ABC12.com: The Dean Scream: The version of reality that we didn't see on TV:
"It was the scream Howard Dean says became famous after the media played it nearly 700 times in a few days. Not only that, his camp adds, what we heard on the air was not a reflection of the way it sounded in the room. "
After my interview with Dean and his wife in which I played the tape again -- in fact played it to them -- I noticed that on that tape he's holding a hand-held microphone. One designed to filter out the background noise. It isolates your voice, just like it does to Charlie Gibson and me when we have big crowds in the morning. The crowds are deafening to us standing there
But the viewer at home hears only our voice.
So, we collected some other tapes from Dean's speech including one from a documentary filmmaker, tapes that do carry the sound of the crowd, not just the microphone he held on stage. We also asked the reporters who were there to help us replicate what they experienced in the room.
Reena Singh, ABC News Dean campaign reporter: "What the cameras didn't capture was the crowd."
Garance Franke-Ruta, Senior Editor, American Prospect: "As he spoke, the audience got louder and louder and I found it somewhat difficult to hear him."
Dean's boisterous countdown of the upcoming primaries as we all heard it on TV was isolated, when in fact he was shouting over the roaring crowd.
And what about the scream as we all heard it? In the room, the so-called scream couldn't really be heard at all. Again, he was yelling along with the crowd.
Neal Gabler, Senior Fellow, Lear Center USA: "When you're talking about visuals, context is everything. So, you've got a situation in which you have what I'd call the televised version of reality, which is not the same as the actual reality in room. You know in a situation like this, no one takes responsibility."
How do the networks see it? Here are comments from network executives to ABC News:
CBS News: "Individually we may feel okay about our network, but the cumulative effect for viewers with 24-hour cable coverage is -- it may have been overplayed and, in fact, a disservice to Dean and the viewers." -- Andrew Heyward, President - CBS News
ABC News: "It's always a danger that we'll use good video too much." -- David Westin, President - ABC News …
http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/news/012904_NW_r2_group_deanscream.html
Saturday, January 31, 2004
Missteps Pulled a Surging Dean Back to Earth:
"… just as Dr. Dean headed onstage, his campaign manager, Joe Trippi, offered a snippet of rocker philosophy: 'Freedom's just another for word for nothing left to lose.'
Actually, Dr. Dean still had plenty to lose that night, when his speech turned his highflying candidacy into late-night joke fodder. "
Above is what passes for objective analysis, and until recently I'd have bought into it too.
Then I saw a four minute story on ABC where they played a recording of the "I have a scream speech" made by people who were actually in the room.
You couldn't even hear Dean, above the cheers of the crowd. He was yelling trying to be heard and failing miserably. Unfortunately, someone, gave him a noise cancelling microphone. Unfortunately it wasn't hokked up to the PA system so his crowd could hear him. Unfortunately, it was connected to the media, who, being there, had to know that the people in the room never heard a scream, but reported it as if they had.
At the time of ABC's "correction" the phony (manipulated) scream had been aired well over 800 times. If you missed the truth on ABC, well, you missed it.
The Dean Scream: The version of reality that we didn't see on TV http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/news/012904_NW_r2_group_deanscream.html
The scream that may not have been
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/politics/campaign/01DEAN.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"… just as Dr. Dean headed onstage, his campaign manager, Joe Trippi, offered a snippet of rocker philosophy: 'Freedom's just another for word for nothing left to lose.'
Actually, Dr. Dean still had plenty to lose that night, when his speech turned his highflying candidacy into late-night joke fodder. "
Above is what passes for objective analysis, and until recently I'd have bought into it too.
Then I saw a four minute story on ABC where they played a recording of the "I have a scream speech" made by people who were actually in the room.
You couldn't even hear Dean, above the cheers of the crowd. He was yelling trying to be heard and failing miserably. Unfortunately, someone, gave him a noise cancelling microphone. Unfortunately it wasn't hokked up to the PA system so his crowd could hear him. Unfortunately, it was connected to the media, who, being there, had to know that the people in the room never heard a scream, but reported it as if they had.
At the time of ABC's "correction" the phony (manipulated) scream had been aired well over 800 times. If you missed the truth on ABC, well, you missed it.
The Dean Scream: The version of reality that we didn't see on TV http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/news/012904_NW_r2_group_deanscream.html
The scream that may not have been
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/01/politics/campaign/01DEAN.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Today's Editorials: How to Hack an Election:
"When the State of Maryland hired a computer security firm to test its new machines, these paid hackers had little trouble casting multiple votes and taking over the machines' vote-recording mechanisms. The Maryland study shows convincingly that more security is needed for electronic voting, starting with voter-verified paper trails."
When Maryland decided to buy 16,000 AccuVote-TS voting machines, there was considerable opposition. Critics charged that the new touch-screen machines, which do not create a paper record of votes cast, were vulnerable to vote theft. The state commissioned a staged attack on the machines, in which computer-security experts would try to foil the safeguards and interfere with an election.
They were disturbingly successful. It was an "easy matter," they reported, to reprogram the access cards used by voters and vote multiple times. They were able to attach a keyboard to a voting terminal and change its vote count. And by exploiting a software flaw and using a modem, they were able to change votes from a remote location.
Critics of new voting technology are often accused of being alarmist, but this state-sponsored study contains vulnerabilities that seem almost too bad to be true. Maryland's 16,000 machines all have identical locks on two sensitive mechanisms, which can be opened by any one of 32,000 keys. The security team had no trouble making duplicates of the keys at local hardware stores, although that proved unnecessary since one team member picked the lock in "approximately 10 seconds."…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/31/opinion/31SAT1.html
"When the State of Maryland hired a computer security firm to test its new machines, these paid hackers had little trouble casting multiple votes and taking over the machines' vote-recording mechanisms. The Maryland study shows convincingly that more security is needed for electronic voting, starting with voter-verified paper trails."
When Maryland decided to buy 16,000 AccuVote-TS voting machines, there was considerable opposition. Critics charged that the new touch-screen machines, which do not create a paper record of votes cast, were vulnerable to vote theft. The state commissioned a staged attack on the machines, in which computer-security experts would try to foil the safeguards and interfere with an election.
They were disturbingly successful. It was an "easy matter," they reported, to reprogram the access cards used by voters and vote multiple times. They were able to attach a keyboard to a voting terminal and change its vote count. And by exploiting a software flaw and using a modem, they were able to change votes from a remote location.
Critics of new voting technology are often accused of being alarmist, but this state-sponsored study contains vulnerabilities that seem almost too bad to be true. Maryland's 16,000 machines all have identical locks on two sensitive mechanisms, which can be opened by any one of 32,000 keys. The security team had no trouble making duplicates of the keys at local hardware stores, although that proved unnecessary since one team member picked the lock in "approximately 10 seconds."…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/31/opinion/31SAT1.html
Thursday, January 29, 2004
We Are the Majority | Bernie Sanders | February 2004 Issue:
"So how do the rightwingers get elected if they have nothing to say about the most important issues facing the American people? That is the central question of modern American politics. And the answer is that they work day and night to divide the American people against each other so that they end up voting against their own best interests. That is what the Republican Party is all about.
They tell white workers their jobs are being lost not because corporate America is downsizing and moving to China, but because black workers are taking their jobs--because of affirmative action. White against black."
