June 19, 2004

Titles aren't copyrightable.

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Moore Film Title Angers Author Bradbury

Sat Jun 19, 5:52 AM ET

By PAUL CHAVEZ, Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES - Ray Bradbury is demanding an apology from filmmaker Michael Moore (news) for lifting the title from his classic science-fiction novel "Fahrenheit 451" without permission and wants the new documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" to be renamed.

"He didn't ask my permission," Bradbury, 83, told The Associated Press on Friday. "That's not his novel, that's not his title, so he shouldn't have done it."

The 1953 novel, widely considered Bradbury's masterpiece, portrays an ugly futuristic society in which firemen burn homes and libraries in order to destroy the books inside and keep people from thinking independently.

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Latest Texas education whine: suburban victimhood
By RUBEN NAVARRETTE / The Dallas Morning News

From school finance to desegregation to affirmative action, Texans make education policy more complicated than it needs to be.

For instance, who knew that attending an elite high school could be considered a disadvantage?

That's how some wealthy and well-connected parents see it now that their children have suffered the indignity of being ranked below the top 10th percentile of their graduating class. That sort of thing matters in a state with a "10 percent plan."

In Texas, students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school class are guaranteed admission to the public college or university of their choice.

That's simple enough, but getting even this far was anything but simple. After the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Hopwood decision banned racial preferences at the University of Texas, legislators dreamed up the 10 percent plan to maintain racial and ethnic diversity. It worked. Now UT officials say that the incoming freshman class is more diverse than any other since before the decision.

But there are new protests. Wealthy parents insist that it's not fair that kids who went to rural and inner-city schools are admitted to the University of Texas or Texas A&M while their own children, who they say attend more competitive public and private schools, are turned away. The parents claim that their kids are being unfairly penalized for going to "better schools."

I've heard it all now. I understand people being discriminated against because of race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. But are we now expected to believe that someone can be discriminated against because their own academic achievements put them outside the top 10 percentile?

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Phyllis Powell: Junking affirmative action would cost us
Less-prepared graduates,fewer federal dollars will result from ballot move

What really happens if affirmative action is eliminated in Michigan? The Michigan Court of Appeals recently overturned an earlier ruling and will allow a petition drive to put on the ballot a plan to end affirmative action at public universities and other agencies.

Eliminating affirmative action would devastate education and business in Michigan. We need to educate our students to work in a global economy. We cannot afford to do less.

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Court's door open for more voucher cases

The Supreme Court says federal courts can review a state tax plan benefiting parochial schools.

By Warren Richey | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

WASHINGTON – The US Supreme Court has set the stage for a new round of contentious litigation over the constitutionality of providing public tax revenue to parochial schools.

Two years ago in a landmark decision, the high court upheld a school voucher program in Cleveland against allegations that it violated the separation of church and state. This week, the justices opened the door for what may become the next major test of the high court's emerging jurisprudence dealing with government aid to religious schools.

The case involves a federal court challenge to a tax-credit program that primarily benefits parochial schools in Arizona. At issue in Hibbs v. Winn was whether federal courts have jurisdiction to hear cases challenging the state tax-credit program.

In the 5-to-4 decision Monday that surprised many legal analysts, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, joined the court's liberal wing to provide the decisive fifth vote necessary to uphold a federal appeals court ruling that Arizona's tax-credit setup can be challenged in federal court.

The decision is an important victory for those seeking to outlaw tax-credit and school-voucher plans as impermissible government entanglement with religion. At the same time it is a major setback to supporters of public aid to parochial schools.

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Activists Hold Hip-Hop Political Convention
Sat Jun 19, 2004 07:54 PM ET

By Christine Kearney
NEWARK, N.J. (Reuters) - Young black Americans -- the "hip-hop generation" -- need to turn their emotional rhetoric into political action, most importantly by voting on Election Day, a gathering of black activists said on Saturday.

The activists were among 3,000 people who met in Newark, New Jersey, for the National Hip-Hop Political Convention, which ended on Saturday. Their mission: educate, motivate and unite young black Americans so they can elect more black politicians.

Bakari Kitwana, 37, author and co-founder of the convention, defined the "hip-hop generation" as blacks born between 1965 and 1984, but said it extends to anyone who listens to hip-hop music.

Through a series of workshops -- including "How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office," "Why Vote: Voices on the Criminal Justice System," and "Why We Don't Have Any Money: Reparations, Gentrification and Your Bad-A-- Credit" -- the grass-roots meeting also tried to develop a political agenda for the hip-hop generation and identify potential leaders.

Organizers did not officially endorse specific candidates.

"Eminem's first album sold 1.7 million in the first week. ... We want to take those numbers and consumers and translate them into a concrete, identifiable voting block ... that cuts across race, class, age and sexual orientation," Kitwana said.

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'Juneteenth' Fest Draws Black Filmmakers
By The Associated Press

DALLAS - Young black filmmakers are traveling to northern Texas this week as organizers of the Juneteenth Film Festival search for the next Spike Lee.

The five-day festival features celebrities including Steve Harvey and Erykah Badu , more than 20 original films and $50,000 in scholarships.

"We are focused on trying to attract the quality and depth of films that touch on the subjects of freedom, independence and racial issues," said Kennedy Barnes, a member of the festival's board of directors. "We encouraged the student filmmakers to submit films that were motivational or inspirational in keeping with the message of Juneteenth."

Juneteenth, or June 19, is the day in 1865 that Union General Gordon Granger read the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston. That freed about 250,000 slaves in Texas — 2 1/2 years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the proclamation.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of Juneteenth becoming a Texas state holiday, and 25 other states also recognize the day.

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Cynthia Tucker has an editorial about how the "Free Market" is pricing health care out of the reach of too many folks.

She opens with a line about capitalism being the official state religion. This is literally true, IMO, and I've been saying it for years.

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Bush has misled Americans on Iraq
Financial Times; Jun 18, 2004

The congressional commission investigating the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US has concluded that there is no evidence to support the Bush administration's thesis that Saddam Hussein helped Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation carry them out. This conclusion, emerging from a strong tradition of congressional oversight, could be taken further.

The evidence the administration produced to demonstrate the link was, at best, spurious, at worst, fabricated. This is not a small matter, especially in the context of the Bush team's case for its war of choice against Iraq.

The first public justification for the war was that the Iraqi dictator possessed weapons of mass destruction with which he could dominate his neighbours and threaten the west. This was always an exaggeration. There was some reason to believe he had residual chemical and biological weapons, but none whatsoever to suggest he had reconstituted a nuclear arms programme. As we now know, no WMD of any description have been found; not one US assertion to the United Nations Security Council by Colin Powell, secretary of state, in February last year, has been substantiated.

The second public justification - which was wheeled on stage to distract the audience from the embarrassing absence of WMD - was that the war was about freeing Iraqis and, indeed, the Middle East from tyranny. After Falluja and Abu Ghraib, however, 92 per cent of Iraqis regard US troops as occupiers, while 2 per cent see them as liberators, according to a Coalition Provisional Authority poll.

