqis who are now taking power will do just that. When? As soon as they and their Iranian allies have consolidated their hold on the southern three fourths of the country and its oil. [n.b. And not, as the Pentagon prefers, when a national Iraqi army can take over security.] ...

The Bush administration no longer sets the agenda in Iraq, in fact, and hasn’t for at least two years. The watershed came in November 2003 when there was a dramatic spike in U.S. casualties and Washington suddenly scrambled together a policy for transferring sovereignty back to Iraqis instead of pocketing it indefinitely for the Pentagon and the oil companies, as originally intended. The American invasion, which was supposed to be proactive, has led to an occupation that is entirely reactive, and it’s clear—or ought to be—that the castles in the air constructed by Wolfowitz and his friends have been blown away by facts on the ground.

There's certainly evidence that that's the case. Ahmad Chalabi, who is almost certainly an Iranian ally of some sort—if only a temporary ally—and may well become prime minister in December elections, has already suggested a tentative deadline for withdrawal, telling Congress that 2006 should be a "period of significant transition" for the United States, echoing language in a recent Senate defense bill. Moqtada al-Sadr is uniting Sunni and Shiite radicals in Iraq in support of U.S. withdrawal. The Pentagon even has a plan to do so, if necessary, drawing down to about 80,000 troops by 2006. (On the other hand, maybe Chalabi won't be prime minister after all: polls show that Ibrahim Jaaferi, who seems to want the U.S. to stay, is still pretty popular.)

It's hard to say what the end result would be of a forced drawdown plus the pro-Iranian Shiites "consolidat[ing] their hold on the southern three fourths of the country." Chaos, probably. War, maybe. Ezra Klein argues that if the United States got out in front on this and pre-empted the Shiites by withdrawing before said consolidation happened, it would force Chalabi and his belligerent Shiite allies to play nice with the Sunni insurgency. That's certainly possible. On the other hand, a troop drawdown could just as easily spur each and every Iraqi party to panic, grab whatever gun or armed ally they can find, and make war more, rather than less, likely. Sabrina Tavernise reports today that already "20 cities and towns around Baghdad are segregating" by sect, an ominous sign. Trying to predict how Iraqis will react to our future American actions seems pretty dubious. It's much safer to predict that whenever the troop drawdown comes, it will be conducted no less incompetently than every other aspect of the war so far.

The Champ Meets the Chump

by DAVE ZIRIN

The presidency of George W. Bush is collapsing under the weight of its own incompetence. The polls speak for themselves--only 35 percent of us approve of his job performance. Fifty-six percent--including one in four Republicans--say the war in Iraq was not worth fighting, and more than half believe Bush intentionally misled the country to bring the United States into war. The response from the White House has been grimly predictable: Admit no mistakes and spin, slash or burn your critics. On Monday Bush seethed, "Only one person manipulated evidence and misled the world--and that person was Saddam Hussein." (Funny, I didn't know we were being "led" by Saddam Hussein.) Bush went on to accuse opponents of rewriting the past. But this Administration, which has redefined the word "Orwellian" for a new generation, respects history about as much as it respects the Geneva Conventions. In fact, they seem to relish assaulting and rewriting history for sheer sport.

This was seen quite clearly on November 9, when Bush hung a medal around the slack, immobile neck of former heavyweight boxing champion--and the most famous war resister in US history--Muhammad Ali. Ali was one of a bevy of recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony. Bush, while Karl Rove and Donald Rumsfeld chuckled behind him, said, "Only a few athletes are ever known as the greatest in their sport, or in their time. But when you say, 'The Greatest of All Time' is in the room, everyone knows who you mean. It's quite a claim to make, but as Muhammad Ali once said, 'It's not bragging if you can back it up.' And this man backed it up.... The real mystery, I guess, is how he stayed so pretty. [Laughter.] It probably had to do with his beautiful soul. He was a fierce fighter and he's a man of peace."

As I watched a video of the ceremony posted on the White House website, it was heartbreaking to see Bush, a chicken-hearted man of empire, bathe himself in Ali's glow and rhapsodize about "peace." To see the once-indomitable Ali, besieged by Parkinsons and dementia, eyes filmed over, hands shaking, led around by a self-described "war President" felt horrifying.

About the only thing Bush and Ali have in common is that they both moved mountains to stay out of Vietnam. The difference, of course, was while Ali sacrificed his title and risked years in federal prison, Bush joined the country club otherwise known as the Texas National Guard, showing up for duty every time he had a dentist appointment. But the Champ still had one last rope-a-dope up his sleeve. As a playful Bush moved in front of Ali, he apparently thought it would be cute to put up his fists in a boxing stance. Ali leaned back and made a circular motion around his temple, as if the President must be crazy to want to tangle with him even now.

This moment recalled the Ali who was never so beloved, so cuddly, so harmless. This was a fleeting glimpse of the Ali who once was able to say things that would have made John Ashcroft demand a federally funded exorcism. This was the Ali who said, "I ain't no Christian. I can't be when I see all the colored people fighting for forced integration get blown up. They get hit by the stones and chewed by dogs and then these crackers blow up a Negro church.... People are always telling me what a good example I would be if I just wasn't Muslim. I've heard over and over why couldn't I just be more like Joe Louis and Sugar Ray [Robinson]. Well, they are gone and the black man's condition is just the same, ain't it? We're still catching hell."

Back then, Ali could level criticism about an ill-advised, unfair war: "Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No, I'm not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality.... If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people, they wouldn't have to draft me, I'd join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I'll go to jail, so what? We've been in jail for 400 years."

If Ali had said things like that today about our current war, it would have earned him not not a medal but a one-way trip to Gitmo.

As the great poet Sonia Sanchez remembered Ali's golden era, "It's hard now to relay the emotion of that time. This was still a time when hardly any well-known people were resisting the draft. It was a war that was disproportionately killing young black brothers, and here was this beautiful, funny poetical young man standing up and saying no! Imagine it for a moment! The heavyweight champion, a magical man, taking his fight out of the ring and into the arena of politics and standing firm. The message was sent!"