If you turn on talk radio, what you will hear, in an almost compulsive way, is a hatred of women. And they're telling working class guys, you used to have some power. You used to be the breadwinner. But now there are women running companies, women in politics, women making more money than you. Men against women.
And they're turning straight people against gay people. The homosexuals are taking over the schools! Gay marriage is destroying the country! Straights against gays.
And if you're not for a war in Iraq waged on the dubious and illegal doctrine of "preemptive war," you're somehow unpatriotic. And those of us who were born in America are supposed to hate immigrants. And those of us who practice religion in one way, or believe in the separation of church and state, are supposed to be anti-religious, and trying to destroy Christianity in America--and we get divided up on that. And on and on it goes.
The Republican leadership does all of this in an incredibly cynical, poll-driven way, because they know when you lay out their program about the most important economic issues facing America, it ends up that they are representing the interests of 2 percent of the population. You can't win an election with the support of 2 percent. So they divide us, and the result is that tens of millions of working people vote against their own interests.
We know, that come election time, they will have huge sums of money that we will never come near to having. But we also know something else: that we are the vast majority of the people. We are the middle class and working families, and there are a hell of a lot more of us than there are of them.…
http://www.progressive.org/feb04/sand0204.html
"So how do the rightwingers get elected if they have nothing to say about the most important issues facing the American people? That is the central question of modern American politics. And the answer is that they work day and night to divide the American people against each other so that they end up voting against their own best interests. That is what the Republican Party is all about.
They tell white workers their jobs are being lost not because corporate America is downsizing and moving to China, but because black workers are taking their jobs--because of affirmative action. White against black."
If you turn on talk radio, what you will hear, in an almost compulsive way, is a hatred of women. And they're telling working class guys, you used to have some power. You used to be the breadwinner. But now there are women running companies, women in politics, women making more money than you. Men against women.
And they're turning straight people against gay people. The homosexuals are taking over the schools! Gay marriage is destroying the country! Straights against gays.
And if you're not for a war in Iraq waged on the dubious and illegal doctrine of "preemptive war," you're somehow unpatriotic. And those of us who were born in America are supposed to hate immigrants. And those of us who practice religion in one way, or believe in the separation of church and state, are supposed to be anti-religious, and trying to destroy Christianity in America--and we get divided up on that. And on and on it goes.
The Republican leadership does all of this in an incredibly cynical, poll-driven way, because they know when you lay out their program about the most important economic issues facing America, it ends up that they are representing the interests of 2 percent of the population. You can't win an election with the support of 2 percent. So they divide us, and the result is that tens of millions of working people vote against their own interests.
We know, that come election time, they will have huge sums of money that we will never come near to having. But we also know something else: that we are the vast majority of the people. We are the middle class and working families, and there are a hell of a lot more of us than there are of them.…
http://www.progressive.org/feb04/sand0204.html
Protester=Criminal? | Matthew Rothschild | February 2004 Issue:
"In many places across George Bush's America, you may be losing your ability to exercise your lawful First Amendment rights of speech and assembly. Increasingly, some police departments, the FBI, and the Secret Service are engaging in the criminalization--or, at the very least, the marginalization--of dissent.…"
This crackdown took a violent turn in late November at the Miami protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas and at an anti-war protest at the Port of Oakland last April. In both cases, the police used astonishing force to break up protests. But even when the police do not engage in violence, they sometimes blatantly interfere with the right to dissent by preemptively arresting people on specious grounds.…
It's not every day that a sitting judge will allege he saw the police commit felonies. But that's what Judge Richard Margolius said on December 11 in regard to police misconduct in Miami during the protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in late November.
Judge Margolius was presiding over a case that the protesters brought against the city. In court, he said he saw the police commit at least twenty felonies, Amy Driscoll of the Miami Herald reported. "Pretty disgraceful what I saw with my own eyes," he said, according to the paper. "This was a real eye-opener. A disgrace for the community."
Police used tasers, shock batons, rubber bullets, beanbags filled with chemicals, large sticks, and concussion grenades against lawful protesters. (Just prior to the FTAA protests, the city of Miami passed an ordinance requiring a permit for any gathering of more than six people for longer than twenty-nine minutes.) They took the offensive, wading into crowds and driving after the demonstrators. Police arrested more than 250 protesters. Almost all of them were simply exercising their First Amendment rights. Police also seized protest material and destroyed it, and they confiscated personal property, demonstrators say.
"How many police officers have been charged by the state attorney so far for what happened out there during the FTAA?" the judge asked in court, according to the Herald. The prosecutor said none. "Pretty sad commentary, at least from what I saw," the judge retorted.
Even for veterans of protests, the police actions in Miami were unlike any they had encountered before. "I've been to a number of the anti-globalization protests--Seattle, Cancún, D.C.--and this was different," says Norm Stockwell, operations coordinator for WORT, the community radio station in Madison, Wisconsin. "At previous events, the police force was defensive, with heavy armor hoping to hold back protests. In Miami, police were in light armor and were poised to go after the protesters, and that's what they did. They actually went into the crowds to divide the protesters, then chased them into different neighborhoods."
Stockwell says some reporters were mistreated, especially if they were not "embedded" with the Miami police.
"I got shot twice [with rubber projectiles], once in the back, another time in the leg," reported Jeremy Scahill of Democracy Now! "John Hamilton from the Workers Independent News Service was shot in the neck by a pepper-spray pellet." Ana Nogueira, Scahill's colleague from Democracy Now!, was videotaping some of the police mayhem when she was arrested, Scahill said. "In police custody, the authorities made Ana remove her clothes because they were pepper sprayed. The police forced her to strip naked in front of male officers."
John Heckenlively, former head of the Racine County Democratic Party in Wisconsin, says he was cornered by the police late in the afternoon of November 20. Heckenlively and a few companions were trying to move away from the protest area when "a large cordon of police, filling the entire block edge to edge, was moving up the street," he says. "As they approached, an officer told us that we should leave the area. We informed him that was precisely what we were attempting to do, and seconds later, he placed us under arrest."
Police kept Heckenlively in tight handcuffs behind his back for more than six hours, he says, adding that he was held for a total of sixty hours.
Trade unionists were particularly outraged at the treatment they received in Miami. John Sweeney, head of the AFL-CIO, wrote Attorney General John Ashcroft on December 3 to urge the Justice Department to investigate "the massive and unwarranted repression of constitutional rights and civil liberties that took place in Miami."
Sweeney wrote that on November 20, police interfered with the federation's demonstration "by denying access to buses, blocking access to the amphitheater where the rally was occurring, and deploying armored personnel carriers, water cannons, and scores of police in riot gear with clubs in front of the amphitheater entrance. Some union retirees had their buses turned away from Miami altogether by the police, and were sent back home."