Yet there was nothing intrinsically absurd about the WMD fears, or ignoble about opposition to Saddam's tyranny - however late Washington developed this. The purported link between Baghdad and al-Qaeda, by contrast, was never believed by anyone who knows Iraq and the region. It was and is nonsense, the sort of "intelligence" true believers in the Bush camp lapped up from clever charlatans they sponsored such as the now disgraced Ahmad Chalabi. Yet, even this week, vice-president Dick Cheney continues to assert Saddam had "long-established ties with al-Qaeda".

No wonder that, until recently, polls regularly showed more than half of Americans believed Iraq was behind the attack on New York's twin towers.

Whether the Osama and Saddam thesis was more the result of self-delusion or cynical manipulation, it - along with Washington's mismanagement of the whole Iraqi adventure - has been enormously damaging.

The Bush administration has misled the American people. It has isolated the US, as American diplomats and commanders pointed out this week. And its bungling in Iraq has given new and terrifying life to the cult of death sponsored by Osama bin Laden. Above all, it inspires little confidence it is capable of defeating the spreading al-Qaeda franchise, which always was the clear and present danger.

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After some of the comments left here, I decided such links amount to encouraging bad reasoning.

And right now I'm feeling the need to drop on eof those reminders Dr. King left laying around:

The white establishment is skilled in flattering and cultivating emerging leaders. It presses its own image on them and finally, from imitation of manners, dress and style of living, a deeper strain of corruption develops. This kind of Negro leader acquires the white man’s contempt for the ordinary Negro. He is often more at home with the middle-class white than he is among his own people. His language changes, his location changes, his income changes, and ultimately he changes from the representative of the Negro to the white man into the white man’s representative to the Negro. The tragedy is that too often he does not recognize what has happened to him.

I learned a lesson many years ago from a report of two men who flew to Atlanta to confer with a Negro civil rights leader at the airport. Before they could begin to talk, the porter sweeping the floor drew the local leader aside to talk about a matter that troubled him. After fifteen minutes had passed, one of the visitors said bitterly to his companion, “I am just too busy for this kind of nonsense. I haven’t come a thousand miles to sit and wait while he talks to a porter.”

The other replied, “When the day comes that he stops having time to talk to a porter, on that day,I will not have the time to come one mile to see him.”

To put as fine a point on it as possible, if what you're doing is bringing a message to Black folks that says we need to conform to folks who have demonstrated their disdain for us, or if you're just spewing rhetoric or if you really haven't thought your conservative thing through, you probably don't want to have a conversation with me on race or politics at all.

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Juneteenth Holiday Spreading Across U.S.
By Associated Press

12:09 PM PDT, June 18, 2004

OKLAHOMA CITY — Although the Juneteenth holiday first came about across the Red River, Oklahoma is one 13 states to celebrate the June 19 holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in Texas.

…Today, Oklahoma and 12 other states have joined Texas in making Juneteenth an official state holiday. Some have talked about making the Juneteenth a national holiday.

The first Juneteenth celebration occurred in 1865, in Galveston, Texas, when Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger landed with news that the Civil War had ended and, along with it, slavery.

President Lincoln had issued the emancipation proclamation two and a half years earlier, but the union had no power to enforce it in Texas until Granger arrived.

Three decades later, black towns in Oklahoma were popping up and an effort to make Oklahoma an all-black state went as far as Congress.

Land prospectors advertised cheap land and freedom.

"It was an opportunity for them to escape from the racism in the South, an opportunity to prove themselves to whites," said Hannibal B. Johnson, historian and author of "Acres of Aspiration: The All Black Towns in Oklahoma."

About 50 black town sites remain, while only about a dozen are still thriving communities.

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Juneteenth Not a Celebration for All
By PAM EASTON
Associated Press Writer

June 19, 2004, 7:03 AM EDT

HOUSTON -- Twenty-five years ago, Texas made June 19 -- an important date in Civil War history -- a state holiday. Today, some still remain unconvinced the day known as Juneteenth should be officially marked.

Juneteenth marks the day Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston in 1865 to share news of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves two years earlier on Jan. 1, 1863.

"It is not a real reason to celebrate in my opinion," said former U.S. Rep. Craig Washington, who was a state representative when Juneteenth became an official holiday in 1979.

"It is a celebration (marking) that we were kept ignorant for that time," said Washington, who pushed for Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday to be observed as a state holiday the year Juneteenth was approved.

"King's holiday was the big debate in 1979," said state Sen. Rodney Ellis, who said "somehow" Juneteenth emerged from the debate. "You had some members, even some of the civil rights advocates, who were offended at the notion of people who didn't want to recognize King's birthday all of the sudden deciding that they would support a Juneteenth celebration."

State Rep. Al Edwards was behind the push to designate Juneteenth as a holiday. His bill was passed on June 9, 1979.

"That was one piece of legislation that was tough to get passed," said Edwards, who encountered opposition from fellow black lawmakers. "When we passed the bill, it gave it sophistication. It became something that was done by blacks, whites and browns. It wasn't just a resolution, an observance, but an outright holiday."

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If you're going to do something in recognition of the holiday, start with a clear understanding of its history.

What is Juneteenth? ©Juneteenth.com

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation - which had become official January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive order. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance.

Later attempts to explain this two and a half year delay in the receipt of this important news have yielded several versions that have been handed down through the years. Often told is the story of a messenger who was murdered on his way to Texas with the news of freedom. Another, is that the news was deliberately withheld by the enslavers to maintain the labor force on the plantations. And still another, is that federal troops actually waited for the slave owners to reap the benefits of one last cotton harvest before going to Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. All or none of them could be true. For whatever the reason, conditions in Texas remained status quo well beyond what was statutory.

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June 18, 2004

Minority Report:

Ralph Reed Deserves a Beatdown

Today's New York Times reports that the Bush campaign is urging the Southern Baptists to do all they can to mobilize their constituency to support Dubya, short of breaking laws prohibiting tax-exempt organizations from getting involved in political campaigns. They interview Ralph Reed, the Republican strategist who led the Christian Coalition as saying:

Mr. Reed, for his part, appeared to relish any criticism of the campaign for cultivating churches, since it served to reinforce the campaign's connection to the faith. In his speech at the reception, he brought up recent criticism of the campaign over an e-mail message from Pennsylvania suggesting that supporters distribute campaign information inside the places of worship of "friendly congregations," something specialists in election law say might jeopardize their tax status.

"I, for one, believe people of faith have the same rights to participate in the political process as any other citizens," he said. "Christians should not be treated as second-class citizens."

Ralph Reed doesn't know the first goddamn thing about what second-class citizenship is about.

Read the rest, see how correct that last sentence is.

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Quote of note:

The chairman and vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission differed with Rice's characterization of their panel's findings in separate interviews with Reuters.

"We don't think there was any relationship whatsoever having to do with 9/11. Whether al Qaeda and Saddam were cooperating on other things against the United States, we don't know," Commission Chairman Thomas Kean said.

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9/11 Report Cited No Iraqi 'Control' of Qaeda - Rice
Fri Jun 18, 2004 05:33 PM ET

By David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In publishing a report that cited no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, the Sept. 11 commission actually meant to say that Iraq had no control over the network, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Friday.