Perhaps a far more fitting and true tribute to Ali was on display at an antiwar demonstration last month, where an older woman of African descent held up a sign that read simply, "No Iraqi ever left me to die on a roof." This was a direct reference to a quote attributed to Ali that "no Vietnamese ever called me 'nigger.' " Both statements in a few short words encompass both the anger and internationalism so needed today. These are statements not of pacifism but of the struggle to end war. This is the Ali that they can never bury--not even under the pall of devastating illness and a mountain of cheap medals.

Southern, Christian, Democrat; President?

Here comes Mark Warner

Republican Compassion, cont....

The New York Times
November 21, 2005
For Medicaid Clients, New Hurdle Looms
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA

A unique program that helps poor New Yorkers enroll in Medicaid could be abolished in the next few months by the state and federal governments, a decision that the program's supporters say would leave hundreds of thousands more people uninsured across the state.

New York is the only state where H.M.O.'s, community groups and clinics are allowed to help people fill out applications for Medicaid, the government health plan for the poor. In other states, people must either do the paperwork on their own or go to government welfare offices to apply. The state's strategy, adopted five years ago, has helped the number of New Yorkers in Medicaid soar by more than a million people, as H.M.O.'s now fill out enrollment forms.

Federal law prohibits such "facilitated enrollment," but Gov. George E. Pataki's administration asked for a waiver, and the Clinton administration granted it. That exemption will expire April 1, and the program will end unless the state asks for a new waiver and the Bush administration approves it.

The state is scheduled to decide by Dec. 1 whether to request a new waiver from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. But the Pataki administration has not decided whether to do so - a disappointment to advocacy groups and the health care industry, which hailed Governor Pataki, a Republican, for creating the program. People who have lobbied the administration to preserve the program say that they think the state probably will ask to keep it alive, but that it remains far from certain.

And they and state officials say they are not optimistic about getting permission from Washington. A spokeswoman for the Medicaid agency said it could not comment on a request that had not yet been made, but it is clear that the Republican leaders in Congress and the Bush administration have been looking for ways to cut fast-rising Medicaid spending, not expand it.

New York has already asked federal officials for special Medicaid treatment on another front - $1.5 billion to help pay for the expected closings of some hospitals because of a surplus of beds. Officials here say the two proposals could hurt each other's chances in Washington - and that plays into the Pataki administration's hesitance to ask for the enrollment waiver.

"We've got a lot of issues up with the feds, and we're trying to pick our fights," said Mark L. Kissinger, the governor's health care adviser. As for getting a new enrollment waiver, he said, "it's going to be a fight."

He said the administration understood the importance of facilitated enrollment, but "we haven't made a final determination."

Pataki administration officials say that the program has made it easier for ineligible people to enroll in Medicaid, and has allowed H.M.O. workers to use unscrupulous tactics in steering applicants to their own companies. The program's supporters say such concerns are overstated, and can be addressed without eliminating the program.

Traditionally, people went to city welfare offices to apply for Medicaid or renew it annually, but for many people the offices are not convenient and the wait for help often took hours. People can now renew their coverage by themselves, by mail, but that means making sense of paperwork that many of them find overwhelming.

With facilitated enrollment, applicants can go to places, like neighborhood clinics and H.M.O. clinic vans parked at busy intersections in their own neighborhoods, where experts quickly walk them through the process and even complete the forms for them. The H.M.O.'s that administer Medicaid patients' benefits have been particularly aggressive about signing people up - it wins them new customers - by trolling for business at schools, street fairs and busy shopping areas.

"Community-based enrollment is the true success story of New York's program, and it has changed people's perceptions of Medicaid to be health insurance, not welfare," said Anne Marie Costello, director of programs at the Children's Defense Fund-New York. "Without it, enrollment will shut down. The social service offices will not be able to absorb the crush of people they'll get, and a lot of people will just give up if they have to go to those offices again."

Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, New York City's health commissioner, said enrollment by H.M.O.'s and others "has been essential to ensuring that New Yorkers who are eligible for Medicaid get enrolled." Continuing the program, he said, "is extremely important." Even with the program, there are about a million people in New York State who are eligible for Medicaid but not enrolled, and each year an even larger number fail to re-enroll and lose their insurance.

"We still have an enormous amount of churning and confusion," said Deborah Bachrach, a lawyer for the H.M.O.'s who has tried to persuade state officials to save the program. "Without this, enrollment would drop like a rock."

Advocates for the poor and insurers say that if the program ended, the number of people in Medicaid would fall by hundreds of thousands, a prediction that Mr. Kissinger called exaggerated.

"Undoubtedly, it would hit enrollment very hard, whatever the actual number is, so we should keep it," said State Senator Kemp Hannon, Republican of Long Island, the chairman of the Health Committee. "Without it, the health care system would become, per capita, more costly. The uninsured people will go to emergency rooms for treatment, and they'll get sicker and costlier to treat before they seek treatment."

"If I had to guess, it's my sense the governor will try to keep it," he said. "But the challenge of going to Washington, in this climate, and asking for two very big things at once, is very real."

Though he helped create facilitated enrollment, Mr. Pataki has shown some ambivalence about it for years.

The state gives millions of dollars to community groups to pay for them to employ Medicaid enrollers, but the governor has cut those grants and has tried more than once to eliminate them. He has also curbed state payments to the H.M.O.'s, saying that they spend too much money on marketing - money that the insurers say goes largely to promote enrollment.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

Curveball

Josh Marshall

Tucked into that LA Times article about 'Curveball' is yet more evidence that we are still yet to have a serious and comprehensive investigation of the handling of WMD intelligence in the lead-up to the Iraq war.

There are many bits of evidence. But this one is worth noting.

From the LAT ...

Curveball was the chief source of inaccurate prewar U.S. accusations that Baghdad had biological weapons, a commission appointed by Bush reported this year. The commission did not interview Curveball, who still insists his story was true, or the German officials who handled his case.

The German account emerges as the White House is lashing out at domestic critics, particularly Senate Democrats, over allegations the administration manipulated intelligence to go to war. Last week, Vice President Dick Cheney called such claims reprehensible and pernicious.