Blocking access to the rally was the least of it. After the march, "police advanced on groups of peaceful protesters without provocation," Sweeney wrote. "The police failed to provide those in the crowd with a safe route to disperse, and then deployed pepper spray and rubber bullets against protesters as they tried to leave the scene. Along with the other peaceful protesters, AFL-CIO staff, union peacekeepers, and retirees were trapped in the police advance. One retiree sitting on a chair was sprayed directly in the face with pepper spray. An AFL-CIO staff member was hit by a rubber bullet while trying to leave the scene. When the wife of a retired Steelworker verbally protested police tactics, she was thrown to the ground on her face and a gun was pointed to her head."…
http://www.progressive.org/feb04/roths0204.html
"In many places across George Bush's America, you may be losing your ability to exercise your lawful First Amendment rights of speech and assembly. Increasingly, some police departments, the FBI, and the Secret Service are engaging in the criminalization--or, at the very least, the marginalization--of dissent.…"
This crackdown took a violent turn in late November at the Miami protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas and at an anti-war protest at the Port of Oakland last April. In both cases, the police used astonishing force to break up protests. But even when the police do not engage in violence, they sometimes blatantly interfere with the right to dissent by preemptively arresting people on specious grounds.…
It's not every day that a sitting judge will allege he saw the police commit felonies. But that's what Judge Richard Margolius said on December 11 in regard to police misconduct in Miami during the protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in late November.
Judge Margolius was presiding over a case that the protesters brought against the city. In court, he said he saw the police commit at least twenty felonies, Amy Driscoll of the Miami Herald reported. "Pretty disgraceful what I saw with my own eyes," he said, according to the paper. "This was a real eye-opener. A disgrace for the community."
Police used tasers, shock batons, rubber bullets, beanbags filled with chemicals, large sticks, and concussion grenades against lawful protesters. (Just prior to the FTAA protests, the city of Miami passed an ordinance requiring a permit for any gathering of more than six people for longer than twenty-nine minutes.) They took the offensive, wading into crowds and driving after the demonstrators. Police arrested more than 250 protesters. Almost all of them were simply exercising their First Amendment rights. Police also seized protest material and destroyed it, and they confiscated personal property, demonstrators say.
"How many police officers have been charged by the state attorney so far for what happened out there during the FTAA?" the judge asked in court, according to the Herald. The prosecutor said none. "Pretty sad commentary, at least from what I saw," the judge retorted.
Even for veterans of protests, the police actions in Miami were unlike any they had encountered before. "I've been to a number of the anti-globalization protests--Seattle, Cancún, D.C.--and this was different," says Norm Stockwell, operations coordinator for WORT, the community radio station in Madison, Wisconsin. "At previous events, the police force was defensive, with heavy armor hoping to hold back protests. In Miami, police were in light armor and were poised to go after the protesters, and that's what they did. They actually went into the crowds to divide the protesters, then chased them into different neighborhoods."
Stockwell says some reporters were mistreated, especially if they were not "embedded" with the Miami police.
"I got shot twice [with rubber projectiles], once in the back, another time in the leg," reported Jeremy Scahill of Democracy Now! "John Hamilton from the Workers Independent News Service was shot in the neck by a pepper-spray pellet." Ana Nogueira, Scahill's colleague from Democracy Now!, was videotaping some of the police mayhem when she was arrested, Scahill said. "In police custody, the authorities made Ana remove her clothes because they were pepper sprayed. The police forced her to strip naked in front of male officers."
John Heckenlively, former head of the Racine County Democratic Party in Wisconsin, says he was cornered by the police late in the afternoon of November 20. Heckenlively and a few companions were trying to move away from the protest area when "a large cordon of police, filling the entire block edge to edge, was moving up the street," he says. "As they approached, an officer told us that we should leave the area. We informed him that was precisely what we were attempting to do, and seconds later, he placed us under arrest."
Police kept Heckenlively in tight handcuffs behind his back for more than six hours, he says, adding that he was held for a total of sixty hours.
Trade unionists were particularly outraged at the treatment they received in Miami. John Sweeney, head of the AFL-CIO, wrote Attorney General John Ashcroft on December 3 to urge the Justice Department to investigate "the massive and unwarranted repression of constitutional rights and civil liberties that took place in Miami."
Sweeney wrote that on November 20, police interfered with the federation's demonstration "by denying access to buses, blocking access to the amphitheater where the rally was occurring, and deploying armored personnel carriers, water cannons, and scores of police in riot gear with clubs in front of the amphitheater entrance. Some union retirees had their buses turned away from Miami altogether by the police, and were sent back home."
Blocking access to the rally was the least of it. After the march, "police advanced on groups of peaceful protesters without provocation," Sweeney wrote. "The police failed to provide those in the crowd with a safe route to disperse, and then deployed pepper spray and rubber bullets against protesters as they tried to leave the scene. Along with the other peaceful protesters, AFL-CIO staff, union peacekeepers, and retirees were trapped in the police advance. One retiree sitting on a chair was sprayed directly in the face with pepper spray. An AFL-CIO staff member was hit by a rubber bullet while trying to leave the scene. When the wife of a retired Steelworker verbally protested police tactics, she was thrown to the ground on her face and a gun was pointed to her head."…
http://www.progressive.org/feb04/roths0204.html
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
Op-Chart: The Medicare Index:
"Last month, President Bush signed into law Republican-sponsored legislation that adds a prescription drug benefit to Medicare and invests billions of dollars in an effort to lure the elderly away from the government program and into private health insurance plans. Last week, in his State of the Union address, President Bush said the new measure 'kept a basic commitment to our seniors.' By approving the legislation, the president may have fulfilled a commitment or two, but not to the nation's elderly. Here are some key details omitted from President Bush's speech …"
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/28/opinion/28BROW.html
"Last month, President Bush signed into law Republican-sponsored legislation that adds a prescription drug benefit to Medicare and invests billions of dollars in an effort to lure the elderly away from the government program and into private health insurance plans. Last week, in his State of the Union address, President Bush said the new measure 'kept a basic commitment to our seniors.' By approving the legislation, the president may have fulfilled a commitment or two, but not to the nation's elderly. Here are some key details omitted from President Bush's speech …"
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/28/opinion/28BROW.html
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Citing Free Speech, Judge Voids Part of Antiterror Act:
"For the first time, a federal judge has struck down part of the sweeping antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, joining other courts that have challenged integral parts of the Bush administration's campaign against terrorism.
In Los Angeles, the judge, Audrey B. Collins of Federal District Court, said in a decision made public on Monday that a provision in the law banning certain types of support for terrorist groups was so vague that it risked running afoul of the First Amendment.…"
At issue was a provision in the act, passed by Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that expanded previous antiterrorism law to prohibit anyone from providing "expert advice or assistance" to known terrorist groups. The measure was part of a broader set of prohibitions that the administration has relied heavily on in prosecuting people in Lackawanna, N.Y., Portland, Ore., Detroit and elsewhere accused of providing money, training, Internet services and other "material support" to terrorist groups.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/27/politics/27PATR.html
"For the first time, a federal judge has struck down part of the sweeping antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, joining other courts that have challenged integral parts of the Bush administration's campaign against terrorism.
In Los Angeles, the judge, Audrey B. Collins of Federal District Court, said in a decision made public on Monday that a provision in the law banning certain types of support for terrorist groups was so vague that it risked running afoul of the First Amendment.…"
At issue was a provision in the act, passed by Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that expanded previous antiterrorism law to prohibit anyone from providing "expert advice or assistance" to known terrorist groups. The measure was part of a broader set of prohibitions that the administration has relied heavily on in prosecuting people in Lackawanna, N.Y., Portland, Ore., Detroit and elsewhere accused of providing money, training, Internet services and other "material support" to terrorist groups.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/27/politics/27PATR.html
Monday, January 26, 2004
ZDNet AnchorDesk: Security breach on Capitol Hill: It's criminal:
"Let's say you happen to gain access to confidential information, either on a Web site or another individual's system. Do you report it? Do you read the confidential information yet not act on any of it? Or do you read the information and immediately use it to your own personal advantage?