As the White House strove to curb potential damage to President Bush's credibility on Iraq, his closest aide on international security denied any inconsistency between the bipartisan panel's findings and Bush's insistence that a Saddam-Qaeda relationship existed.

"What I believe the 9-11 commission was opining on was operational control, an operational relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq which we never alleged," Rice said in an interview with National Public Radio.

"The president simply outlined what we knew about what al Qaeda and Iraq had done together. Operational control to me would mean that he (Saddam) was, perhaps, directing what al Qaeda would do."

Intelligence reports of links between Saddam and the group blamed for the 2001 attacks formed a cornerstone of Bush's rationale for the invasion and occupation of the turbulent Arab country, where 833 U.S. soldiers have died after 14 months of violence.

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Global Warming Raises Stink in Britain
Fri Jun 18, 2004 11:36 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - The discovery of breeding colonies of stinkbugs in London is clear proof that global warming is a fact of life, a scientist said on Friday.
The small insect -- Nezara viridula or southern green stinkbug -- is native to far warmer climes in North America, South America and Africa and has never before been known to breed in chilly Britain, said Max Barclay, curator of beetles at London's Natural History Museum.

"A book on British bugs written in 1959 noted that the climate was too cold for stinkbugs to survive," Barclay said.

"But we have now found three breeding colonies of them here which is clear proof that the climate has changed in the last 50 years, and particularly in the last three or four," he added.

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Otherwise this would have come up in the 9/11 Commission hearings.

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Putin Says Russia Gave Bush Information on Terrorism
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 7:26 a.m. ET

ASTANA, Kazakhstan (AP) -- Russia gave the Bush administration intelligence that suggested Saddam Hussein's regime was preparing attacks against the United States and its interests abroad before the Iraq war, President Vladimir Putin said Friday.

Putin said he couldn't comment on how critical the Russians' information was in U.S. decision to invade Iraq. However, he said the intelligence didn't cause Russia to waver from its firm opposition to the war.

``Indeed, after Sept. 11, 2001, and before the start of the military operation in Iraq, the Russian special services ... received information that officials from Saddam's regime were preparing terrorist attacks in the United States and outside it against the U.S. military and other interests,'' Putin said.

``Despite that information about terrorist attacks being prepared by Saddam's regime, Russia's position on Iraq remains unchanged,'' Putin said.

Putin said Russia didn't have any information that Saddam's regime had actually been behind any terrorist acts.

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Quote of note:

WHY THIS MATTERS: The Financial Times writes, "The evidence the administration produced to demonstrate the link was, at best, spurious, at worst, fabricated. This is not a small matter, especially in the context of the Bush team's case for its war of choice against Iraq." And the ramifications are huge. The Baltimore Sun writes, "The war in Iraq is proving to be a colossal blunder. Al-Qaida had no meaningful connection to Iraq before the war, but Washington has played right into Osama bin Laden's hands by blindly sending troops into the seething desert nation."

And they can't say they weren't warned it would turn out this way.

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White House Caught in Web of Deceptions

Confronted with the 9/11 Commission's report this week, which stated there was no collaborative relationship between al Qaeda and Saddam, the White House refuses to admit  to misleading the public. President Bush said, "This administration never said that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated between Saddam and al Qaeda. We did say there were numerous contacts between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda." But he is playing semantic games which distort undisputable facts. Top officials in the Bush administration – including the president and the vice president – have repeatedly cited a collaborative relationship - not just contacts - between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda as a justification for invading Iraq. Now, after months of careful study, the bi-partisan commission investigating 9/11 says there is no credible evidence to support that claim. But instead of taking responsibility for their actions, the administration has continued to weave a web of deception. (See for yourself: Check out the American Progress Claim vs. Fact database for more statements the White House has made to push the misleading al Qaeda/Saddam theory.)

BUSH AND CHENEY TIED IRAQ TO 9/11: Time and time again, the administration did link Iraq and the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Vice President Cheney was still spinning the myth yesterday; asked if Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attack, he replied, "We don't know. You know, what the commission said is they can't find any evidence of that." On Meet the Press, Cheney said Iraq was the "geographic base of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11." Announcing major combat was over in Iraq in May 2003, President Bush said, "the battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001." Even going into the invasion of Iraq, "Bush and Cheney…sought to tie Iraq specifically to the 9/11 attacks. In a letter to Congress on March 19, 2003 -- the day the war in Iraq began -- Bush said that the war was permitted under legislation authorizing force against those who 'planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.'"

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Because the USofA has always restricted citizens' rights in an unconstitutional manner when it feels it's at war. Afterwards we've shown the same remorse and resolve not to repeat the error that a young man inspired by a hangover shows over getting drunk.

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Make sure you have rights left

We like to think all citizens of the United States of America are guaranteed certain civil and human rights. Unfortunately, that guarantee is subject to the vagaries of human judgment. At times of national crisis this nation has always reduced the protections we are "guaranteed" by law. In fact Justice Scalia has said in wartime, "the protections will be ratcheted right down to the constitutional minimum. I won't let it go beyond the constitutional minimum."

It is expected. There is historical precedent for it. Unfortunately, in every case the historic precedent has been that the impositions were deemed unnecessary and, in most cases, unconstitutional after the fact.
The first such case was the Alien and Sedition Acts which passed in 1798. The threat was a French-backed navy of privateers operating in the area around the West Indies which was threatening the expanding U.S. merchant shipping force. The Act allowed the President to order



One month later an addendum was added to the law. Section two is worth quoting in its entirety:



Under the Act the reigning Federalists party arranged for at least 25 arrests, 15 indictments, and 10 convictions—all against the minority Republicans. Among the defendants were the four leading Republican newspapers and three Republican officeholders. And when the Republicans took power in the 1800 elections, Jefferson pardoned most of them and Congress paid their fines.

It is fortunate the Act had a sunset provision, specifically expiring March 3, 1801 or there would be no need for the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act…and before you dismiss that remark as partisan hyperbole, remember that John Ashcroft's Justice Department charged Greenpeace a full fifteen months after one of their standard protest under an 1872 law:



The next such instance was President Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War…an event I've seen Conservative commentators use to support the idea of a Presidential perogative to cut into civil rights at times of war. Unfortunately, this one actually made it to the Supreme Court…also unfortunately, after the Civil War ended. And Mr. Ashcroft should heed the last paragraph of the decision:



The next major breech of civil rights took place during World War I. According to a speech given by Justice William J. Brennan, Jr.[pdf],



And of course there was the infamous interning of Japanese Americans during World War II, a case so egregious that reparations, symbolic though they may have been, were paid to survivors.

Now we find ourselves "at war" with a concept. Once again we're told we're in a situation where the "suspension" of our rights is "necessary" for national security, for the duration…of a "war" with an undefined and undefinable end. Will we as a nation allow our rights to be suspended when the odds of being struck by lightning are greater than that of being involved in a terrorist attack?

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Judge Scolds U.S. Officials Over Barring Jet Travelers

A federal district court judge upbraided the government for using "frivolous claims" to avoid disclosing its list of people who are banned from boarding aircraft because of terrorism concerns.