An investigation by The Times based on interviews since May with about 30 current and former intelligence officials in the U.S., Germany, England, Iraq and the United Nations, as well as other experts, shows that U.S. bungling in the Curveball case was worse than official reports have disclosed.

The White House, for example, ignored evidence gathered by United Nations weapons inspectors shortly before the war that disproved Curveball's account. Bush and his aides issued increasingly dire warnings about Iraq's biological weapons before the war even though intelligence from Curveball had not changed in two years.

So the Silbermann-Robb Commission hasn't spoken to Curveball or the German intelligence officials who handled his case and provided the conduit of information to US intelligence agencies. Almost certainly, the Senate intel committee investigation hasn't either. But the LA Times has managed to speak with a slew of current and former intelligence officials who have provided information not included in those official reports.

Now, gaining direct access to the sources of even an allied intelligence agency is quite dicey and frequently not possible. Even more so in a highly politicized investigative context as opposed to in the process of intelligence gathering and analysis. So there's no reason to fault these investigations for not getting a hold of Curveball himself; nor do I think there would have been any particular purpose served in doing so.

But the Times article suggests that many people in the stream of information passing back and forth between German and US intelligence and the White House were not spoken to either. And those people provided information which puts the whole matter in a rather more sinister light -- not just botched intelligence work and analysis but deliberate distortions of what evidence we had before the war and refusals to come clean about highly relevant contradictory information.

This speaks again to a point we and many others have made repeatedly: the highly circumscribed nature of these two investigations. The very structure and scope of these inquiries were designed to leave much of the story untold -- quite apart from the numerous intentionally misleading passages we've noted in the Senate intel report from last year.

Fw: Bush Visits China: Urge Engagement, Not Confrontation - FCNL

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kathy Guthrie" <kathyguthrie@fcnl.org>
To: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
Sent: Thursday, November 17, 2005 5:27 PM
Subject: Bush Visits China: Urge Engagement, Not Confrontation - FCNL

As the President visits China, write a letter to your local paper and
let your neighbors know: War with China is Not the Answer, now, or in
the future. President Bush will bring a mixed message to China when
he arrives in Beijing this weekend. On the one hand, the Bush
administration is eager to maintain economic relations with China that
include commercial relations and Chinese investment in U.S. treasury
notes. On the other hand, the U.S. is intensifying its military
encirclement of China. U.S. military bases in 10 countries and
territories are within striking distance of China or the energy
reserves and sea lanes on which China depends. The U.S. conducts joint
military exercises with 11 of China's neighbors and sells large
advanced weapons packages to seven countries in the region.

China has responded to the U.S. presence in the region with a
military build up of its own. If current trends continue, the U.S.
and China will fuel an intensified regional arms race and the
region will be forced to confront the possibility of an outbreak of
actual fighting that could involve Japan and Taiwan. At the center of
the potential conflict between the U.S. and China is competition
over oil.

TAKE ACTION NOW

As news media around the country focus on the president's trip, take
the opportunity to write to your local paper and urge the
administration to take steps now to prevent a future war with China.
Enter your zipcode at this link to see a sample letter to the editor
and some of your local media outlets.
http://capwiz.com/fconl/issues/alert/?alertid=8255421&type=ME
More help on writing letters to the editor is available here:
http://www.fcnl.org/getin/resources/letters_editor.htm

BACKGROUND

Are the U.S. and China heading for war? Michael Klare, in "Revving
up the China Threat" in The Nation, outlined some of the ways the U.S.
seems to be preparing for war with China. Read this article
here:
http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=1593&issue_id=103

One signal of the potential for military conflict is U.S. suspicion of
China's military expansion - and visa versa. During a June trip
to Singapore, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld reportedly commented that
"Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder: why this growing
investment [in their military?] Why these continuing large and
expanding arms purchases?"

While China's military expenditures are indeed troubling, especially
to its neighbors, China's military planners are not functioning in a
vacuum. U.S. military bases in Japan, South Korea, Guam, Diego
Garcia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Kyrgyzstan are
within striking distance of China or the oil and gas reserves and sea
lanes on which China depends. The U.S. conducts joint military
exercises with 11 of China's neighbors, and sells advanced weapons to
six of these countries - plus Taiwan, which China views as a renegade
province.

The U.S. has entered an agreement to share space and civilian nuclear
technology with India. iIntent on pushing forward with its missile
shield programs, the U.S. has rebuffed Chinese efforts to guarantee the
peaceful use of space and has refused to re-establish the ad hoc
committee on The Prevention of the Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS).

China is also worried about the growing closeness between the U.S. and
Japan. The U.S. has supported Japan's bid for a permanent seat on
the U.N. Security Council, and has been encouraging Japan to play a
greater military role. In February, the U.S. and Japan issued a joint
statement that mentioned both countries' interest in resolving the
Taiwan Strait issue peacefully. Although an innocuous statement in
content, it clearly drew a line, with China on one side, and the U.S.
and Japan on the other.

These are just a few examples of a considerably longer list detailed in
"Steps Needed Now to Reduce Threat of Future War," which will be
appearing in the November/December issue of The Washington
Newsletter. See a preview here:
http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=1618&issue_id=103

Even Pentagon officials acknowledge that military containment of China
is impossible, according to an article in the November 17th Wall Street
Journal. And yet the U.S. military buildup in the region continues.
At the center of the potential military conflict with China is expected
competition over oil.

Rather than preparing for war, the administration should embrace
measures now to avoid conflict later. For example, the administration
should signal its early support of S. 1117, the U.S.-China Cultural
Engagement Act, a bill that would invest in increasing U.S.
understanding and cooperation with China through language and cultural
education, increases foreign service personnel in China, and promote
export opportunities in China (for more information:
http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=1489&issue_id=103
). Congress and the administration should also endorse the
establishment of a U.S.-China Energy Working Group that would identify
areas for energy collaboration between the two countries as well as
areas for potential energy conflict, as called for by the
congressionally established U.S.-China Economic and Security Review
Commission. (For more information, see the commission's 2005 Report
at its web site, http://www.uscc.gov; this year's report is a mixture
of tension increasing and tension reducing measures.)

As President Bush travels through Asia, FCNL constituents have an
opportunity to write a letter to the editor and inform their
neighbors: War with China is Not the Answer, now, or in the
future.