It's question of ethics, really, one that speaks to the integrity of the individual involved and the security policy in place in a given environment.
IF YOU ARE a certain Republican staff member for the politically divisive U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, apparently you choose that last option. According to the Boston Globe and other news sources, GOP committee members gained access to computers used by their Democratic colleagues and, from the spring of 2002 well into 2003, both monitored communications and leaked info to the press.
The material obtained through this breach has already been used by columnists and talk show hosts, who offered their audiences unprecedented insight into the inner workings of the Democratic party. "
This is as wrong as a criminal hacker breaking into a corporation's Web site. If these allegations hold up under investigation, those responsible should be punished just as a criminal would.
It could happen in the private sector as easily as in the public. Many corporate employees work on shared networks and systems that contain plenty of confidential materials, everything from corporate strategy to trade secrets. Can you imagine the financial losses and legal repercussions had this same thing happened between competing businesses?…
http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/AnchorDesk/4520-7297_16-5118530.html?tag=ns
"Let's say you happen to gain access to confidential information, either on a Web site or another individual's system. Do you report it? Do you read the confidential information yet not act on any of it? Or do you read the information and immediately use it to your own personal advantage?
It's question of ethics, really, one that speaks to the integrity of the individual involved and the security policy in place in a given environment.
IF YOU ARE a certain Republican staff member for the politically divisive U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, apparently you choose that last option. According to the Boston Globe and other news sources, GOP committee members gained access to computers used by their Democratic colleagues and, from the spring of 2002 well into 2003, both monitored communications and leaked info to the press.
The material obtained through this breach has already been used by columnists and talk show hosts, who offered their audiences unprecedented insight into the inner workings of the Democratic party. "
This is as wrong as a criminal hacker breaking into a corporation's Web site. If these allegations hold up under investigation, those responsible should be punished just as a criminal would.
It could happen in the private sector as easily as in the public. Many corporate employees work on shared networks and systems that contain plenty of confidential materials, everything from corporate strategy to trade secrets. Can you imagine the financial losses and legal repercussions had this same thing happened between competing businesses?…
http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/AnchorDesk/4520-7297_16-5118530.html?tag=ns
Economic View: Time to Slay the Inequality Myth? Not So Fast:
"In recent weeks, a new book has challenged this conventional wisdom, calling it a statistical mirage, and its striking claim has begun to receive national attention. Among native-born Americans, lower- and middle-income families have actually received proportionately bigger raises than the wealthy, according to 'The Progress Paradox' (Random House), written by Gregg Easterbrook, a Washington journalist. Only a great influx of immigrants - many of them poor, but richer than they were in their home countries - has made inequality appear to widen in the statistics, Mr. Easterbrook says. "
"Factor out immigration," he writes, "and the rise in American inequality disappears."
The idea has echoed from the book into the pages of The Washington Post, The Chicago Sun-Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Times of London and BusinessWeek magazine, among other publications. It seems like one of those facts that could rewrite conventional wisdom about the American economy.
It happens, however, not to be true.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/business/yourmoney/25view.html
"In recent weeks, a new book has challenged this conventional wisdom, calling it a statistical mirage, and its striking claim has begun to receive national attention. Among native-born Americans, lower- and middle-income families have actually received proportionately bigger raises than the wealthy, according to 'The Progress Paradox' (Random House), written by Gregg Easterbrook, a Washington journalist. Only a great influx of immigrants - many of them poor, but richer than they were in their home countries - has made inequality appear to widen in the statistics, Mr. Easterbrook says. "
"Factor out immigration," he writes, "and the rise in American inequality disappears."
The idea has echoed from the book into the pages of The Washington Post, The Chicago Sun-Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Times of London and BusinessWeek magazine, among other publications. It seems like one of those facts that could rewrite conventional wisdom about the American economy.
It happens, however, not to be true.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/business/yourmoney/25view.html
LLRX.com - Web Guide to U.S. Supreme Court Research:
"The Web Guide to U.S. Supreme Court Research is intended to facilitate the convenience and speed that we expect when turning to the Internet for our research needs. Often, we are unimpressed by the performance of search engines primarily because of problems with the quantity or relevancy of the results. This Web Guide attempts to overcome the shortcomings of general web searching by providing a selection of annotated links to the most reliable, substantive sites for U.S. Supreme Court research. The sites mentioned here focus predominantly on information that is freely, or inexpensively, available on the Internet. "
http://www.llrx.com/features/supremectwebguide.htm
"The Web Guide to U.S. Supreme Court Research is intended to facilitate the convenience and speed that we expect when turning to the Internet for our research needs. Often, we are unimpressed by the performance of search engines primarily because of problems with the quantity or relevancy of the results. This Web Guide attempts to overcome the shortcomings of general web searching by providing a selection of annotated links to the most reliable, substantive sites for U.S. Supreme Court research. The sites mentioned here focus predominantly on information that is freely, or inexpensively, available on the Internet. "
http://www.llrx.com/features/supremectwebguide.htm
Sunday, January 25, 2004
Sluggish Start for Offer of Tax Credit for Insurance:
"A program offering tax credits to jobless workers to buy health insurance has gotten off to a slow, sputtering start, despite energetic efforts by Bush administration officials who want the program to succeed as a model for a much more ambitious effort to help the uninsured.
The program, the Health Coverage Tax Credit, was created in 2002 to aid workers who lose jobs because of foreign imports.… "
But the results to date are modest, in part because displaced workers are still required to spend substantial amounts of money on insurance premiums before they can get the benefits of the tax credit.
At the end of December, the Bush administration said, only 8,374 workers were receiving tax credits for health insurance under the program. The total number of people taking advantage of the program, including dependents, is perhaps 25,000, or 5 percent of those expected to benefit.…
Under the existing program, tax credits will pay 65 percent of the premium for health insurance bought by a displaced worker. The individual must pay the other 35 percent, and that has proved an insurmountable hurdle for some workers.
"The tax credit would help if the insurance rates were affordable, but the rates were so high that I couldn't afford it," said Gloria J. Craven, 51, of Eden, N.C. "Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina stepped forward to help the textile workers here. But when people started getting price quotes, we realized that we could not pay our share of the premiums."
Mrs. Craven said she and her 61-year-old husband had lost their jobs in a Pillowtex mill where they worked for three decades. She has asthma. He is diabetic and has had a heart attack. Mrs. Craven said the premiums for the insurance offered to them ranged from $1,700 to $5,400 a month. Their share of the premiums would be $595 to $1,890 a month.
The couple, drawing $416 a month in unemployment benefits, was in no position to pay such costs, Mrs. Craven said.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/politics/25INSU.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"A program offering tax credits to jobless workers to buy health insurance has gotten off to a slow, sputtering start, despite energetic efforts by Bush administration officials who want the program to succeed as a model for a much more ambitious effort to help the uninsured.
The program, the Health Coverage Tax Credit, was created in 2002 to aid workers who lose jobs because of foreign imports.… "
But the results to date are modest, in part because displaced workers are still required to spend substantial amounts of money on insurance premiums before they can get the benefits of the tax credit.