The June 15, 2004 ruling came in a lawsuit in which the ACLU and others are attempting to determine the criteria the Bush Administration has used to place hundreds of people on "no fly" lists. The plaintiffs are also seeking the names of those persons, and the government defendants – the Justice Department, the FBI and the Transportation Security Administration - have claimed the information is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act because it involves national security information or is otherwise exempt from disclosure.

In his ruling, Judge Charles Breyer of San Francisco said that he had privately reviewed the materials at issue and concluded that the government had not proved the information should be kept confidential in many instances. He said the withheld information included much "innocuous information," including much that was available in the public record, and ordered the government to review the material it had withheld and reconsider whether it could be properly exempted from disclosure.

The ACLU has estimated that more than 500 people in San Francisco alone have been barred from boarding places because their names were on no-fly lists; in some cases, their presence on those lists was a result of government error.

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Prosecutors Using Post-9/11 Laws To Prosecute Non-Terrorism Crimes

Federal and state prosecutors are applying anti-terrorism laws adopted after the 9/11 attacks to run-of-the-mill probes of political corruption, financial crimes and immigration fraud, according to a report by the Scripps Howard News Service.

According to the report, the Treasury Department has routinely used money-laundering provisions in the USA Patriot Act to scrutinize transactions in the private real estate market, casinos, storefront check-cashing stores and auto dealers. State prosecutors used a Virginia anti-terrorism statute making it a capital offense to be involved in more than one murder in a three-year period to sentence Washington-area snipers John Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo. In addition, the FBI has deployed Patriot Act provisions in a political corruption probe involving a Las Vegas strip bar and the Justice Department reported to Congress last year that it used the new law in probes of credit-card fraud, theft from a bank account and a kidnapping.

In the first action of its kind, the Treasury Department this year also used the Patriot Act to put Syria's largest commercial bank and two commercial banks in Myanmar on blacklists, which effectively forbids any U.S. financial institutions from doing business with them.

Peter Swire, a law school professor at Ohio State University, said criminal statutes are often broadened as prosecutors stretch to find new ways to convict people accused of wrongdoing, as was the case with racketeering laws passed in 1970. Swire noted that many Patriot Act provisions were proposals that either the White House or Congress had previously rejected as overly intrusive, and many of them are slated to expire next year unless Congress makes the changes permanent. The Department of Justice has been vigorously campaigning to keep the controversial provisions.

The ACLU and other civil rights groups are urging Congress to terminate many of these provisions, arguing that the government already has sufficient investigative tools and the controversial Patriot Act measures unnecessarily expand government power.

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U.S. Court Rules Rape is Grounds for Asylum

A federal appeals court has issued a groundbreaking decision holding that a Guatemalan woman can pursue asylum in the U.S. Ms. Ms. Garcia-Martinez was gang-raped by soldiers who believed that she and her family supported guerrilla rebels.

In a June 14, 2004 ruling, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that Reina Izabel Garcia-Martinez had "survived atrocities that most of us only experience in our nightmares," overruling an immigration judge's 2001 decision to deny her asylum claim. The Bureau of Immigration Appeals had rejected her case.

The panel say the immigration judge's ruling that Ms. Garcia–Martinez had failed to demonstrate past persecution had overlooked evidence that was "stamped on every page" of her asylum request. In her application, Ms. Garcia-Martinez said that leftist guerrillas had come to her village and forcibly conscripted young men, including her brother, who was kidnapped in 1983. She testified that a few years later, the Guatemalan military began coming to her village and, rather than protecting villagers, began beating and raping women based on their mistaken belief that villagers were aiding the guerrillas. When she was nineteen, soldiers forced their way into her house and beat her parents while three soldiers took turns beating and raping her. When Ms. Garcia-Martinez recovered from her injuries, fearing soldiers would return for her, she made her way through Mexico to San Francisco.

In 2001, an immigration judge found while she was credible, Ms. Garcia Marques had "failed to show . . . that her attack had anything to do with . . . her political opinion, her race, religion, her political affiliation or membership in a particular social group." Those are the grounds on which a claim of asylum may be based.

The Ninth Circuit's decision sharply disputed that holding, saying the immigration judge's "determination that Garcia's rape was a random criminal act, unconnected to the government, is not supported by substantial evidence."

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Time Magazine has an article titled The New Druglords, about the Colombian cocaine trade, which leads with

The war on narcoterrorism faces a new evil as Colombia's paramilitaries turn into a cocaine cartel

"The war on narcoterrorism"?

We're merging the "war on drugs" with the equally successful "war on terror"?

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THOUSANDS WHO HAVE HAD THEIR VOTING RIGHTS RESTORED MAY REMAIN ON FLORIDA PURGE LISTS

Massive Discrepancies Revealed In Two Gov’t Clemency Lists

New York, NY -- Documents obtained from the State of Florida reveal that the state’s “felon match” list for purging voters may include many of 25,585 people whose voting rights have been restored through clemency grants or pardons. Unless corrective action is taken, those wrongly placed on the purge list will be unable to vote in this year’s presidential election.

The Florida Division of Elections (DOE) attempts to identify registered voters who should be taken off the rolls because of previous felony convictions, using criminal history data supplied by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. To avoid the disfranchisement of eligible voters, people with felony convictions who have been granted clemency and had their voting rights restored must be removed from that group; otherwise, their names may be wrongly purged from the voter rolls.

According to research by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, the Florida Division of Elections database identifies 145,823 individuals who have been granted clemency since 1964. Documents obtained from the Florida Office of Executive Clemency show a different – and larger – number of records of processed clemency cases and pardons over the same period, tallying 171,408 individuals. (To obtain the State of Florida documents and source data click here.)

“What explains DOE’s apparent undercount of people whose voting rights have been restored?” asks Jessie Allen, associate counsel at the Brennan Center. “If officials at the Division of Elections know of the larger tally of people who have regained their voting rights, they should explain why they are allowing these citizens to end up on the purge lists. On the other hand, if the Clemency Office’s tally comes as news to them, they need to deal with this problem in a hurry.”

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No more ass-backward than anything else this administration has done.
'Realistic' Missile Tests Ordered
Senate Also Votes to Increase Army Troop Levels Permanently

By Helen Dewar
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 18, 2004; Page A13

The Senate ordered "realistic" tests of the Bush administration's proposed missile defense system yesterday but balked at Democratic proposals to delay deployment until the tests are conducted and to require an evaluation by an independent testing office.

The Senate also voted, 93 to 4, to increase permanently the authorized size of the Army by 20,000 troops, to 502,400. The administration has temporarily expanded Army troop levels to more than 495,000 but opposes a permanent increase. The House voted earlier to expand the Army by 30,000 and the Marines by 9,000 over three years.

The missile defense votes amounted to a go-ahead for initial deployment of the first nine ground-based missile interceptors in Alaska and California later this year and signaled likely congressional support for about $10 million for the program in next year's defense budget.

Democrats, arguing that the planned national shield may not be effective in shooting down incoming missiles, wanted to require tests of the system's operation under realistic conditions, with the results to be evaluated by the Pentagon's chief of testing, Thomas Christie, whom they regard as independent from political pressures.

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But what Ashcroft is pulling ain't no joke.

