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My Dime -- if not the last 25+ years . . .
rooster -- as v. telling her to watch out for knee-jerk so-called 'conservative' intellectual Luddites trying to impose their, um, roosters on her?
that's right, rooster, you've got it ALL figured out, we know . . . now just lie back, take it easy, everything's gonna be just fine . . .
geez yeah, rooster, you're right -- heaven forbid anyone should have or express any opinions about these things . . . !!
(holy WOW, dude!!! . . . ROFLMAO!!!!!! . . . oh, the pain!! the pain!!!! . . . help!!! helllllllpppppp!!!!! . . .)
My Dime -- is it just me, or are we actually seeing some good old-fashioned honest-to-god hard-core intellectualism, tied to neither left nor right but instead just mindful of history and its lessons and seeking only some sort of honest awareness and understanding of the present, starting to break through the by-now gaping holes in perception and pretense left open by dubya and gang's ongoing train wreck of a head-on between ideology and reality, between agenda-driven lies and and deceptions and what one can with some degree of wisdom and integrity argue to be in fact true? -- danged interesting, if ya ask me . . . (it's been awhile . . .) (fwiw I for one have been sensing, or at least hoping, we might be due . . .)
from today's entry on Altercation (there are several live links to get further info in the text of the following excerpt as it appears on Altercation; link to Altercation provided below) (and not at all that this is actually any sort of substantive issue as such for this election, but plenty of nonsense to the effect that Bush completely fulfilled his obligation has and no doubt will continue to come out):
• Feb. 3, 2004/ 12:31 PM ET
ABC News lies for Bush: Here is the direct quote from Sunday night’s broadcast, thanks to Todd Gitlin: “Reporters investigating Mr. Bush's military career found that, while he missed some weekends of training, he later made up for them and was eventually honorably discharged.” That sentence is a falsehood. In fact, as I explained in Newsday, only one reporter, the Boston Globe’s Walter V. Robinson, investigated the charge with any kind of probity and he found that Bush missed not “weekends of training” but approximately eighteen months. A May 2, 1973, Annual Performance Report noted that he has "not been observed at this unit" during the previous year and could not be evaluated.
His superiors apparently believed that he had been training in Alabama, but nobody can turn up any evidence of his having bothered to show up. And the general who commanded that unit, William Turnipseed, told Robinson he didn't remember even seeing the young man. Moreover, Bush did not submit to the required annual physical examination and lost his right to actually fly any planes. Bush was “honorably discharged” in pretty much the same fashion he was “cleared” for insider trading; in other words, regardless of whether he was guilty. Shame on ABC for its dishonest shilling for the White House, misinforming its viewers without doing any investigation of its own.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/
and a bit more re Total Information Awareness, er Terrorism Information Awareness -- you know all those tens and hundreds of thousands of remotely-controlled security cameras, more and more of which now also have increasingly sensitive and sophisticated audio recording capabilities, being set up in public places and in retail, commercial and other private places all over the country? and the whole RFID system, which is intended to ultimately (and sooner rather than later) track every single item sold in every store as a unique item with its own unique identifier, and for which there is intended to ultimately (and sooner rather than later) be a network of sensors essentially EVERYWHERE, including along all roads and other paths of travel and in all forms of public transportation? -- yup, all of that too is to be tied in; and of course the system itself is to incorporate the best in face and voice recognition technologies, along with any and all other biometrics developed and put into any sort of widespread use . . .
and of course, WE are paying for all this . . .
cool, eh?