At the end of December, the Bush administration said, only 8,374 workers were receiving tax credits for health insurance under the program. The total number of people taking advantage of the program, including dependents, is perhaps 25,000, or 5 percent of those expected to benefit.…
Under the existing program, tax credits will pay 65 percent of the premium for health insurance bought by a displaced worker. The individual must pay the other 35 percent, and that has proved an insurmountable hurdle for some workers.
"The tax credit would help if the insurance rates were affordable, but the rates were so high that I couldn't afford it," said Gloria J. Craven, 51, of Eden, N.C. "Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina stepped forward to help the textile workers here. But when people started getting price quotes, we realized that we could not pay our share of the premiums."
Mrs. Craven said she and her 61-year-old husband had lost their jobs in a Pillowtex mill where they worked for three decades. She has asthma. He is diabetic and has had a heart attack. Mrs. Craven said the premiums for the insurance offered to them ranged from $1,700 to $5,400 a month. Their share of the premiums would be $595 to $1,890 a month.
The couple, drawing $416 a month in unemployment benefits, was in no position to pay such costs, Mrs. Craven said.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/politics/25INSU.html?pagewanted=all&position=
The Tyranny of Copyright?:
"Last fall, a group of civic-minded students at Swarthmore College received a sobering lesson in the future of political protest. They had come into possession of some 15,000 e-mail messages and memos -- presumably leaked or stolen -- from Diebold Election Systems, the largest maker of electronic voting machines in the country. The memos featured Diebold employees' candid discussion of flaws in the company's software and warnings that the computer network was poorly protected from hackers. In light of the chaotic 2000 presidential election, the Swarthmore students decided that this information shouldn't be kept from the public. Like aspiring Daniel Ellsbergs with their would-be Pentagon Papers, they posted the files on the Internet, declaring the act a form of electronic whistle-blowing. "
Unfortunately for the students, their actions ran afoul of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (D.M.C.A.), one of several recent laws that regulate intellectual property and are quietly reshaping the culture. Designed to protect copyrighted material on the Web, the act makes it possible for an Internet service provider to be liable for the material posted by its users -- an extraordinary burden that providers of phone service, by contrast, do not share. Under the law, if an aggrieved party (Diebold, say) threatens to sue an Internet service provider over the content of a subscriber's Web site, the provider can avoid liability simply by removing the offending material. Since the mere threat of a lawsuit is usually enough to scare most providers into submission, the law effectively gives private parties veto power over much of the information published online -- as the Swarthmore students would soon learn.
Not long after the students posted the memos, Diebold sent letters to Swarthmore charging the students with copyright infringement and demanding that the material be removed from the students' Web page, which was hosted on the college's server. Swarthmore complied. The question of whether the students were within their rights to post the memos was essentially moot: thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, their speech could be silenced without the benefit of actual lawsuits, public hearings, judges or other niceties of due process.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/magazine/25COPYRIGHT.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"Last fall, a group of civic-minded students at Swarthmore College received a sobering lesson in the future of political protest. They had come into possession of some 15,000 e-mail messages and memos -- presumably leaked or stolen -- from Diebold Election Systems, the largest maker of electronic voting machines in the country. The memos featured Diebold employees' candid discussion of flaws in the company's software and warnings that the computer network was poorly protected from hackers. In light of the chaotic 2000 presidential election, the Swarthmore students decided that this information shouldn't be kept from the public. Like aspiring Daniel Ellsbergs with their would-be Pentagon Papers, they posted the files on the Internet, declaring the act a form of electronic whistle-blowing. "
Unfortunately for the students, their actions ran afoul of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (D.M.C.A.), one of several recent laws that regulate intellectual property and are quietly reshaping the culture. Designed to protect copyrighted material on the Web, the act makes it possible for an Internet service provider to be liable for the material posted by its users -- an extraordinary burden that providers of phone service, by contrast, do not share. Under the law, if an aggrieved party (Diebold, say) threatens to sue an Internet service provider over the content of a subscriber's Web site, the provider can avoid liability simply by removing the offending material. Since the mere threat of a lawsuit is usually enough to scare most providers into submission, the law effectively gives private parties veto power over much of the information published online -- as the Swarthmore students would soon learn.
Not long after the students posted the memos, Diebold sent letters to Swarthmore charging the students with copyright infringement and demanding that the material be removed from the students' Web page, which was hosted on the college's server. Swarthmore complied. The question of whether the students were within their rights to post the memos was essentially moot: thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, their speech could be silenced without the benefit of actual lawsuits, public hearings, judges or other niceties of due process.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/magazine/25COPYRIGHT.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Op-Ed Contributor: Single and Paying for It:
"Married couples can receive thousands of dollars in benefits and discounts unavailable to single Americans, including extra tax breaks, bankruptcy protections and better insurance rates. Why, for example, should a married poet whose wife pays the bills get tax breaks that are unavailable to a single poet who struggles to write between telemarketing jobs? Why should all workers be required to make the same Social Security contributions if retirees with non-wage-earning spouses get more back from the system? If we force single mothers off welfare on the theory that they should pay their own way, why don't we require married stay-at-home moms to pay market prices for health insurance?
Though most people would agree that these distinctions are arbitrary and unfair, as a society we tend not to notice that breaks for people who are married translate into penalties for those of us who are not.…"
Singles' rights advocates face an uphill battle because their demands for equality are easily mistaken for anti-marriage assaults. Furthermore, because most Americans, myself included, believe that marriage provides a valuable social framework, many are quick to dismiss challenges to marriage-based benefits as a threat to the institution. Though well intentioned, this impulse makes no sense in the face of current realities.
Many marriage-based benefits, for instance, are seen as proxies for helping families with children. Yet marriage is no longer a good indicator of parenthood. As of 2000, one in three children were born to unmarried parents. Distributing benefits intended to support child rearing on the basis of marital status gives a windfall to childless married couples while leaving empty handed single parents and their children — who as a group already face harsher realities.
Benefits are also defended as vehicles for promoting marriage. Their effectiveness in achieving this goal is dubious at best, counterproductive at worst. Common sense says that couples who are otherwise unprepared to take on the obligations of marriage and who do so for financial reasons only are prime candidates for divorce.
Finally, marriage benefits may be seen as a way to reward citizens who take on the weighty obligations of wedlock. But if 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, 50 percent of marriage-based "rewards" are nothing but an expensive mistake. The marriage dole also subsidizes a growing number of unions governed by prenuptial agreements. Such pacts are usually intended to protect the assets of moneyed spouses, effectively undoing the very protections that, in part, make marriage worth defending in the first place.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/opinion/25MOTR.html
"Married couples can receive thousands of dollars in benefits and discounts unavailable to single Americans, including extra tax breaks, bankruptcy protections and better insurance rates. Why, for example, should a married poet whose wife pays the bills get tax breaks that are unavailable to a single poet who struggles to write between telemarketing jobs? Why should all workers be required to make the same Social Security contributions if retirees with non-wage-earning spouses get more back from the system? If we force single mothers off welfare on the theory that they should pay their own way, why don't we require married stay-at-home moms to pay market prices for health insurance?
Though most people would agree that these distinctions are arbitrary and unfair, as a society we tend not to notice that breaks for people who are married translate into penalties for those of us who are not.…"
Singles' rights advocates face an uphill battle because their demands for equality are easily mistaken for anti-marriage assaults. Furthermore, because most Americans, myself included, believe that marriage provides a valuable social framework, many are quick to dismiss challenges to marriage-based benefits as a threat to the institution. Though well intentioned, this impulse makes no sense in the face of current realities.