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Patriot Act Provision Invoked, Memo Says
FBI Request Came Weeks After Ashcroft Denied Using Controversial Part of Law

By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 18, 2004; Page A11

The FBI asked the Justice Department last fall to seek permission from a secret federal court to use the most controversial provision of the USA Patriot Act, four weeks after Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said that part of the law had never been used, according to government documents disclosed this week.

A one-paragraph memo -- saying the FBI wanted to use the part of the law that allows investigators in terrorism and espionage cases easier access to people's business and library records -- was in a stack of documents the government has released under court order, as debate persists over whether use of the anti-terrorism law violates civil liberties.

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3rd Graders in Poor Areas Bear the Brunt of Promotion Rules
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ELISSA GOOTMAN

Results of the citywide third-grade exams show that in the city's lowest-performing school districts, as many as a third of the eligible students failed to meet the cutoff for promotion to the fourth grade. In District 5 in Harlem and in District 16 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, one in three children subject to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's new third-grade promotion rules now face the prospect of repeating third grade and have been urged to attend summer school.

More than one in four children subject to the promotion policy similarly failed in Districts 7, 9 and 12 in the Bronx and in Districts 13, 17 and 19 in Brooklyn, according to the results. The data, released yesterday, suggested that children in impoverished, predominantly black neighborhoods were likely to be most affected by the mayor's plan.

The promotion policy calls for any third grader scoring at Level 1, the lowest of four rankings, on either the annual reading or math tests to be referred to summer school. Any student who does not score at Level 2 or higher after retaking the test in August or who does not win an appeal will have to repeat the third grade.

In all, slightly more than 17 percent of the 63,072 third graders citywide who are subject to the policy scored at Level 1 on one or both tests. More than 6,300 special education students and more than 2,300 students who do not speak English were exempt from the mayor's policy; promotion decisions for them will be based on other criteria.

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But that really ought to be restricted from use in the political scene, you know? When dealing with the strictly terrestrial one reaches a point where the evidence confirms or denies one's beliefs.

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Bush and Cheney Talk Strongly of Qaeda Links With Hussein
By DAVID E. SANGER and ROBIN TONER

Published: June 18, 2004

President Bush and Vice President Cheney said yesterday that they remain convinced that Saddam Hussein's government had a long history of ties to Al Qaeda, a day after the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported that its review of classified intelligence found no evidence of a "collaborative relationship" that linked Iraq to the terrorist organization.

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And l'il Georgie knows it. That's why he said "there is a relationship."

There was "a relationship" between pre-invasion Iraq and the USofA. But it wasn't collaborative either. Shall we shock and awe ourselves?

Quote of note:

With its historic access to government secrets, the panel was able to shed new light on old accountings, demonstrating, for example, that Mr. Bush himself, in the weeks before the attack, had received more detailed warnings about Al Qaeda's intentions than the White House had acknowledged.

…and another:

In the studies, Mr. Bush in particular has come off as less certain and decisive than he has portrayed himself.

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Questioning Nearly Every Aspect of the Responses to Sept. 11
By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, June 17 - For most of 2002, President Bush argued that a commission created to look into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks would only distract from the post-Sept. 11 war on terrorism.

Now, in 17 preliminary staff reports, that panel has called into question nearly every aspect of the administration's response to terror, including the idea that Iraq and Al Qaeda were somehow the same foe.

Far from a bolt from the blue, the commission has demonstrated over the last 19 months that the Sept. 11 attacks were foreseen, at least in general terms, and might well have been prevented, had it not been for misjudgments, mistakes and glitches, some within the White House.

In the face of those findings, Mr. Bush stood firm, disputing the particular finding in a staff report that there was no "collaborative relationship" between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist organization. "There was a relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda," Mr. Bush declared.

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So now there's no doubt about the reason the White House resisted the very creation of the 9/11 Commission and then fought mightily to restrict its operation. No doubt of the reason for harping on the lack of absolute specificity.

And the Bushista response?

At a briefing, a senior White House official sought again to turn away attention from the past. "The real issue is how do we move forward," the official said. "We've made a lot of changes since Sept. 11, because this country was simply not on war footing at the time of the attacks."

Moving forward, we have to eliminate the errors we've made. That is something the current administration has yet to do.

Between this, the exposure of a CIA operative for political reasons, the number of flat out lies and denials that have come to light, the actual war crime admitted to by Rumsfeld and the ideological domination of the administration by an ideologically bankrupt philosophy, the only reason for holding back on impeachment proceedings is that voting the Bushistas out will be faster.

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First of all, there's http://www.blacksforbush.org/, which is a useful progressive site, and there's http://blacksforbush.blogspot.com, which is a conservative site whose proprietor Scott has recently commented here. The blogroll will be redone entirely soon, but the miscategorization of the Blogspot site was significant enough that I made this adjustment immediately. Scott's been moved to the Conservatives box, and Blacks for Bush.org, the intended recipient of the "cognitive dissonance link, is both linked and named. The rest of this post exists solely to provide an immediately available response to Scott's post that was inspired by "On Tactics."

Prometheus 6 has agreed with the premise of this blog in his latest post,"we're taking bids for our votes after that from all comers". But of course as usual, the timing is not right, to quote "the Neocon thing currently in place that has to go". As always Black America showing its power needs to wait for a better time.

I don't think the premise of Scott's blog is to "[take] bids for our votes from all comers."

The time is exactly right to establish the Black constituency's power. The question is, what is the most constructive way to exercise it. The right to bear arms implies the ability to shoot oneself in the foot, and even to hold the gun backward while aiming. The correct exercise of power is not a reflexive flailing.

I've laid out my reasons to vote against Bush. None have been addressed, much less refuted. As to the specific statements made in this post, those that are even possible to consider valid interpretations of Democratic positions have been refuted numerous times elsewhere. The others:

We have a democratic presidential candidate suggesting that we lower taxes on corporations so they can pay even less than the less than their fair share they are currently paying.

We have democratic protectionist telling our trading partners to raise prices on their goods so poor black consumers can purchase fewer things with their dollars.

are hallucinatory.

We have to be concerned about the soundness of the structures we live in as well as our personal physical health. And right now the USofA is such that the basement floods during a storm (race) and the roof is on fire (warmongers). My position is, if you don't put out the fire you can't clean up after the flood or even waterproof your foundations.

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June 17, 2004

Quote of note:

At last week's hearing, Ashcroft said it was not the Justice Department's policy to define torture. But he said international rules governing treatment of detainees apply to countries, not groups like al Qaeda.

Let's assume this bit of evasion is a valid interpretation of the international rules.

The Iraq invasion is an action against a country (if you try to go with "it wasn't against the country, it was against a regime," I will vomit into your mouth).

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Senate Panel Refuses to Subpoena Torture Memos
Thu Jun 17, 2004 04:54 PM ET

By Thomas Ferraro
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A divided U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday refused to subpoena Justice Department memos on U.S. torture policy toward enemy combatants.

On a party-line vote of 10-9, the committee rejected a Democratic proposal that would have given U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft until June 24 to turn over the materials or make an acceptable claim of privilege not to do so.

Failure to have reached a negotiated agreement with the committee's top Republican and Democrat would have required Ashcroft to have turned over all the documents before July 1.