and to clarify re Total Information Awareness, er Terrorism Information Awareness -- when I stated that this mega-database project, which I have to believe continues in the black world (if anything, what's amazing to me is that it ever wasn't a black project -- ah, the amazing impunity and arrogance with which John Poindexter went after this objective), would "track each and every one of us, ultimately in real time every minute of every day", I meant to be more specific -- by "track", I didn't mean to limit that to simply knowing where each of us is at any given time; it would also thoroughly monitor each of us and everything we do at all times, including keeping permanent recordings, other transcripts and/or copies of (the content of) all of our communications, verbal and written, as well as of all of our bank, credit card, investment, insurance and other transactions and dealings, all of our uses of the internet and other media, all of our medical and (private as well as public, civil as well as criminal) legal contacts, incidents and records, etc., etc., etc. (just in case anybody wasn't already aware of the explicitly intended scope of this thing) (. . .) (where for the record I of course have no problem with a system of that sort to the extent, but only to the extent, that it tracks our criminal law contacts, incidents and records -- that is of course totally reasonable, and in fact is already being done or being implemented by existing databases quite apart from this TIA monstrosity)
rooster -- as you well know (or do you -- you can't be THAT clueless, can you?), I neither said nor implied either of those things -- the economy was strong, the standard of living rose across the board, and we actually ran some surpluses under Clinton -- and beyond what's happened under dubya (who, among other great acts of leadership I've not mentioned here before, as one of his first priorities once he took office brought in John Poindexter, that ever-so-patriotic convicted felon, to oversee Total Information Awareness, or as it was renamed after 9/11, Terrorism Information Awareness, a program to create a mega-database to track each and every one of us, ultimately in real time every minute of every day, which was so outrageously anti-civil liberties and Orwellian in nature that dubya's own Republican Congress killed it, a program which no doubt has since gone black and continues apace to this day -- gotta have that perfect infrastructure for martial law, just in case . . .) -- anyway, going back to the last pre-dubya republican span of RR/HW, you do recall, for example, that cute little Iran-Contra drug and gun-running thing (uh, John Poindexter, uh . . .), right? -- "HAHAHAHAHA!" right back atcha . . . geesh . . .
Debate Over Intel Panel Continues on Capitol Hill
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Democrats say they're worried an inquiry into intelligence failures planned by President Bush (search) won't be truly independent. Some Republicans worry the inquiry — at least the fifth now under way — will distract the CIA from key tasks.
But whatever the outcome, Secretary of State Colin Powell (search) said Tuesday only Iraq's prewar weapons stockpiles should be at issue — not the infrastructure and intentions of Saddam Hussein.
"There should be no doubt ... that we have done the right thing and history certainly will be the test of that," Powell told reporters after meeting with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan (search).
With discontent growing on both sides, the White House was leaning toward announcing the commission and its members Wednesday when Bush is expected to give a speech on terrorism at the Library of Congress, a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Bush said Monday he wants an independent panel to uncover "all the facts" on prewar intelligence in Iraq and also "look at our war against proliferation and weapons of mass destruction" in a broader context.
In one week, Bush has gone from dismissing the need for a review to discussing what form such a panel should take.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair (search) told a parliamentary committee Tuesday that, Britain, too, will hold an inquiry into the intelligence used in deciding to go to war with Iraq.
He said Foreign Secretary Jack Straw (search) would make an announcement about the inquiry later Tuesday
Powell told The Washington Post in an interview published Tuesday that he did not know whether he would have recommended an invasion of Iraq had he been told there was no evidence of stockpiles of banned weapons there.
"I don't know, because it was the stockpile that presented the final little piece that made it more of a real and present danger and threat to the region and to the world," he said.
He said the "absence of a stockpile changes the political calculus; it changes the answer you get."
However, Powell said history will judge that going to war with Iraq "was the right thing to do."
And Powell said Tuesday outside the State Department that "it was something we all agreed to, and probably would have agreed to again, under any other set of circumstances."
He said any other information that might have been available before the United States went to war, "I don't know would have changed the outcome, nor did I say it would have changed the outcome."
A GOP Senate aide said the White House is moving toward taking an "unapologetic" look at U.S. intelligence, focusing on the best structure for the intelligence community, rather than on just the flawed Iraq intelligence. Although no timetable is set, the review would most likely be completed well after the November election — in 2005.