Many marriage-based benefits, for instance, are seen as proxies for helping families with children. Yet marriage is no longer a good indicator of parenthood. As of 2000, one in three children were born to unmarried parents. Distributing benefits intended to support child rearing on the basis of marital status gives a windfall to childless married couples while leaving empty handed single parents and their children — who as a group already face harsher realities.
Benefits are also defended as vehicles for promoting marriage. Their effectiveness in achieving this goal is dubious at best, counterproductive at worst. Common sense says that couples who are otherwise unprepared to take on the obligations of marriage and who do so for financial reasons only are prime candidates for divorce.
Finally, marriage benefits may be seen as a way to reward citizens who take on the weighty obligations of wedlock. But if 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, 50 percent of marriage-based "rewards" are nothing but an expensive mistake. The marriage dole also subsidizes a growing number of unions governed by prenuptial agreements. Such pacts are usually intended to protect the assets of moneyed spouses, effectively undoing the very protections that, in part, make marriage worth defending in the first place.…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/opinion/25MOTR.html
Saturday, January 24, 2004
Boston.com / News / Nation / Infiltration of files seen as extensive:
"From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.…"
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/01/22/infiltration_of_files_seen_as_extensive/#
"From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.…"
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/01/22/infiltration_of_files_seen_as_extensive/#
California 'disempowered' by federal spam law - News - ZDNet:
"'Thirty-four million people were disempowered by the enactment of that act and left only the small resources of my office,' Lockyer, a Democrat, told a group of attorneys and antispam executives at the 'Spam and the Law' conference in San Francisco on Thursday morning. "
"It is ironic, with an antigovernment federal government that tells us they trust us and want us to take our own action, that the only thing they did was give the government the right to take action," against spammers, Lockyer said of the Republican administration.
The group convened 21 days after the nation's first federal antispam law was enacted to discuss the law's affect on the industry. In a morning keynote address, Stanford University Law School professor Lawrence Lessig called the Can-Spam Act a milestone in the industry's 8-year fight against spam but also a "total failure."
Lockyer and Lessig both said the influence of special interests weakened antispam laws. Once the Direct Marketing Association awoke to California's new enforcement powers with an opt-in law and 37 other state laws, it likely affected a change in the political mood for a federal law that could overpower it, Lockyer said. Until politicians are unguided by business interests and can create regulations in the interests of consumers, the climate likely won't change, they said.
"Because we have let the problem grow for the last eight years, we have built an industry around the opportunity for spam to propagate," Lessig said.&hellip:
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5145849.html
"'Thirty-four million people were disempowered by the enactment of that act and left only the small resources of my office,' Lockyer, a Democrat, told a group of attorneys and antispam executives at the 'Spam and the Law' conference in San Francisco on Thursday morning. "
"It is ironic, with an antigovernment federal government that tells us they trust us and want us to take our own action, that the only thing they did was give the government the right to take action," against spammers, Lockyer said of the Republican administration.
The group convened 21 days after the nation's first federal antispam law was enacted to discuss the law's affect on the industry. In a morning keynote address, Stanford University Law School professor Lawrence Lessig called the Can-Spam Act a milestone in the industry's 8-year fight against spam but also a "total failure."
Lockyer and Lessig both said the influence of special interests weakened antispam laws. Once the Direct Marketing Association awoke to California's new enforcement powers with an opt-in law and 37 other state laws, it likely affected a change in the political mood for a federal law that could overpower it, Lockyer said. Until politicians are unguided by business interests and can create regulations in the interests of consumers, the climate likely won't change, they said.
"Because we have let the problem grow for the last eight years, we have built an industry around the opportunity for spam to propagate," Lessig said.&hellip:
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5145849.html
Friday, January 23, 2004
Mars Exploration Rover Mission: Press Releases:
"The flight team for NASA's Spirit received data from the rover in a communication session that began at 13:26 Universal Time (5:26 a.m. PST) and lasted 20 minutes at a data rate of 120 bits per second.
'The spacecraft sent limited data in a proper response to a ground command, and we're planning for commanding further communication sessions later today,' said Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager Pete Theisinger at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.… "
Meanwhile, the other Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity is on course to land halfway around Mars from Spirit, in a region called Meridiani Planum, on Jan. 25 (Universal Time and EST; Jan. 24 at 9:05 p.m. PST).
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20040123b.html
"The flight team for NASA's Spirit received data from the rover in a communication session that began at 13:26 Universal Time (5:26 a.m. PST) and lasted 20 minutes at a data rate of 120 bits per second.
'The spacecraft sent limited data in a proper response to a ground command, and we're planning for commanding further communication sessions later today,' said Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager Pete Theisinger at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.… "
Meanwhile, the other Mars Exploration Rover, Opportunity is on course to land halfway around Mars from Spirit, in a region called Meridiani Planum, on Jan. 25 (Universal Time and EST; Jan. 24 at 9:05 p.m. PST).
http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/newsroom/pressreleases/20040123b.html
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Ex-C.I.A. Aides Ask for Leak Inquiry by Congress:
"It is unusual for former intelligence officers to petition Congress on a matter like this. The unmasking of Ms. Plame is viewed within spy circles as an unforgivable breach of secrecy that must be exhaustively investigated and prosecuted, current and former intelligence officials say. Anger over the matter is especially acute because of the suspicion, under investigation by the Justice Department, that the disclosure may have been made by someone in the White House to punish Ms. Plames's husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for opposing administration policy on Iraq.
Attorney General John Ashcroft disqualified himself last month from any involvement in the inquiry, and Justice Department officials have named Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney in Chicago, as a special prosecutor in the case. Mr. Ashcroft's decision to step aside came after months of criticism from Democrats in the Senate who complained that the attorney general could not impartially lead an investigation that focused in part on his political patrons and friends at the White House.
Justice Department officials have said almost nothing in public about the status of the investigation. But they have said they are focusing on conversations between White House officials and reporters that both sides might try to cast as private.…"
The 10 former intelligence officers who signed the letter include respected intelligence analysts and retired case officers, including at least two, John McCavitt and William Wagner, who were C.I.A. station chiefs overseas. The former analysts include Larry C. Johnson, a former analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department's intelligence branch, and Ray Close and Ray McGovern, former C.I.A. analysts in the agency's Near East division.
"The disclosure of Ms. Plame's name was an unprecedented and shameful event in American history and, in our professional judgment, has damaged U.S. national security, specifically the effectiveness of U.S. intelligence-gathering using human sources," the group wrote in the two-page letter.…
"For this administration to run on a security platform and allow people in the administration to compromise the security of intelligence assets, I think is unconscionable," Mr. Johnson said.
In addition to Mr. Hastert, the letter was sent to Representatives Tom DeLay, the House Republican leader; Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader; Porter J. Goss, a Republican and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee; and Jane Harman, the top Democrat on the panel. A copy was made available to The New York Times by a Congressional official who received one.
Current and former intelligence officials have felt particularly bruised in recent months as the C.I.A. and other agencies have come under criticism from some in Congress and the public as having underestimated the danger of attacks on the United States like those on Sept. 11, 2001, and having overestimated the dangers posed by Iraq's alleged stockpiles of illicit weapons.