"It's a dumb-ass thing to do," Chairman Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, said in rejecting such a confrontational move, urging all sides to try instead to reach a voluntary accord.

Ashcroft refused to last week to release the memos, telling a Judiciary Committee hearing they were part of his private advice to President Bush in the war on terror.

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In a Justice Department that happens to declassify memos just in time to support a smear campaign, one can't help but occasionally wonder…

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CIA Contractor Charged in Afghan Prisoner Beating
Thu Jun 17, 2004 04:52 PM ET

By James Vicini
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A CIA contractor was arrested on Thursday for brutally beating a detainee who died at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, the first charges against a civilian in the current scandal over U.S. overseas prisoner abuse, officials said.

David Passaro, 38, a former Army Ranger who worked as a contractor for the CIA, was charged in a four-count indictment in the first case by the Justice Department since questions arose over mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Passaro was accused of using his hands, feet and a large flashlight to beat an Afghan detainee during interrogations in 2003 at the base near the town of Asadabad close to the Pakistan border.

The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury in North Carolina, charged Passaro with two counts of assault with a dangerous weapon with intent to do bodily harm and two counts of assault resulting in serious bodily injury.

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Quote of note:

Pearlstein said multiple sources reported U.S. detention centers in, among other places, Kohat in Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan, on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia and at Al Jafr prison in Jordan, where the group said the CIA had an interrogation facility.

Prisoners are also being held at the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina, and others were suspected of being held on U.S. warships

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Report Says U.S. Has 'Secret' Detention Centers
Thu Jun 17, 2004 03:43 PM ET

By Sue Pleming
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is holding terrorism suspects in more than two dozen detention centers worldwide and about half of these operate in total secrecy, said a human rights report released on Thursday.

Human Rights First, formerly known as the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, said in a report that secrecy surrounding these facilities made "inappropriate detention and abuse not only likely but inevitable."

"The abuses at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib cannot be addressed in isolation," said Deborah Pearlstein, director of the group's U.S. Law and Security program, referring to the U.S. Naval base prison in Cuba and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq where abuses are being investigated.

"This is all about secrecy, accountability and the law," Pearlstein told a news conference.

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Let me be clear about something. I've said one doesn't have to, and in fact shouldn't, overlook their other constituencies in order to acknowledge any specific one. In keeping with that, I have to say the Bushista Neocon agenda is so damaging to the overall collective that if the Republican Party adopted a pure-progressive stance on race and held to their every other policy, I would still have to vote against them.

All their promises would amount to being given a nice comfortable chair in a house they're burning down.

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June 16, 2004

Gonna get Cosby-direct for a minute.

Scott at Blacks for Bush (whose blog motto is "Earning Respect by Becoming Swing Voters!"), left his mission statement in the comments of the post immediately downpage:

Since the Democrats have failed in their mission to respect and protect their strongest supporters and ignored the black vote I have decided to vote for Bush in the following Election. For me the decision is very easy I live in NYC and NY always goes democrat so my vote is effectively useless in a presidential election. Unfortunately the sick feeling I get when I consider voting republican means that I am not a swing voter and thus elected officials ignore my needs. Over the next few months I will be investigating and sharing why Blacks should vote for Bush in 2004."

Okay, I understand this is a possible response. Obviously I've come to a different one and I'm going to explain why, or re-explain. Maybe assemble the explanation is best.

In the USofA, one has power to the degree one has a constituency. The constituency is a group of people with common interests - in sociological terms, an in-group (WARNING: there's a pop-under on the other side of that link). As such, we all belong to multiple constituencies, and I'm not suggesting how anyone should prioritize them. I am saying that everyone generally recognized as being Black has common interests. "Black people" is a natural constituency.

Again, that assertion is not intended to devalue any other constituencies one has. It is intended to insure the Black constituency is not devalued, because its unique issues will not be championed by any other constituency unless it expects to benefit as well, or all its own issues are resolved. And I feel the need to make this point up front because Black folks believe in the American "rugged individual" myth as much as any other American does. That's one reason the "Black people are not a monolith" meme that circulated about a decade ago was so successful at eroding a number of organizations. And historically, Black people often find themselves in a position where their personal well-being could be immediately secured by helping suppress the activism of other Black folks. Honestly, the term "sell-out" has as storied a history as the term "sambo."

This is a symptom of the function Black people perform for the social machine. We're like a capacitor. We gain when there's more juice in the circuit than strictly necessary to operate, and are the first to lose charge when the voltage drops (also known as last hired, first fired). We dampen the oscillations. We are ballast. This is the nature of the relationship between the collective "Black People" to the whole collective "USofA" of which it is a part. Social ostracism, denial of rights every citizen is entitled to, active suppression, all that came about in order to establish that relationship. Changing that relationship should be the overall goal and our actions as a constituency should move us ever further in that direction. And effecting a change requires the constituency to exercise power in its own behalf.

We need to be clear what power is because in my opinion "Black People" don't have but so much of it. The amount of income, wealth we have, the amount we spend and our registered voters are often called power but they are more properly called force…power is directed force. Force disrupts things, power shapes them. This makes power more effective when done right and more dangerous and damaging when done wrong.

A week ago I posted a link to a copy of Black Power Defined by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

When a people are mired in oppression, they realize deliverance only when they have accumulated the power to enforce change. the powerful never lose opportunities – they remain available to them. The powerless, on the other hand, never experience opportunity – it is always arriving at a later time.

The nettlesome task of Negroes today is to discover how to organize our strength into compelling power so that the government cannot elude our demands. We must develop, from strength, a situation in which the government finds it wise and prudent to collaborate with us. It would be the height of naivety to wait passively until the administration had somehow been infused with such blessings of good will that it implored us for our programs.

We must frankly acknowledge that in past years our creativity and imagination were not employed in learning how to develop power. We found a method in nonviolent protest that worked, and we employed it enthusiastically. We did not have leisure to probe for a deeper understanding of its laws and lines of development. Although our actions were bold and crowned with successes, they were substantially improvised and spontaneous. They attained the goals set for them but carried the blemishes of inexperience.

This is where the civil rights movement stands today. Now we must take the next major step of examining the levers of power which Negroes must grasp to influence the course of events.

It's mandatory reading for Black partisans and should be for "Black People" too because our efforts are still largely limited to this unexamined set of found techniques.

Dr. King says:

In our society power sources can always finally be traced to ideological, economic and political forces.

I note that the Black constituency has little by way of an ideology beyond "We're all equal." Once, years ago, I asked on a Black issues-oriented, and basically Black populated, mailing list if they would be upset by an advance alien race bringing rigorous proof that Black people were superior to white people. As I expected, they tried to flay me. We've focused on proving we are "as good as" that being "as good as" has become the actual goal for those who still think about it.

Our focus on political technique (in which I include judicial approaches) came about because we pretty much had no national economic power. Our local economic power existed because we were an integral part of the communities we lived in. Boycotts work when the target figures they lose more by holding their ground than by yielding somewhat, and the change in the status quo is minimal. That means boycotts (and the less effective protest marches which target morals rather than money) are not likely to force a change in our relationship to the mainstream. We still have no national economic power…we still don't compel consideration of our economic issues, largely because we haven't defined them.