CONGRESSIONAL RECESS: Members of Congress will be home for the
Thanksgiving recess next week. This recess is an excellent
opportunity to get in touch with their local offices and raise issues
of concern to you and to FCNL.
_______________________________________

Stop New Nuclear Weapons! Find out how, http://www.fcnl.org/nuclear/
The Next Step for Iraq: Join FCNL's Iraq Campaign, http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/

Contact Congress and the Administration:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/

Order FCNL publications and "War is Not the Answer" campaign
bumper stickers and yard signs:
http://www.fcnl.org/pubs/
http://www.fcnl.org/forms/forms.php?type=bump

Contribute to FCNL:
http://www.fcnl.org/donate/

Subscribe or update your information to this list:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/mlm/. To unsubscribe from this list, please see
the end of this message.

Subscribe to other FCNL legislative, policy, and action alert lists:
http://www.fcnl.org/forms/forms.php?type=ls.
________________________________________

Friends Committee on National Legislation
245 Second St. NE, Washington, DC 20002-5795
fcnl@fcnl.org * http://www.fcnl.org
phone: (202)547-6000 * toll-free: (800)630-1330

We seek a world free of war and the threat of war
We seek a society with equity and justice for all
We seek a community where every person's potential may be fulfilled
We seek an earth restored.

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Fw: [Norton AntiSpam] New FactCheck Article: Iraq: What Did Congress Know, And When?

----- Original Message -----
From: "FactCheck.org" <subscriberservices@FactCheck.org>
To: <miriam@panix.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2005 1:03 PM
Subject: [Norton AntiSpam] New FactCheck Article: Iraq: What Did Congress
Know, And When?

Iraq: What Did Congress Know, And When? - FactCheck.org

Iraq: What Did Congress Know, And When?

Bush says Congress had the same (faulty) intelligence he did. Howard Dean
says intelligence was "corrupted." We give facts.

November 19, 2005

Summary

The President says Democrats in Congress "had access to the same
intelligence" he did before the Iraq war, but some Democrats deny it."That
was not true," says Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. "He
withheld some intelligence. . . . The intelligence was corrupted."

Neither side is giving the whole story in this continuing dispute.

The President's main point is correct: the CIA and most other US
intelligence agencies believed before the war that Saddam had stocks of
biological and chemical weapons, was actively working on nuclear weapons
and "probably" would have a nuclear weapon before the end of this decade.
That faulty intelligence was shared with Congress - along with multiple
mentions of some doubts within the intelligence community - in a formal
National Intelligence Estimate just prior to the Senate and House votes to
authorize the use of force against Iraq.

No hard evidence has surfaced to support claims that Bush somehow
manipulated the findings of intelligence analysts. In fact, two bipartisan
investigations probed for such evidence and said they found none. So Dean's
claim that intelligence was "corrupted" is unsupported.

But while official investigators have found no evidence
that Bush manipulated intelligence, they never took up the question
of whether the President and his top aides manipulated the public,
something Bush also denies.

In fact, before the war Bush and others often downplayed or omitted any
mention of doubts about Saddam's nuclear program. They said Saddam might
give chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons to terrorists,
although their own intelligence experts said that was unlikely. Bush also
repeatedly claimed Iraq had trained al Qaeda terrorists in the use of
poison gas, a story doubted at the time by Pentagon intelligence analysts.
The claim later was called a lie by the al Qaeda detainee who originally
told it to his US interrogators.

Analysis

The latest round of this continuing partisan dispute started Nov. 11, when
Bush said in a Veterans' Day speech:

Bush: While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the
conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of
how that war began. Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming
we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why
we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate
investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the
intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs.

They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed
with our assessment of Saddam Hussein. They know the United Nations passed
more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of
weapons of mass destruction. . . . That's why more than a hundred
Democrats in the House and the Senate -- who had access to the same
intelligence -- voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power.

What Was Congress Told?

The intelligence to which Bush refers is contained in a top-secret
document that was made available to all members of Congress in October
2002, days before the House and Senate voted to authorize Bush to use
force in Iraq. This so-called National Intelligence Estimate was supposed
to be the combined US intelligence community's "most authoritative written
judgment concerning a specific national security issue," according to the
Senate Intelligence Committee. The report was titled "Iraq's Continuing
Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction."

Though most of the document remains classified, the "Key Judgments"
section and some other paragraphs were cleared and released publicly in
July, 2003. The most recent and complete version available to the public
can be read on the [http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB129/]
website of George Washington University's National Security Archive, which
got it from the CIA under the Freedom of Information Act.

The NIE as declassified and released by the CIA says pretty much what Bush
and his aides were saying publicly about Iraq's weapons - nearly all
of which turned out to be wrong:

CIA Release of NIE, October 2002: We judge that Iraq has continued its
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs in defiance of UN resolutions
and restrictions. Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as
missiles with ranges in excess of UN restrictions. If left unchecked it
probably will have a nuclear weapon within this decade.

Chemical Weapons: The CIA document expressed no doubt that Iraq had large
stocks of chemical weapons. "We assess that Baghdad has begun renewed
production of mustard, sarin, GF (cyclosarin), and VX," it said. "Saddam
probably has stocked at least 100 metric tons (MT) and possibly as much as
500 MT of CW agents - much of it added in the last year." ("CW" refers to
"chemical warfare" agents.)

Biological Weapons: The document also said "we judge" that Iraq had an
even bigger germ-warfare program than before the first Gulf War in 1991.
"We judge Iraq has some lethal and incapacitating BW agents and is capable
of quickly producing and weaponizing a variety of such agents, including
anthrax, for delivery by bombs, missiles, aerial sprayers, and covert
operatives," the report said. ("BW" refers to "biological warfare.")

Nuclear Weapons: The document also said "most" US intelligence agencies
believed that some high-strength aluminum tubes that Iraq had purchased
were intended for use in centrifuge rotors used to enrich uranium, and
were "compelling evidence" that Saddam had put his nuclear weapons program
back together.