Still, the movement toward announcing a panel has only fueled the debate on Capitol Hill.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other senior Democrats wrote Bush, saying "a commission appointed and controlled by the White House will not have the independence or credibility necessary to investigate these issues."
Senate Republicans responded with statements noting the eight-month inquiry of the Senate Intelligence Committee already is well underway.
Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said he expects the report to answer many questions being asked. However, "if the president has decided to seek advice from such a panel, I will support it," Roberts said.
The calls for a commission have been sounding since the CIA's top Iraq weapons inspector, David Kay, resigned last month and began stating that he doesn't believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the main justification for the Iraq invasion.
On Monday, Kay briefed Bush over lunch at the White House, offering the president "his impressions and what he's learned," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
The forthcoming White House investigation comes on top of inquiries by the House and Senate intelligence panels, an internal CIA review, a CIA-commissioned report from retired agency officials and an Army review.
The Senate intelligence report, which will go to committee members Thursday, agrees with many of Kay's findings, sources familiar with the report say. One congressional source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Monday that the intelligence committee has already done much of the work an independent commission would do.
House Intelligence Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., said the CIA has been responding to questions from his oversight committee and the process is working.
While Goss said he encourages review and oversight, he said he does worry that "pulling people from the front lines" to answer questions of investigators takes manpower.
"My feeling is this is not a subject that is going unattended," he said of the intelligence failures.
An intelligence professional, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said oversight and reviews make the intelligence community better, but that simultaneous, detailed inquiries can take a toll. "It actually diverts our people from our primary responsibilities, which is dealing with current and future security threats," the intelligence professional said.
The White House hasn't publicly mentioned possible commission members, but lawmakers and intelligence experts have suggested Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser for Bush's father, and former Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,110265,00.html
Job Cuts Top 100,000 in January - Report
Tue February 3, 2004 12:50 PM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Planned job cuts in January were 26 percent higher than in December as U.S. jobs moved to countries like India, China and the Philippines, and as mergers made some jobs redundant, according to a report on Tuesday.
The outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., said post-holiday job cuts reached 117,556 in January surpassing the 100,000 threshold for the first time since last October.
Financial markets were on their toes awaiting January's payrolls report to be issued by the Labor Department on Friday after a disappointing December report that showed an increase of only 1,000 jobs.
Analysts had expected 150,000 new jobs to show up in the data, and the worse-than-expected outcome showed that the U.S. economic recovery has yet to produce sustained jobs growth. Economists again expect a figure of 150,000 new jobs in January.
Poor job creation is a headache for President Bush as he seeks re-election in November. The economy -- specifically job creation -- is expected to be a key issue in the campaign. Since Bush took office, more than 2.3 million non-farm jobs have been lost.
According to Challenger, consumer product companies led the January cutbacks with 22,775 job cuts, the largest number of reported job cuts in that sector in a single month since 1993, according to Challenger.
Challenger said one of the main factors for the job cuts in January was an increase of employers eliminating jobs in the United States and shifting to service providers in India, China and the Philippines among other countries.
Another factor was an increase in mergers so far this year. The survey's head, John Challenger, noted in a statement that one of those mergers will result in "as many as 10,000 job cuts to take place as redundant positions are eliminated."
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=4274003
Bush Plan or Not, Illegal Immigrants Flock to U.S.
Tue February 3, 2004 02:32 PM ET
By Deborah Tedford
LAREDO, Texas (Reuters) - A White House proposal to help millions of mostly Hispanic immigrants legally join the U.S. work force did not deter of thousands of undocumented migrants from entering the United States last month and may even have encouraged many.
Officials from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency said on Tuesday that border patrol agents apprehended 92,634 illegal migrants along the Mexico border in January -- the most for that month since 2001.
January is traditionally a busy month for illegal immigration as impoverished Hispanics trek northward in hopes of finding jobs during the agriculture industry's busy spring planting season.
T.R. Bonner, president of the union representing Border Patrol agents, estimated illegal crossings had increased by 10 to 11 percent since President Bush announced the plan as many illegal migrants believed they would eventually receive amnesty.