The issues we've actively pursued have been social and legal. The groundwork has been laid to change the nature of the relationship between "Black People" and the greater society.

All that is prologue to considering Scott's mission statement. Because the problem is that relationship. The problem is "Black People" have not really exercised power as a constituency. And no one believes we can—thay feel we're all carrot and no stick. In fact, considerable effort is put into convincing us we have no Black constituency, that we should each melt into the other in-groups we are members of. This would probably help issues, to be honest, but would ultimately leave our unique issues unresolved (and I'm probably not talking about what you think I am).

"Black People" must see they are part of a natural constituency that must exercise power for its own benefit as all other constituencies do. We need to develop that ideology as a guide to what truly is beneficial, but a few facts stand out immediately:

• It would be to our benefit to convince the mainstream the Black constituency is capable of exercising power…of directing our force.


• Republican rhetoric has militated public opinion against "Black People"


• It would be foolish to support someone that has acted against the constituency's interests


• It would be foolish to believe someone would act in a way counter to their track record until they have established a new one. Promises should be watched, but should not motivate.

So I think at this moment, three things can be done:

1. Massively repudiate the Republican/Neocon ideology. "Black People" can not only tip the balance, we can do it decisively enough to show we can tip it either way.


2. Make it clear it's the Neocon thing currently in place that has to go, and we're taking bids for our votes after that from all comers.


3. Start working on that ideology

That first step means I have to reject Scott's approach.

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On the other hand, Juan Williams makes a seriously valid point: that Black folks could be the key to the White House if we turn out in sufficient numbers. And given that national political deadlock, those numbers don't even have to be that large (though I REALLY hope they are).

One of my favorite books, A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper by John Allen Paulos explains there are situations in which folks who think they have voting power actually don't:

…consider a corporation with four stockholders holding, respectively, 27 percent, 26 percent, 25 percent and 22 percent of the stock. Again, a simple majority is needed to pass any measure. In this case, any two of the first three stockholders can pass a measure whereas the last stockholder’s vote is never crucial to any outcome. (When the last stockholder’s 22 percent is added to any one of the first three stockholders’ percentages, the sum is less than 51 percent and any larger coalition of stockholders doesn’t require the last stockholder’s 22 percent.)

but the same sort of consideration can show there are situations where folks who think they have no voting power actually do. And in my opinion, the upcoming presidential election is one of them.

The country is not only polarized, but evenly divided—we all know that. Last numbers I saw said something like 45% progressive, 45% regressive Republican. These are hard-core positions. Now, what would happen to that balance if large numbers of Black folks voted against those they feel are actively hostile to their interest?

Think about it.

WE CAN TIP THE BALANCE.

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Bush Shouldn't Write Off the Black Vote
By JUAN WILLIAMS

WASHINGTON — With the presidential election only a few months away, it is time for President Bush to unleash his secret weapon — his relationship with black and Hispanic voters. [P6: He HAS no relationship with Black voters to speak of.]

The president is already winning a third of the popular vote among Hispanics, according to a Zogby International poll taken this spring. With advertisements and outreach focused on reforms to allow easier immigration for workers, the president has a good chance to add to his numbers among Hispanics.

But in a close race, the key to re-election rests on the president's ability to increase his percentage of the black vote. Here, he has the chance to make tremendous gains — if only because he now has practically no support among black voters. A May Washington Post/ABC News poll showed the likely Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry, with a 79 percent to 6 percent lead over Mr. Bush among black voters. If the president gets only 6 percent of the black vote this year he will have achieved the near impossible task of getting a lower percentage of black votes than he did in 2000, when he won 8 percent.[P6: Oh, yes, please unleashed that relationship. I'm begging you.]

But the president has the opportunity to flip the script. With a direct appeal, President Bush could win at least 20 percent of the black vote — and the White House.

First, the field is open. Compared with previous Democratic campaigns, Mr. Kerry's has done a poor job of reaching out to black voters. As Donna Brazile, Al Gore's campaign manager in 2000, said recently, "Don't expect me to go out and say John Kerry is a great man and a visionary if you're not running ads on African-American or Hispanic cable networks. Fair is fair. So send my dad a postcard, send my sisters a bumper sticker." The Kerry campaign has also been notable for its lack of blacks and Hispanics among the candidate's top advisers. And Mr. Kerry has rarely been identified with issues that compel black voters — notably affirmative action. [P6: Bush, on the other hand is VERY strongly identified with issues that compel Black voters — notably affirmative action.

G.W. Bush: Affirmative Action Baby
by Manning Marable
Several days before last month's national holiday celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, the Bush administration came out forcefully against affirmative action policies initiated at the University of Michigan, which soon, will be under Supreme Court review.

…The controversies over both affirmative action and Pickering's renomination led many columnists to question the administration's commitment to civil rights. One of the most thoughtful commentaries to appear was by author Roland S. Martin, which appeared in USA Today on the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. Posing the question, how would King have viewed Bush's rejection of affirmative action, Martin observed: "President Bush opposes the University of Michigan's admissions program because he views it as a quota system." "Yet he is proud to call himself a Yale graduate, even though he benefited from a quota system because of his family's history at the Ivy League school. That's right. Our own president is an affirmative action baby."

]

Third, Mr. Bush has a network to make a pitch to black voters — the black church. Despite some bumps along the way, black churches remain generally enthusiastic about the president's faith-based initiative. The president has used his appearances before faith-based groups as a way to communicate with black Americans. It was no surprise that Mr. Bush used a speech to ministers to condemn Senator Trent Lott for expressing kind words about Strom Thurmond's segregationist past.[P6: And I, at least, haven't forgotten that events have shown that to be an empty statement.]

And then there is the president's top selling point with black voters — his track record of appointing minorities to top positions. There are three black cabinet secretaries in the Bush administration: Alphonso Jackson, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development; Rod Paige, secretary of education; and Colin Powell, the secretary of state.

What's more, the administration official most closely identified with the president is a black woman, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser. By giving Ms. Rice and Mr. Powell so much clout, President Bush is miles ahead of any other president, Democrat or Republican, in his treatment of [P6: specific] black people. [P6: These people are NOT a selling point. They are, in general, considered a sell-out point.]

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Quote of note:

By 3 p.m. one recent Tuesday, immigration officials had run out of the 1,800 travel documents they issue each day. The number of applicants is likely to soar during the next few weeks when new graduates rush to leave. "I guess that 50% of them will never return to Iraq," says Emad, a passport official who asks to be identified by only his first name. "Even I would leave if I could."

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Iraq's Future? These Kids Want No Part of It
For Baghdad University's class of '04, the main ambition is finding a way out
By VIVIENNE WALT
Monday, Jun. 21, 2004

At 21, Louis Yako has an impressive resume. He speaks five languages, cites passages from Arthur Miller and Ernest Hemingway, has a fine singing voice and will graduate from Baghdad University this month with high marks in English literature. In brief, he is the kind of go-getter Iraq could sorely use in the months to come, as the U.S. occupation winds down and the newly named government tries to prove that Iraq is ready to run itself.