On the matter of the tubes, however, the report noted that there was some
dissent within the intelligence community. Members of Congress could have
read on page 6 of the report that the Department of Energy "assesses that
the tubes are probably not" part of a nuclear program.

Some news reports have said this caveat was "buried" deeply in the 92-page
report, but this is not so. The "Key Judgments" section begins on page 5,
and disagreements by the Department of Energy and also the State
Department are noted on pages 5,6,8 and 9, in addition to a reference on
page 84.

Though much has been made recently of doubts about the tubes, it should be
noted that even the Department of Energy's experts believed Iraq did have
an active nuclear program, despite their conclusion that the tubes were
not part of it. Even the DOE doubters thought Saddam was working on a
nuclear bomb.

Connection to terrorism.

On one important point the National Intelligence Estimate offered
little support for Bush's case for war, however. That was the likelihood
that Saddam would give chemical or biological weapons to terrorists for
use against the US.

Al Qaeda: The intelligence estimate said that - if attacked and "if
sufficiently desperate" - Saddam might turn to al Qaeda to carry out an
attack against the US with chemical or biological weapons. "He might
decide that the extreme step of assisting the Islamist terrorist in
conducting a CBW attack against the United States would be his last chance
to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him," the NIE
said.

The report assigned "low confidence" to this finding, however, while
assigning "high confidence" to the findings that Iraq had active chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons programs, and "moderate confidence" that
Iraq could have a nuclear weapon as early as 2007 to 2009.

That was the intelligence available to Congress when the House passed the
Iraq resolution Oct. 10, 2002 by
a [http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2002/roll455.xml] vote of 296-133. The
Senate passed it in the wee hours of Oct. 11, by
a
[http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cf
m?congress=107&session=2&vote=00237]
vote of 77-23. A total of 81 Democrats in the House and 29 Democrats in
the Senate supported the resolution, including some who now are saying
Bush misled them.

A point worth noting is that few in Congress actually studied the
intelligence before voting. The Washington Post reported: "The lawmakers
are partly to blame for their ignorance. Congress was entitled to view the
92-page National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq before the October 2002
vote. But . . . no more than six senators and a handful of House members
read beyond the five-page executive summary."

"Corrupted" Intelligence?

On all key points, of course, that National Intelligence Estimate turned
out to be wrong. No stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons have been
found, nor any evidence that Saddam had an active program to enrich uranium
or make nuclear weapons. The aluminum tubes turned out to be for use in
Iraqi rockets, just as the Department of Energy experts had argued.

That has led to claims that intelligence was deliberately slanted to
justify the war in Iraq. On NBC's Meet the Press Nov. 13, Democratic
National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said the intelligence given to
Congress was "corrupted" and that Bush withheld information.

Dean: The intelligence was corrupted, not just because of the
incompetence of the CIA; it was corrupted because it was being changed
around before it was presented to Congress . Stuff was taken out and not
presented. All of this business about weapons of mass destruction, there
was significant and substantial evidence . . . that said, "There is a
strong body of opinion that says they don't have a nuclear program, nor do
they have weapons of mass destruction." And that intelligence was not given
to the Congress of the United States.

NBC's Tim Russert: It was in the National Intelligence Estimate, as a
caveat by the State Department.

Dean: It was, a very small one, but the actual caveat that the White House
got were (sic) much, much greater. And the deputy to Colin Powell, Lawrence
Wilkerson, just said so. He just came out and said so.

On this point Dean is incorrect . Wilkerson, who was State Department
chief of staff during Bush's first term, actually said there was an
"overwhelming" consensus within the intelligence community. He said the
State Department dissented only regarding a nuclear program, not about
whether Saddam possessed chemical and biological weapons.

Wilkerson, Oct. 19, 2005: And people say, well, INR (the State
Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research) dissented. That's a
bunch of bull. INR dissented that the nuclear program was up and
running. That's all INR dissented on. They were right there with the
chems and the bios.

. . . The consensus of the intelligence community was overwhelming. I can
still hear (CIA Director) George Tenet telling me, and telling my boss
(Colin Powell) in the bowels of the CIA, that the information we were
delivering . . . (He) was convinced that what we were presented was
accurate.

Wilkerson, it should be noted, is no apologist for Bush. This excerpt
comes from the same speech in which Wilkerson went public with a
well-publicized complaint that decisions leading up to the war were made
by a "cabal" between Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, and "a President who is not versed in international relations
and not too much interested in them either."

Previously, two bipartisan commissions investigated and found no evidence
of political manipulation of intelligence.

In 2004 the Senate Intelligence Committee said, in a report adopted
unanimously by both Republican and Democratic members:

Senate Intelligence Committee: The Committee did not find any evidence
that intelligence analysts changed their judgments as a result of
political pressure, altered or produced intelligence products to conform
with Administration policy, or that anyone even attempted to coerce,
influence or pressure analysts to do so. When asked whether analysts were
pressured in any way to alter their assessments or make their judgments
conform with Administration policies on Iraq's WMD programs, not a single
analyst answered "yes." (p273)

A later bipartisan commission, co-chaired by Republican appeals-court
judge Laurence Silberman and a Democratic former governor and senator from
Virginia, Charles Robb, issued a report in March, 2005 saying:

Silberman-Robb Report: These (intelligence) errors stem from poor
tradecraft and poor management. The Commission found no evidence of
political pressure to influence the Intelligence Community's pre-war
assessments of Iraq's weapons programs. As we discuss in detail in the
body of our report, analysts universally asserted that in no instance did
political pressure cause them to skew or alter any of their analytical
judgments. We conclude that it was the paucity of intelligence and poor
analytical tradecraft, rather than political pressure, that produced the
inaccurate pre-war intelligence assessments.

Although the Silberman-Robb commission was appointed by President Bush, it
included prominent Democrats and Republican Sen. John McCain, whom Bush
defeated for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000.

Misleading the Public?

Neither the Senate Intelligence Committee nor the Silberman-Robb
commission considered how Bush and his top aides used the intelligence
that was given to them, or whether they misled the public. The Senate
Intelligence Committee is supposed to take that up in "phase two" of its
investigation - and there's plenty to investigate.