Bush unveiled a proposal last month that would grant three-year renewable work permits to millions of foreign workers and enable illegal immigrants now in the United States to gain temporary legal status.
But Bush and Republicans in Congress are careful not to use the word amnesty for the immigration reform and most oppose a blanket amnesty for those who entered the country illegally.
Under the Bush plan, foreigners abroad could only apply for the temporary visas provided they had jobs waiting for them in the United States.
Administration officials said one of the aims of the proposal was to end the underground economy where many illegals operate.
But Bonner told Reuters, "(Agents) are nervous about surges (in illegal immigration) in anticipation of amnesty. Agents are having people come up to them and ask where they go to sign up," he said.
A week ago, Jose Aguilar, 22, started his northward journey from El Salvador to return to his job as a carpenter in Pasadena, Texas. He was buoyed by the Bush plan, but admitted he would have returned anyway.
"We only want work," said Aguilar in Nuevo Laredo, the dusty border city in Mexico across the Rio Grande from Laredo. "We want money for food and clothes for our families."
POLL OF MIGRANTS
U.S. border patrol agents, who routinely question the migrants they arrest, conducted an official poll of illegal immigrants arrested last month to see if they had been motivated by Bush's plan, agents and agency officials said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials would not reveal the results, saying it was purely to provide intelligence for the Department of Homeland Security.
"We're very concerned that the ambiguity of Bush's proposal further plays on people's desperation and hope," said Christian Ramirez of the American Friends Service Committee aid group.
The January-to-March period traditionally sees a surge in illegal immigration as laborers return to the United States after breaks for Christmas and New Year.
"Those are the critical months for the border patrol," said U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman Gloria Chavez.
She said the latest survey was designed to help agents determine the tactics being used by coyotes -- smugglers who illegally transport people into the United States -- and whether they were using the Bush plan to entice people into the country.
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=4274664
My Dime -- I suspect that if the House of Bush decides (if they haven't long since already decided) that it's necessary for Tenet to fall on his sword to protect dubya, Halliburton-boy, rummy, asscrack and company's regime, then Tenet will somehow manage to find himself (willingly or unwillingly) falling on his sword -- priorities, ya know -- never mind what the truth is or what's fair or right; such minor details certainly can't be allowed to get in the way of priorities . . .
also, as I'd intended to mention earlier -- dubya's 'investigation' is of course set up so that it won't report any of its 'findings' until sometime in 2005 -- we just can't take the risk that election-year politics could somehow 'taint' the true 'independence' of such an important 'investigation', now can we? -- I mean it's not like there's anything involved that the voters might legitimately need or want to know about, or to take into account, when they go to vote in November . . .
no, rooster, they're not all the same -- the corruption that has run rampant under dubya's 'leadership' utterly dwarfs any seen under any other administration, even under (fellow-republican) 'Tricky Dick' Nixon's, during my years here (ah, the good old days, I observe sarcastically, recalling the protest chant 'Dick Nixon before he dicks you!') -- and in any event, the point here is that any such investigation should be designed, staffed and controlled completely and solely by the Congress; dubya/the White House/the Executive Branch should have absolutely no say in it whatsoever
easymoney101 -- that's just one story from the Nigerian press that almost nobody in this country has ever heard a thing about -- as is also the case with any number of other similar stories Halliburton has left in its wake worldwide over the years
rooster, you are so laughably wrong (as usual) -- what we know is that from its very inception the panel will be a stacked deck, designed and destined to scapegoat the intelligence community and to miss the real point entirely -- any honest investigation would not be set up by or in any way influenced or controlled by our liar-in-chief dubya
Bush to pick panel for WMD inquiry
Sources say UK to hold its own inquiry
From John King
CNN Washington Bureau
Tuesday, February 3, 2004 Posted: 6:34 AM EST (1134 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said Monday he would appoint a presidential commission to review U.S. intelligence on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Responding to political pressure, Bush told reporters at a Cabinet meeting he wanted to look at prewar intelligence and the findings of the Iraq Survey Group -- the U.S. team hunting for weapons programs in the country.