In the letter, the former officers called on Congress to act "for the good of the country" and said it was time to "send an unambiguous message that the intelligence officers tasked with collecting or analyzing intelligence must never be turned into political punching bags."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/22/politics/22INTE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"It is unusual for former intelligence officers to petition Congress on a matter like this. The unmasking of Ms. Plame is viewed within spy circles as an unforgivable breach of secrecy that must be exhaustively investigated and prosecuted, current and former intelligence officials say. Anger over the matter is especially acute because of the suspicion, under investigation by the Justice Department, that the disclosure may have been made by someone in the White House to punish Ms. Plames's husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for opposing administration policy on Iraq.
Attorney General John Ashcroft disqualified himself last month from any involvement in the inquiry, and Justice Department officials have named Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney in Chicago, as a special prosecutor in the case. Mr. Ashcroft's decision to step aside came after months of criticism from Democrats in the Senate who complained that the attorney general could not impartially lead an investigation that focused in part on his political patrons and friends at the White House.
Justice Department officials have said almost nothing in public about the status of the investigation. But they have said they are focusing on conversations between White House officials and reporters that both sides might try to cast as private.…"
The 10 former intelligence officers who signed the letter include respected intelligence analysts and retired case officers, including at least two, John McCavitt and William Wagner, who were C.I.A. station chiefs overseas. The former analysts include Larry C. Johnson, a former analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department's intelligence branch, and Ray Close and Ray McGovern, former C.I.A. analysts in the agency's Near East division.
"The disclosure of Ms. Plame's name was an unprecedented and shameful event in American history and, in our professional judgment, has damaged U.S. national security, specifically the effectiveness of U.S. intelligence-gathering using human sources," the group wrote in the two-page letter.…
"For this administration to run on a security platform and allow people in the administration to compromise the security of intelligence assets, I think is unconscionable," Mr. Johnson said.
In addition to Mr. Hastert, the letter was sent to Representatives Tom DeLay, the House Republican leader; Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader; Porter J. Goss, a Republican and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee; and Jane Harman, the top Democrat on the panel. A copy was made available to The New York Times by a Congressional official who received one.
Current and former intelligence officials have felt particularly bruised in recent months as the C.I.A. and other agencies have come under criticism from some in Congress and the public as having underestimated the danger of attacks on the United States like those on Sept. 11, 2001, and having overestimated the dangers posed by Iraq's alleged stockpiles of illicit weapons.
In the letter, the former officers called on Congress to act "for the good of the country" and said it was time to "send an unambiguous message that the intelligence officers tasked with collecting or analyzing intelligence must never be turned into political punching bags."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/22/politics/22INTE.html?pagewanted=all&position=
2 G.I.'s Killed as Security Is Seen as Obstacle to Iraq Vote:
"For months, the Bush administration has resisted Iraqi calls for direct elections by June 30, citing the need for a census to compile voter rolls and other measures to ensure fair voting but too cumbersome to complete in time.
But some experts say that many of these conditions could be met. Another obstacle, perhaps greater and largely unacknowledged, according to the military, the United Nations and outside election experts, is the continuing violence in Iraq. To argue that security is a serious impediment, however, would be to admit that American forces are unable to quell the running war with the insurgents.…"
Some American generals now say privately that the continuing attacks, especially those against Iraqi civilians, present a daunting obstacle to holding the direct elections demanded by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most powerful cleric among the majority Shiites.
Even those outside experts who say that there are practical ways to hold a quick vote say that turnout could be suppressed by violence, and that protecting the polls with soldiers or policemen, too, may keep people away.
"I guess you could devise mechanisms to make it possible, security permitting," said Joost R. Hiltermann, a Middle East expert at the International Crisis Group, a conflict-prevention organization, who visited Iraq this week to research the prospects for elections here. "But security permitting' is a big if. The risk is that if you go ahead, the results could be seriously skewed, even dangerously skewed."
If bombings or other attacks like those that occurred this week in Baghdad, Karbala and Mosul take place in one section of the country or another during balloting, the resulting disparities in security might badly reduce turnout in certain areas and render the election unfair, election experts say. Iraq's ethnic divisions, mirrored imperfectly in its politics, tend to follow rough geographic lines that define the largely Kurdish north, the central Sunni Arab heartland and the overwhelmingly Shiite Arab south.
It would be especially dangerous if security is weak in Sunni Arab areas and consequently depressed turnout among that group, which makes up a fifth of the country's 25 million people. Sunnis formed the core of Saddam Hussein's government, and it is in the so-called Sunni Triangle that violence against the American military is fiercest. Many Sunnis already feel disenfranchised, and their anger will only grow if security problems keep them from voting and skew the election results, Mr. Hiltermann said.
Under the current plan, a transitional assembly several hundred Iraqis from every region and social sector will be chosen in caucus-style elections from the country's 18 provinces. That assembly is to choose an interim government in June, and that indirectly elected interim government is to draft a constitution.
But shortly after the November agreement, Ayatollah Sistani came out against the caucus plan and for direct balloting. A direct ballot would give the Shiites, who account for 60 percent of the population, a clear advantage, while the caucus plan is more likely to give moderate politicians a leg up.
On Monday, 100,000 supporters of Ayatollah Sistani marched through Baghdad protesting the coalition's plans. Because the issue of violence would lend weight to the arguments of those who oppose a direct election, the ayatollah's supporters generally avoid the issue of security.
"Grand Ayatollah Sistani insisted on direct elections, and it's a sort of obligation," said Muhammad Alaaowi al-Shameri, a representative of Ayatollah Sistani at the Khadimiya mosque in Baghdad, in an interview this week. "It must be done. The picture of real democracy will not be achieved unless we have direct elections.…"
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/22/international/middleeast/22CND-IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all&position=
"For months, the Bush administration has resisted Iraqi calls for direct elections by June 30, citing the need for a census to compile voter rolls and other measures to ensure fair voting but too cumbersome to complete in time.
But some experts say that many of these conditions could be met. Another obstacle, perhaps greater and largely unacknowledged, according to the military, the United Nations and outside election experts, is the continuing violence in Iraq. To argue that security is a serious impediment, however, would be to admit that American forces are unable to quell the running war with the insurgents.…"
Some American generals now say privately that the continuing attacks, especially those against Iraqi civilians, present a daunting obstacle to holding the direct elections demanded by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's most powerful cleric among the majority Shiites.
Even those outside experts who say that there are practical ways to hold a quick vote say that turnout could be suppressed by violence, and that protecting the polls with soldiers or policemen, too, may keep people away.
"I guess you could devise mechanisms to make it possible, security permitting," said Joost R. Hiltermann, a Middle East expert at the International Crisis Group, a conflict-prevention organization, who visited Iraq this week to research the prospects for elections here. "But security permitting' is a big if. The risk is that if you go ahead, the results could be seriously skewed, even dangerously skewed."
If bombings or other attacks like those that occurred this week in Baghdad, Karbala and Mosul take place in one section of the country or another during balloting, the resulting disparities in security might badly reduce turnout in certain areas and render the election unfair, election experts say. Iraq's ethnic divisions, mirrored imperfectly in its politics, tend to follow rough geographic lines that define the largely Kurdish north, the central Sunni Arab heartland and the overwhelmingly Shiite Arab south.