Vice President Cheney, for example, said this on NBC's Meet the Press
barely a month before Congress voted to authorize force:

Cheney, Sept. 8, 2002: But we do know, with absolute certainty, that he
(Saddam) is using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs
in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon.

As we've seen, that was wrong. Department of Energy and State Department
intelligence analysts did not agree with the Vice President's claim, which
turned out to be false. Cheney may have felt "absolute certainty" in his
own mind, but that certainty wasn't true of the entire intelligence
community, as his use of the word "we" implied.

Similarly, the President himself said this in a speech to the nation, just
three days before the House vote to authorize force:

Bush, Oct. 7, 2002: We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members
in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases . And we know that after
September the 11th, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the
terrorist attacks on America.

Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical
weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with
terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving
any fingerprints.

That statement is open to challenge on two grounds. For one thing, as
we've seen, the intelligence community was reporting to Bush and Congress
that they thought it unlikely that Saddam would give chemical or
biological weapons to terrorists - and only "if sufficiently desperate"
and as a "last chance to exact revenge" for the very attack that Bush was
then advocating.

Furthermore, the claim that Iraq had trained al Qaeda in the use of poison
gas turned out to be false, and some in the intelligence community were
expressing doubts about it at the time Bush spoke. It was based on
statements by a senior trainer for al Qaeda who had been captured in
Afghanistan. The detainee, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, took back his story in
2004 and the CIA withdrew all claims based on it. But even at the time
Bush spoke, Pentagon intelligence analysts said it was likely al-Libi was
lying.

According to newly declassified documents, the Defense Intelligence Agency
said in February 2002 - seven months before Bush's speech - "it is . . .
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. . . . Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of
Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide
assistance to a group it cannot control." The DIA's doubts were revealed
Nov. 6 in newly
declassified
[http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2005/DIAletter.102605.pdf]
documents made public by Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, a member
of the Intelligence Committee.

Whether or not Bush was aware of the Pentagon's doubts is not yet clear.

Sources

[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/11/20051111-1.html]
Transcript:"President Commemorates Veterans Day, Discusses War on Terror,"
Tobyhanna Army Depot, Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, The White House 11 Nov 2005.

[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9967566/] Transcript: "Transcript for
November 13: Guests: His Majesty King Abdullah II, Hashemite Kingdom
of Jordan; Ken Mehlman, Chairman, Republican National Committee; and
Howard Dean, Chairman, Democratic National Committee," Meet the Press,
NBC, 13 November 2005.

Select Committee On Intelligence, United States Senate,
" [http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/iraq.html] Report On The
U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq ," 7
July 2004.

The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States
Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction,
" [http://www.wmd.gov/report/report.html] Report to the President of the
United States ," 31 March 2005.
Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus, "
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/11/AR200511110
1832_pf.html]
Asterisks Dot White House's Iraq Argument," The Washington Post , 12 Nov
2005; A1.

Central Intelligence Agency, NIE 2002-16HC, "
[http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB129/nie.pdf] National
Intelligence Estimate : Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass
Destruction," October 2002. Redacted, declassified version released under
Freedom of Information Act to George Washington University's National
Security Archive, posted 9 July 2004.

[http://www.newamerica.net/Download_Docs/pdfs/Doc_File_2644_1.pdf]
Transcript, Remarks of former State Department chief of staff Lawrence
Wilkerson, New America Foundation, Washington DC, 19 Oct. 2005.

Judd Legum, Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney Amanda Terkel, Payson Schwin &
Christy Harvey, "
[http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=klLWJcP7H
&b=914257&ct=1603133]
Bush's Reverse Slam Dunk," The Progress Report, American Progress Action
Fund 14 Nov 2005.

"Vice President Dick Cheney discusses 9/11 anniversary, Iraq, nation's
economy and politics 2002," Transcript, Meet the Press, NBC, 8 Sep 2002.

[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021007-8.html]
Transcript: "President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat," Remarks by the
President on Iraq, Cincinnati Museum Center - Cincinnati Union
Terminal,Cincinnati, Ohio, 7 Oct 2002.

"Levin Says Newly Declassified Information Indicates Bush Administration's
Use of Pre-War Intelligence Was
Misleading," [http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/release.cfm?id=248339]
press
release with
[http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/supporting/2005/DIAletter.102605.pdf]
supporting documents, office of Sen. Carl Levin 6 Nov 2005.

This message was sent by: FactCheck.org, 320 National Press Building,
Washington, DC 20045
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Cuban jazz hero makes his New York club debut at 87

by Larry Blumenfeld
November 18th, 2005 7:43 PM


Bebo Valdés
Village Vanguard
November 13



Lorraine Gordon trumped George Bush. State Department policy won't allow musicians to travel from Cuba to the U.S. So Gordon, who couldn't pack her Village Vanguard again by booking Havana-based pianist Chucho Valdés, upped the ante: a weeklong engagement by Chucho's dad, Bebo, who left Cuba shortly after Castro's revolution and has lived in Sweden since 1963.

The elder Valdés, a pianist, made his Vanguard debut at 87, in duet with Spanish bassist Javier Colina. He brought along much of the Cuban-music history he helped set in motion. Mambo pioneer Valdés also played on the earliest known Cuban jazz recordings, 1952 descarga sessions for Mercury. He was the Tropicana's house pianist during its Havana heyday.

Though he played mostly in obscurity after resettling in Sweden, Valdés now enjoys fresh success. His scene-stealing appearances in Calle 54, Fernando Trueba's 2000 Latin jazz documentary, prompted a series of recordings.Lagrimas Negras, with flamenco singer Diego El Cigala, was an international hit in 2003. The career-spanning Bebo De Cuba, which features one CD each for a small group and big band, recently earned Valdés his fourth Latin Grammy in three years.

Tapes rolled for another CD at the Vanguard's basement room on Sunday. Yet Valdés's 90-minute set felt like a parlor recital. Cuban virtuosos typically spill out their talent in overwhelming waves, but Valdés played disarmingly soft passages punctuated by a chiming octave here and there. His short pieces covered much ground: original compositions from those 1952 sessions; his big-band hit "Ritmando Cha Cha Cha"; the Arsenio Rodriguez classic "Dile a Catalina." He wove speedy runs and convincing boogie-woogie into Bill Evans's "Waltz for Debbie," and achieved tender climax with two tunes composed by his hero, Ernesto Lecuona.