"We also want to look at our war against proliferation and weapons of mass destruction in a broader context," Bush said. "So I'm putting together an independent, bipartisan commission to analyze where we stand, what we can do better as we fight this war against terror."
Britain, a strong U.S. ally in the war on Iraq, will conduct its own probe into the apparently flawed intelligence on Iraqi WMD, European news agencies reported Monday.
Under mounting pressure, Prime Minister Tony Blair formally announced the inquiry to a parliamentary committee Tuesday. (Full story)
A senior Bush administration official said Monday that the president will name the members of the commission. The official said the president had consulted some "appropriate" members of Congress about the appointments.
The panel also will be charged with exploring the quality of intelligence gathering relating to the challenges of weapons proliferation and "outlaw regimes" that preside over closed societies, administration sources said.
"[The president] wants it to be more broad than Iraq," an official said. "The president's view is there are a number of challenges for our intelligence community on the issues of weapons of mass destruction, and we need to look at the broader issue of closed societies and outlaw regimes and our capabilities to gather necessary intelligence."
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, questioned the president's description of the commission.
"I think that it is important for us to have an independent commission, as I've said now on several occasions, but it truly should be independent," Daschle said.
"It sounds as if the president is going to call for one where he gets to appoint each of the members and dictate the design and ultimately the circumstances under which they do their work."
Bush told reporters he wanted to talk to David Kay, the former head of the Iraq Survey Group, before moving forward with the commission.
The two men lunched at the White House later Monday, said White House spokesman Scott McClellan, calling the meeting "constructive."
Kay told a Senate panel last week that his group hasn't found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and said he didn't believe significant stockpiles of banned weapons would be found.
"It turns out we were all wrong, and that is most disturbing," Kay said at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing during which he called for an independent probe of the apparent intelligence failure.
Bush announced the decision Monday after a reporter asked whether Americans were "owed an explanation about the intelligence failure before the election."
The president said, "First of all, I want to know all the facts. ... We know he [Saddam Hussein] was a danger. ... He slaughtered thousands of people, imprisoned people. What we don't know yet is what we thought and what the Iraqi Survey Group has found."
McClellan also defended the decision to go to war but said a broad look at U.S. intelligence was required to address the threat of weapons of mass destruction.
"We got it right that Saddam Hussein was a grave and gathering threat," McClellan said. "We got it right that he had the intention and capability. He was a threat. We got it right, and it was the right decision to remove him from power."
McClellan would not give a timetable for the commission to issue its findings.
"It is important that the commission's work is done in a way where it doesn't become embroiled in partisan politics," he said.
The president is expected to sign an executive order creating the new commission.
Senior administration officials said earlier that Bush would set a deadline of early to mid-2005 in an effort to defuse the controversy as an election-year issue.
Many previous panels -- including the one looking into possible intelligence lapses leading up to the September 11, 2001, attacks -- have been appointed through a compromise in which the president names some members and congressional leaders pick others.
Initially, the White House rejected calls from Kay and lawmakers for an independent review of prewar intelligence on Iraq. But with political pressure mounting, Vice President Dick Cheney began making calls last week to key members of Congress to explore potential compromises.
Bush began considering such a review last week and made his final decision over the weekend, the senior official said.
White House staff members have been instructed to review procedures for staffing and sharing information with the panel -- an issue that has caused conflict with the 9/11 commission.