It would be especially dangerous if security is weak in Sunni Arab areas and consequently depressed turnout among that group, which makes up a fifth of the country's 25 million people. Sunnis formed the core of Saddam Hussein's government, and it is in the so-called Sunni Triangle that violence against the American military is fiercest. Many Sunnis already feel disenfranchised, and their anger will only grow if security problems keep them from voting and skew the election results, Mr. Hiltermann said.
Under the current plan, a transitional assembly several hundred Iraqis from every region and social sector will be chosen in caucus-style elections from the country's 18 provinces. That assembly is to choose an interim government in June, and that indirectly elected interim government is to draft a constitution.
But shortly after the November agreement, Ayatollah Sistani came out against the caucus plan and for direct balloting. A direct ballot would give the Shiites, who account for 60 percent of the population, a clear advantage, while the caucus plan is more likely to give moderate politicians a leg up.
On Monday, 100,000 supporters of Ayatollah Sistani marched through Baghdad protesting the coalition's plans. Because the issue of violence would lend weight to the arguments of those who oppose a direct election, the ayatollah's supporters generally avoid the issue of security.
"Grand Ayatollah Sistani insisted on direct elections, and it's a sort of obligation," said Muhammad Alaaowi al-Shameri, a representative of Ayatollah Sistani at the Khadimiya mosque in Baghdad, in an interview this week. "It must be done. The picture of real democracy will not be achieved unless we have direct elections.…"
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/22/international/middleeast/22CND-IRAQ.html?pagewanted=all&position=
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Chicago Tribune | Democratic response to Bush's speech:
"Democrats have an unwavering commitment to ensure that America's armed forces remain the best trained, best led, best equipped force for peace the world has ever known. Never before have we been more powerful militarily. But even the most powerful nation in history must bring other nations to our side to meet common dangers.
The president's policies do not reflect that. He has pursued a go-it-alone foreign policy that leaves us isolated abroad and that steals the resources we need for education and health care here at home."
The president led us into the Iraq war on the basis of unproven assertions without evidence; he embraced a radical doctrine of pre-emptive war unprecedented in our history; and he failed to build a true international coalition.
Therefore, American taxpayers are bearing almost all the cost, a colossal $120 billion and rising. More importantly, American troops are enduring almost all the casualties -- tragically, 500 killed and thousands more wounded.…Instead of alienating our allies, let us work with them and international institutions so that together we can prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and keep them out of the hands of terrorists.
Instead of billions of dollars in no-bid contracts for politically connected firms such as Halliburton, and an insistence on American dominance in Iraq, let us share the burden and responsibility with others, so that together we can end the sense of American occupation and bring our troops home safely when their mission is completed.
Instead of the diplomatic disengagement that almost destroyed the Middle East peace process and aggravated the danger posed by North Korea, let us seek to forge agreements and coalitions so that, together with others, we can address challenges before they threaten the security of the world.
We must remain focused on the greatest threat to the security of the United States, the clear and present danger of terrorism. We know what we must do to protect America, but this Administration is failing to meet the challenge. Democrats have a better way to ensure our homeland security.
One-hundred percent of containers coming into our ports or airports must be inspected. Today, only 3 percent are inspected. One-hundred percent of chemical and nuclear plants in the United States must have high levels of security. Today, the Bush administration has tolerated a much lower standard.
One-hundred percent communication in real time is needed for our police officers, firefighters and all our first responders to prevent or respond to a terrorist attack. Today, the technology is there, but the resources are not. One-hundred percent of the enriched uranium and other material for weapons of mass destruction must be secured. Today, the Administration has refused to commit the resources necessary to prevent it from falling into the hands of terrorists.
America will be far safer if we reduce the chances of a terrorist attack in one of our cities than if we diminish the civil liberties of our own people.…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-bush-democrats-text,1,5098513.story?coll=chi-news-hed
"Democrats have an unwavering commitment to ensure that America's armed forces remain the best trained, best led, best equipped force for peace the world has ever known. Never before have we been more powerful militarily. But even the most powerful nation in history must bring other nations to our side to meet common dangers.
The president's policies do not reflect that. He has pursued a go-it-alone foreign policy that leaves us isolated abroad and that steals the resources we need for education and health care here at home."
The president led us into the Iraq war on the basis of unproven assertions without evidence; he embraced a radical doctrine of pre-emptive war unprecedented in our history; and he failed to build a true international coalition.
Therefore, American taxpayers are bearing almost all the cost, a colossal $120 billion and rising. More importantly, American troops are enduring almost all the casualties -- tragically, 500 killed and thousands more wounded.…Instead of alienating our allies, let us work with them and international institutions so that together we can prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and keep them out of the hands of terrorists.
Instead of billions of dollars in no-bid contracts for politically connected firms such as Halliburton, and an insistence on American dominance in Iraq, let us share the burden and responsibility with others, so that together we can end the sense of American occupation and bring our troops home safely when their mission is completed.
Instead of the diplomatic disengagement that almost destroyed the Middle East peace process and aggravated the danger posed by North Korea, let us seek to forge agreements and coalitions so that, together with others, we can address challenges before they threaten the security of the world.
We must remain focused on the greatest threat to the security of the United States, the clear and present danger of terrorism. We know what we must do to protect America, but this Administration is failing to meet the challenge. Democrats have a better way to ensure our homeland security.
One-hundred percent of containers coming into our ports or airports must be inspected. Today, only 3 percent are inspected. One-hundred percent of chemical and nuclear plants in the United States must have high levels of security. Today, the Bush administration has tolerated a much lower standard.
One-hundred percent communication in real time is needed for our police officers, firefighters and all our first responders to prevent or respond to a terrorist attack. Today, the technology is there, but the resources are not. One-hundred percent of the enriched uranium and other material for weapons of mass destruction must be secured. Today, the Administration has refused to commit the resources necessary to prevent it from falling into the hands of terrorists.
America will be far safer if we reduce the chances of a terrorist attack in one of our cities than if we diminish the civil liberties of our own people.…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-bush-democrats-text,1,5098513.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
If a hero like Max Cleland, can be made to appear unpatriotic, what will Bush do to an actual war criminal?
The Iowa Surprise:
Neither Mr. Kerry nor Mr. Edwards has yet gone through the kind of withering scrutiny that Dr. Dean endured in Iowa.
"John Kerry, who came in first last night, and John Edwards, who scored a surprising second, appeared to be the men voters thought looked most electable. That throws cold water, at least temporarily, on the long-held theory that primary voters favor candidates who are too far to the left or right to win in the fall. In this era of attack-dog politics, it's nice to have a moment of pragmatism.
The fact that the two senators did so well in Iowa is, however, no proof that either would be the best Democratic nominee. Neither Mr. Kerry nor Mr. Edwards has yet gone through the kind of withering scrutiny that Dr. Dean endured in Iowa. Senator Kerry has at least demonstrated that he knows how to take some knocks and stage a comeback. The early months of his candidacy were a disaster of disorganization and a message void. But he regrouped and convinced Iowa voters that he had the military record and foreign affairs background necessary to take on President Bush. Senator Edwards, who once seemed doomed to spend the entire election season smiling sunnily and being ignored, is now going to find himself near the front of the pack, a place that Dr. Dean and Representative Gephardt found extremely uncomfortable."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/20/opinion/20TUE2.html
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