Nothing could match Valdés's duet with Cachao in Calle 54, but Colina proved a sensitive partner who benefited from the subtle ingenuity of the pianist's comping. The two capped the program with "Lagrimas Negras," which they recorded together. Then Valdés sat back down for a quick "Tuxedo Junction." Maybe it was a coy reference to the Cuban-American crossing point he'd put on the map. Or just a nod and a wink before goodnight.

Kansas Board of Education approved Science Book.

Crooks and Cronies, cont....

The New York Times
November 19, 2005
About New York
A Lapse in Judgment, Capitalized
By DAN BARRY

BERNARD B. KERIK, who once led the police force of this city, uses such convoluted language on the Web site for his consulting company - "an internationally respected global provider of Homeland Security and industrial security services" - that he all but challenges us to crack the code. Having been trained in the Ovaltine school of decoding, we accept.

The Web site describes his company this way: "Born from decades of public service at the highest levels and steeped in universally heralded crisis management experience honed during one of America's darkest hours, THE KERIK GROUP provides an international clientele with unparalleled Homeland Security solutions."

Assume for argument's sake that this approximates English. Now, note how the phrase "homeland security" is always capitalized. If we were to capitalize every word, We Would Go Mad. But Mr. Kerik grants uppercase status to homeland security to signal that He Means Business.

The Web site also boasts that President Bush nominated Mr. Kerik to become his Secretary of Homeland Security. Impressive, the reader thinks. Must mean that this guy is really quali-hey, that rings a bell. O.K., long story short:

Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani recommends his business partner and former police commissioner and President Bush makes the announcement, and everyone is like, yay, Bernie, but then Bernie tells the president he can't head the agency that oversees immigration because he has a little tax problem with his nanny, and then Rudy is all like, I'm sorry, and the White House says yeah, well, and Bernie's other, uh, errors in judgment become public and he resigns from Rudy Inc. and is all like, crying, but like a man, not like a baby.

Then Mr. Kerik created The Kerik Group. Where Homeland Security Is Always Uppercased. Note too the phrase, "honed during one of America's darkest hours." This is code for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, after which Mr. Kerik was glued to Mr. Giuliani's side during news conferences. A Republican close to the White House even suggested at the time that it had nominated Mr. Kerik because he had that "9/11 glow."

The Web site, which flashes photographs of Mr. Kerik with President Bush and with Mayor Giuliani at ground zero, over and over again, also lists "pre-employment screening" among The Kerik Group's client services. Too bad the agency wasn't around in 2000, when Mr. Giuliani could have used such services to vet its next police commissioner, Bernard B. Kerik.

Earlier this week, New Jersey officials cited Mr. Kerik in court papers as an example of why a company with apparent mob connections should be banned from work in Atlantic City casinos. This is worth repeating: They presented THE FORMER POLICE COMMISSIONER OF NEW YORK CITY as the classic knot-headed public official who thinks his new friends like him for who he is, not what he is.

In 1999 and 2000, the officials said, when Mr. Kerik was the city's correction commissioner - but not yet police commissioner - a mob-connected company paid for extensive renovations to his Bronx apartment when it was seeking a license to do business with the city. The worth of the work amounted to more than $200,000, they said, although Mr. Kerik paid only $17,800.

MR. KERIK was unavailable for comment because he is consulting in bomb-rattled Jordan this week, although he briefly returned to New York the other night to attend the Country Music Awards in Madison Square Garden.

His lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, called these allegations "old news," because Mr. Kerik has already "copped" to certain lapses of judgment. He said Mr. Kerik paid $30,000 for the work, and was unaware of any involvement by the company owners, Frank and Peter DiTommaso, who have denied the charge. And, he said, the DiTommasos never got that city license, puncturing any suggestion of a quid pro quo. "Bernie doesn't know whether a handle is brass-plated or gold," he added. "He got the bills, and he paid them, period, end of story."

A few months after his apartment's extreme makeover, Mr. Kerik became police commissioner. If only his "internationally respected" consulting group had been around back then to ask questions on behalf of an administration that often boasted of its intolerance for the mob.

Q: Mr. Kerik, you have a very nice kitchen. Love that granite countertop. And the bathroom is to die for. You paid only $17,800 for all this? A: $30,000, actually.

Q: Still. Nicely done. One more question. You got a number for this contractor?

E-mail: dabarry@nytimes.com

Our Father, Who Ain't In Heaven.....

The Greedy Opportunist's Party
worships at the altar of Tricky Dick.

Even a Blind Man Will See Thru This

From MyDD.com

The Murtha Resolution
by Scott Shields

The big talk floating around right now, everywhere from Drudge to Kos, is that there will be a vote in the House, tonight at 7PM, designed specifically by the Republican leadership to force Democrats to on the record about the Iraq War. Here's the language of the resolution, courtesy of The Hotline Blog.

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.

Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.

But it's not actually Murtha's resolution that they'll be voting on. They've completely gutted and rewritten it. Here is the actual text of Murtha's resolution, which will not be up for a vote tonight.

Whereas Congress and the American People have not been shown clear, measurable progress toward establishment of stable and improving security in Iraq or of a stable and improving economy in Iraq, both of which are essential to "promote the emergence of a democratic government";

Whereas additional stabilization in Iraq by U, S. military forces cannot be achieved without the deployment of hundreds of thousands of additional U S. troops, which in turn cannot be achieved without a military draft;

Whereas more than $277 billion has been appropriated by the United States Congress to prosecute U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan;

Whereas, as of the drafting of this resolution, 2,079 U.S. troops have been killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom;

Whereas U.S. forces have become the target of the insurgency,

Whereas, according to recent polls, over 80% of the Iraqi people want U.S. forces out of Iraq;

Whereas polls also indicate that 45% of the Iraqi people feel that the attacks on U.S. forces are justified;

Whereas, due to the foregoing, Congress finds it evident that continuing U.S. military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the people of Iraq, or the Persian Gulf Region, which were cited in Public Law 107-243 as justification for undertaking such action;

Therefore be it

1) Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in

2) Congress assembled,

3) That:

4) Section 1. The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is

5) hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable

6) date.