"The [new] group will have access to everything it needs," a senior official said Sunday. "We are working to find a way to make it work properly."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/02/02/sprj.nirq.iraq.wmd/index.html
my comment -- so dubya is gonna pick the panel to "investigate" his own lies, to "investigate" how he ignored his own intelligence community, in order to "figure out" how it was all the fault of the intelligence community -- what the hell ever happened to that conservative mantra at 'taking responsibility for your own actions'? -- note also the broader scope dubya is defining for the inquiry (we wouldn't want it to focus just on dubya's lies, now would we?) -- no doubt the panel will come back with a whole bunch of new recommendations re how the government just has to get rid of more and more of what's left our of rights and liberties, just has to pry more deeply into our personal lives -- beyond Orwellian . . .
rooster -- dubya, Halliburton-boy, rummy, asscrack and gang work for (among others) Halliburton, and themselves have nothing to do with and deserve no credit for the work done by DOD auditors -- if anything, those DOD auditors better pray dubya and gang don't see to the destruction of their careers . . .
Curious Math Used to Add Up Budget
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
By Peter Brownfeld
WASHINGTON — Critics of President Bush's proposed $2.4 trillion budget proposal were in wide supply, complaining that the numbers don't add up and suggesting the president's plan for deficit reduction will have an "exploding cigar effect" after its five-year window ends.
The criticism came shortly after the president's budget plan for fiscal year 2005 arrived on Capitol Hill on Monday. In it, Bush calls for limiting the non-defense, non-entitlement spending to 0.5 percent growth for the year, cutting the budgets of seven out of 15 Cabinet-level agencies, eliminating 65 programs and reducing the size of 63 others.
"In some cases, we say 'mission accomplished,' that this was intended to be a short-term program. It's done its job. In other cases, we say this is a program that is duplicative of other programs that we have in place, especially when we have new and better programs to deal with the same subject matter. And in some cases, it's because the program is not showing the results it should be showing," Office of Management and Budget (search) Director Josh Bolten said, explaining how the cuts were made.
The cost of the eliminated programs adds up to a yearly savings of $4.9 billion, a fraction of the overall budget.
With a 7 percent increase in defense spending and a 10 percent rise in homeland security spending, critics say whatever austerity the president proposed for some agencies will have little impact on controlling runaway spending.
"Domestic discretionary spending is a very small part of overall federal spending. It's only seventeen percent of federal spending. That's not where the problem is. The great growth in spending has been, as you know, on defense and homeland security, areas that we all supported to better protect this nation," said Senate Budget Committee ranking member Kent Conrad (search), D-N.D.
Though the deficit will be among the highest dollar figures ever, at $364 billion, Bolten said it reflects only 4.5 percent of the gross domestic product.
The deficit "is not historically out of range. Deficits have been this large or larger in six of the last twenty-five years, including a peak of six percent in 1983," he said.
But Democrats call the president's budget estimates overly optimistic and question his credibility considering that he has not included in his budget estimates for ongoing troop deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"There's not a dime in this budget for the deployment in Iraq. There's not a dime in this budget for the deployment in Afghanistan. This budget is notable not only for what it includes but for what it excludes," said Rep. John Spratt (search), D-S.C., ranking member on the House Budget Committee.
"I think it's helpful to look back and see what the president has told us in the past, to check his credibility on these issues. Remember, in 2001 he told us we could have massive tax cuts and even if there was an economic slowdown, there would be no budget deficits (search). He was wrong, and we have massive budget deficits," said Conrad.
Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition (search), an organization devoted to deficit reduction, said the president's plan acknowledges that it also does not calculate beyond a five-year window for planning its budget, when certain presumptions will either expire or no longer be avoidable. Bixby's group also said the president has combined optimistic assumptions with omitted costs to get to his budget.
"This fiscally irresponsible combination produces an exploding cigar effect timed to go off just when the baby boomers begin to receive Social Security (search) and Medicare (search) at the end of the decade," Bixby said.
The Budget Breakdown
As it stands now, the Pentagon budget's 7 percent increase is likely to skyrocket before the fiscal year is out. The White House has said that it will likely make a request of up to $50 billion for additional funding for security forces after November of this year.
Among the chief expenses is a 7.3 percent boost to the Treasury Department's budget to $396.50 billion. Of that sum, $350 billion goes for interest payments to finance the national debt (search), which now stands at around $7 trillion.