Like almost all his classmates, however, Yako has something else in mind: leaving Iraq. The U.S. hailed the naming of an interim government two weeks ago as a step toward an eventual withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. But the graduating seniors at Baghdad University are already plotting exit strategies of their own. Outside the school's College of Languages, two friends discussed which British graduate programs might accept them. Another student thought he might have found a job in the United Arab Emirates. Even students without concrete plans have decided to get out. "I haven't a clue where I'm going, but it will be outside Iraq," says Omar Abdul Wahab al-Samarrai, 24, an English major who grew up in Europe and Africa. For years he had his heart set on a job in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but that idea slipped away as the country descended into violent chaos. "I want a chance in life," he says. "I don't see it here."

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Inflation Doesn't Worry Greenspan Fed Chairman Says Threat Is in Check -- for Now -- and Interest Rates Can Be Raised Gradually By Nell Henderson Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, June 16, 2004; Page E01

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan yesterday played down inflation concerns after a government report showed consumer prices rose in May at the fastest monthly rate in more than three years.

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Quote of note:

Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) agreed.

"Nobody saw this coming," Lieberman said. "With 20/20 hindsight, of course, we know that if [House Speaker Dennis] Hastert hadn't let Public Law 107-306 come to the floor in November of 2002, we could have saved many of our colleagues from their sad fates."

Report: 9/11 Commission Could Have Been Prevented

WASHINGTON, DC—According to key members of the Bush Administration, the tragic proceedings of the 9/11 commission, which devastated the political lives of numerous government officials, could have been averted with preventive action in 2002 and 2003.

"A few adept legislative maneuvers could have saved the reputations of hundreds," President Bush's counterterrorism chief Fran Townsend told reporters Monday. "Had we foreseen the dangers of the commission's deceptively simple requests, we could have spared dozens of victims from the shocking, public mangling of their careers."

"It's tragic," Townsend added. "All those political futures snuffed out as millions of Americans watched on television. And to think there was a remote chance that they could've gotten our president."

Although there were only 10 commission members, they worked with shocking efficiency, and served to carry out the decisions made with the help of a much larger network of government employees.

"The frighteningly resolute faces of commission chair Thomas H. Kean and vice-chair Lee H. Hamilton are familiar after several weeks of frenzied media coverage, but the commission's roots run deeper," Townsend said. "The thing that keeps me awake at night is the number of advisors who are still out there today, secretly evaluating our policies. We have no way of knowing who might be called forth by a panel in the future."

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Back when there was some doubt that the orders to torture Iraqi prisoners came from on high, I held forth on the topic elsewhere thus:

Still, I need to remind you:

"When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his "proper place" and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary." - Dr. Carter G. Woodson

Whose thinking is better controlled than those in the military? Controlling their thinking is the central purpose of Basic Training. If the commanding officer makes clear certain results are desired, the acceptible techniques for acquisition, limits (or lack of) to execution and that rewards are forthcoming to those who help bring about the desired results…then says "go get them results," what do you think will happen?

The soldiers will do everything right up to the limit of what they understand is allowable.

Picture the conversation:
Commander: I want them results!
Military Intelligence Liason: I hear then sand niggers really hate to be nekkid in front of each other. Breaks them down.
Commander: Really. I don't care about them, I want them results!
Military Intelligence Liason: Last joint I was at, Gitmo, we really fucked them over to get what we wanted.
Commander: Really. I don't care about them, I want them results!
Assembled troops: HOOO-RAAAAUGH!

And nobody tells anybody specifically what to do.

So I have no doubt at all that Cheney wasn't intimately involved in getting Halliburton those contracts. He didn't need to be.

Anyway…
Panel to Widen Iraq Hearing
Committee to Air Former Halliburton Employees' Charges

By Ellen McCarthy and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; Page E03

A congressional committee said yesterday it will hear testimony in July from former Halliburton Co. employees who claim the company mismanaged lucrative contracts in Iraq and will invite Halliburton executives to answer lawmakers' questions about the way it charged for goods and services.

The former employees, who were not permitted to testify at yesterday's hearings of the House Committee on Government Reform, have alleged that Halliburton mismanaged contracts for work in Iraq. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) disclosed their accusations on Monday and protested their exclusion. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), the committee's chairman, said he would hold follow-up hearings next month to get testimony from the former employees.

The committee also requested documents from the Defense Department and the General Accounting Office related to the involvement of a political appointee, Michael Mobbs, in the decision to award Halliburton a contract to plan the restoration of Iraq's oil fields. Mobbs, an adviser to Douglas Feith, an undersecretary of defense, told Davis and Waxman last week that he briefed top officials -- including I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff -- before he selected Halliburton. Cheney is Halliburton's former chief executive.

However, White House officials said yesterday that Cheney was not told of the decision in advance.

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I had to add some emphasis and links to this one.

Quote of note:

That bill would cause a problem for the business community, Randel Johnson, vice president of labor, immigration and employee benefits at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said yesterday. "We would oppose the bill because it sets a precedent for paid leave which will be expensive," he said, adding that the bill would also create confusion and could spur a new onslaught of lawsuits.

And it would create confusion exactly how? Employees can count to seven. So can employers.

Anyway…

Studies Show U.S. Trails On Sick Leave
Proposed Law at Odds With Employers' Goal

By Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; Page E02

The United States lags behind the rest of the world in giving workers paid leave to stay home sick or to take care of ill family members, and almost half of all private-sector employees have no paid sick days, according to two new studies.

A report on state laws (PDF), conducted by the nonprofit National Partnership for Women & Families, was released in conjunction with legislation two Democrats proposed yesterday to provide all full-time employees with seven days of paid sick leave per year. The other study, which covers global leave laws and was funded by the Ford Foundation, will be released today.

The push for requiring paid leave comes at a time some major business groups are asking the Bush administration to head in the opposite direction by making it harder for workers to take the up to 12 weeks of unpaid family leave allowed under federal law.

"This [proposed bill] is in contrast to pious concern for the future of manufacturing when the answer is to drape more chains across the backs of employers," said Neil Trautwein, assistant vice president for human resource policy at the National Association of Manufacturers.

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June 15, 2004

No.

Comment.

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L.A.'s looking better. Both teams feel it's Showtime, though. It's going to come down to fouls again.

And offensive rebounds, apparently.

The Lakers are so tight, Missing layups and free throws.

(Did I ever mention I'm kinda tired of the Lakers? Jordan's Bulls used to annoy me too)

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Four minutes, four fouls. Not good, even with a seven point lead. Especially since two of the fouls are on Shaq. Kobe and Shaq are pros…they can hang.

But Shaq is sitting. And the lead is gone with 4:16 left in the quarter.

It's not looking good for the Lakers.

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I swear, I didn't customize the results at all other than eliminating the duplicate form. I suspect there's no bad output, but I admit I like the particular output I got.

How to make a Prometheus 6

Ingredients: 1 part pride 1 part self-sufficiency 1 part

Method: Combine in a tall glass half filled with crushed ice. Serve with a slice of lustfulness and a pinch of salt. Yum!

How to make a Earl Dunovant

Ingredients: 1 part friendliness 5 parts humour 3 parts leadership

Method: Layer ingredientes in a shot glass. Add emotion to taste! Do not overindulge!