7) Section 2. A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S Marines

8) shall be deployed in the region.

9) Section 3 The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq

10) through diplomacy.

My advice to the entire Democratic caucus is to not take the bait. The entire caucus should abstain from voting altogether. And the Republicans should be called out for their bullying tactics. The Democrats must make it clear to anyone who will listen that this "Murtha vote" is not a vote on the Murtha resolution at all, but rather a caricature of his resolution, thrown together by hot headed Republicans, eager to jam up the opposition.

The Democrats have recently been wrongfully accused of playing politics with the war for doing nothing more than demanding accountability and results. Now, at the height of hypocrisy, the Republican Party is putting on the table a two sentence resolution that mocks perhaps the most serious issue of our day. There should be a vote on the Murtha resolution -- the real Murtha resolution. And that vote should be held after there has been time for open debate on the merits of the actual resolution. Some Democrats would vote yes, some would vote no. I'm sure there would be legitimate reasons for both.

But this isn't about legitimate debate or serious policy formation. The is the House Republicans going off half-cocked with a hurry-up vote designed not to help the troops, but instead to muddy the waters of the debate. This vote puts the hypocrisy and immaturity of the Republican Party on display for all to see.

Democrats :: Fri Nov 18th, 2005 at 04:55:48 PM EDT :: 13 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving from The GOP (Greedy Oilmen Party)

House OKs budget cuts,
Billions trimmed from social services.

GOP Lawmakers Float Ethics Probe of Murtha

By John Bresnahan
Roll Call Staff
Friday, Nov. 18

Republican lawmakers say that ties between Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and his brother’s lobbying firm, KSA Consulting, may warrant investigation by the House ethics committee.

What did you expect? "Welcome sonny," "Make yourself at home," "Marry my daughter." You've got to remember, that these are just simple farmers, these are people of the land, the common clay of the new west. You know . . . morons

Don't Know Much About History, Don't Know Much About Biology..

Woodward's disgrace

He was once a great journalist, but his obsession with "access" turned him into a palace courtier and shill for the GOP.
By Joe Conason

Nov. 19, 2005 | Forced to reveal his strange secret about the Valerie Plame case, Bob Woodward has humiliated his trusting bosses at the Washington Post and exposed something rotten at the center of journalism's national elite. By withholding critical information from the Post's editors and pretending to be a neutral observer, Woodward badly compromised the values that he and his newspaper once embodied. A living symbol of the great constitutional role of a free press -- to hold government accountable -- has evidently degenerated into another obedient appendage of rogue officialdom.

With his relentless pursuit of "access," the literary formula that has brought him so much money and fame, Woodward placed book sales above journalism. Boasting of his friendly relationship with the president who facilitated his interviews with administration officials, he now behaves like the journalistic courtiers of the Nixon era.

To those who have observed Woodward's career since the glory of Watergate, including readers of his many bestselling books, the change in his role and outlook have long been obvious. For him, the cultivation of high-ranking sources is the very essence of journalism. And while there is no question that reporters owe a duty of confidentiality to their sources, it is also true that they owe candor to their colleagues and transparency to their readers.

Sadly, Woodward not only served as a silent accomplice of the Bush White House in its attack on Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, but went much further by publicly criticizing special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of that attack -- and suggested repeatedly, up to the eve of the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, that the investigation should be curtailed. Now, instead, his own admission of involvement may have figured in Fitzgerald's indication Friday that he plans to call a new grand jury in the case.

Indeed, Woodward abused his position as a journalistic authority on intelligence and national security issues to denigrate the Fitzgerald probe. Last July 7, on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air," he claimed to know that the outing of Plame's identity had created "no national security threat" and "no jeopardy to her life." He went on to mock the case: "There was no nothing. When I think all of the facts come out in this case, it's going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great." He didn't say then how he supposedly knew what consequences did or didn't flow from the CIA operative's exposure.

Ten days later, on CNN, Woodward told host (and Post colleague) Howard Kurtz that he didn't think any crime had been committed. He went on to complain about how long the leak investigation had taken. "The special prosecutor has been working 18 months. Eighteen months into Watergate we knew about the tapes. People were in jail." That kind of spin is more worthy of a Republican pundit than a Post editor (and of course Woodward never complained about the extraordinary length and expense of Kenneth Starr's Whitewater investigation, presumably because the sources in that case were leaking to the Post).

Woodward reiterated his exoneration of the White House on Oct. 27 -- and on that occasion, he told CNN's Larry King that he knew the CIA had completed its own assessment of the affair and found that no damage had been done in exposing Valerie Plame Wilson.

Only two days later, however, his own newspaper reported that the CIA had performed no formal damage assessment -- a process that doesn't begin until after any criminal investigation is finished. And Woodward neglected to tell King's audience that the CIA had originally demanded that the Justice Department investigate the leak because of its potentially serious effects on national security.

Those misleading remarks were only exceeded by his disingenuous statements about how the leak might have occurred. Denying that there had been a "smear campaign," he assured King that "when the story comes out, I'm quite confident we're going to find out that it started kind of as gossip, as chatter."

Of course, Woodward knew then how the leak began, in very specific terms, and used his privileged position to help promote the Republican line. (For a full catalog of Woodward's media misbehavior in this case, see MediaMatters.org.)

According to the Post's ombudswoman, Deborah Howell, the public is now outraged over Woodward's conduct. They are confused by his actions and unconvinced by his explanations, which are contradicted by the timeline of the investigation. Post executive editor Leonard Downie, who bravely engaged in a chat with angry readers on Friday, was reduced to offering testimonials about Woodward's truthful character and bromides about his exceptional record.

"Bob Woodward never lied," declared Downie. Yet at another point in the same conversation, the Post editor conceded that a reader was "correct" in saying Woodward had been "dishonest in the extreme" and "probably destroyed his credibility." Those consequences of his "mistake," said Downie, would have to be measured against "Bob's exceptional record."

So will the contents of Woodward's next book on the Bush administration.