The Department of Homeland Security's (search) 8.9 percent boost to $31.4 billion is the result of grants to first responders and funds to enhance aviation and transportation security to improve baggage screening equipment and efficiency. Overall, homeland security functions, including programs across agencies outside DHS, will increase to 14.4 percent, or $47.4 billion in homeland security funding.
The State Department and budgeting for international assistance would endure the biggest cut of 34.8 percent to $30.4 billion. Foreign assistance would drop from this year's $36 billion to $19 billion next year. The bulk of that drop comes from reductions in reconstruction spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. Included in the figure for next year is about $5.7 billion in military and economic aid to frontline allies in the war on terrorism and $1.2 billion for rebuilding Afghanistan.
The Department of Justice would receive $21.8 billion, a decrease of 12.7 percent, though anti-terror programs would receive a funding boost. The department's 12.7 percent decrease in overall spending results primarily from a reduction of $931 million in spending from the crime victims fund, which has had savings of more than $1 billion in each of the last two years.
The Social Security Administration (search) is one of the winners, with an increase of 10.7 percent for a total budget of $53.7 billion. Social Security payments, which are estimated to total $519 billion next year, are not considered part of the federal budget.
"No funds have been set aside for a Social Security reform proposal; however, the administration has expressed interest in making such a proposal. These costs would also come mostly beyond the next five years," read a statement released by the Concord Coalition.
The Health and Human Services' budget of $571.6 billion also includes a 2.7 percent boost. More than 85 percent of the HHS budget is for mandatory payments for Medicare and Medicaid (search), the government health insurance programs for seniors and the poor, respectively.
Among the new initiatives proposed by the Bush administration is the promotion of marriage among low-income Americans, at a cost of $120 million, to be matched by participating states.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (search) $16.2 billion budget would go up by 5.6 percent. NASA's additional $900 million reflects President Bush's plan to refocus the agency on returning to the moon and then exploring Mars and beyond in coming decades. In addition to the increase, NASA is planning to reallocate $11 billion over the next five years for the effort.
The Department of Agriculture's $83.3 billion budget includes a boost of 6.2 percent, and a decrease in discretionary spending of 8.1 percent. Natural resources and environmental programs took big hits in the proposed budget. The Forest Service (search) budget fell 7.6 percent to $4.2 billion.
Funds associated with mad cow disease (search) include $33 million to speed development of a national animal identification system (search) and $17 million to test for mad cow disease at farms and rendering plants. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman announced the mad cow proposals last week, along with $178 million to complete renovation of the National Centers for Animal Health in Ames, Iowa.
The Permanence of Tax Cuts
While Congress has habitually had trouble keeping down the percentage to match the president's proposed increases, Monday's criticism fell not on the plans for restraining spending now, but on the ability to cut the deficit in five years, when several programs will need to be addressed.
"The budget purports to show the deficit being cut in half by 2009, but meets this goal by omitting about $160 billion in costs in 2009 that the administration itself intends to propose in future budgets," said Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (search).
"The bulk of the cost of making the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent would occur after 2010, when most of these tax cuts are scheduled to expire. The bulk of the costs from the beginning of the baby boomers' retirement also occur after 2009," Greenstein said.
"Cutting the budget deficit in half over the next five years is a tall tale, derived in large part by omitting very likely or inevitable costs for items such as proposals for programs that the administration strongly supports, including: more than $50 billion for operations in Iraq, true alternative minimum tax (search) relief instead of a one-year patch and extension of the existing tax breaks," said Steve Ellis, vice president for programs at Taxpayers for Common Sense (search).
"The budget assumes that non-defense discretionary spending will remain frozen over the next five years although such spending has averaged more than five percent annual growth over the past ten years. This assumption produces 'savings' that may well prove to be illusory," said the Concord Coalition.
Supporters of the president said that while Bush's plan is unlikely to pass Congress as is — it is just a proposal — none of the president's critics has offered a viable solution for eliminating the deficit.
"My guess is that the Democrats will continue to beat their chests about the deficit but will not put forward a plan, will not put forth bills to eliminate the tax cuts that the president has proposed," said House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle of Iowa.
Democrats are "not calling for responsible spending — they're calling for a tax hike," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,110244,00.html
The Top Ten Conservative Idiots (No. 141)
February 2, 2004
Weapons of Mass... Oh, Forget It Edition
Weapons of Mass Destruction? Don't blame us. At the top of the list we've got the Bush Administration, which was proven wrong once again on the whole Iraq WMD thing. But of course they're more than happy to foist the blame on the CIA or anywhere else but themselves. But even after the truth came out, there was Dick Cheney (2) once again trying to claim against all reason that the WMDs still exist. Further down the list, Georgia school superintendent Kathy Cox (3) wants to keep her students ignorant. David Duke (6) wants to take another shot at elected office. And don't miss The Traditional Values Coalition (10) who have a complaint about this very website! As usual, don't forget the key! [F6 note: This site uses certain icons that I can't replicate here to denote certain attributes for each entry such as 'warmongering', 'covering your ass', etc. -- it is worthwhile to visit this site directly via the link I've provided at the bottom. Also, this is a weekly 'top-10' deal; anyone who enjoys this most-recent listing can access past listings via the link, and a new listing will appear each week.]
1. The Bush Administration
So the cat is finally out of the bag. America's chief weapons inspector, David Kay, quit his job and returned from Iraq last week, bringing with him the news that - guess what? - there are no weapons of mass destruction. Despite this devastating news for the Bush administration, Kay managed to get a bit of bootlicking in and blamed the CIA for misleading everybody. Let the backtracking begin! Funny how seven months before 9/11, George Tenet testified before Congress that Iraq posed no immediate threat to the United States, and during a visit to Cairo around the same time, Colin Powell stated: "He [Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors." So, what - between the start of 2001 and the end of 2002 the CIA suddenly freaked out and convinced the Bush administration that Iraq did, in fact, have tons and tons of weapons of mass destruction which they'd previously overlooked? Of course, it only takes a quick look back through the Idiot archive to find multiple examples of members of the Bush administration playing with intelligence data and pushing the intelligence community into drawing conclusions that the administration wanted to hear. Like when Condoleezza Rice ignored George Tenet's warning that the "uranium from Africa" claim was false (Idiots 119), or when Dick Cheney made sure that the lie went into the State of the Union Address (Idiots 117), not to mention all those times that Cheney visited the CIA and "created an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments on Iraq fit with Bush Administration policy objectives," (Idiots 113). Yup, if only the CIA hadn't fooled everyone with their phony intelligence, you can bet that Bush would have done everything in his power to ensure that we didn't rush to invade. But sadly, they were all completely hoodwinked. Of course the fact that Bush's cronies have been planning the invasion of Iraq since the end of the last Gulf War has nothing to do with it.
2. Dick Cheney
Speaking of Halliburton, somebody needs to send a memo to yellow-belly boy. Hey Dick! There aren't any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, got it? Despite all the evidence to the contrary, Vice President Crashcart has been out and about merrily spreading the lie that Saddam Hussein was about to sneak onto America's rooftops and drop VX stink bombs down our chimneys. Appearing on NPR recently, Dick claimed that, "In terms of the question what is there now, we know prior to our going in, that he spent time and effort acquiring mobile biological weapons labs." For goodness sake, can somebody please bring this man up to speed? He's only the vice president of the United States after all. I guess it's easy to lose track of time down in the bunker (when you're not out shooting ducks with the Supreme Court Justice who's about to hear your case that is).
3. Kathy Cox
If Kathy Cox has her way, science education in Georgia schools could soon be going the way of the dinosaurs - if you're dumb enough to believe in dinosaurs that is. Ms. Cox, the state schools superintendent, wants Georgia schools to remove all references to "evolution" and replace them with the phrase "biological changes over time." The purpose of this is, of course, to undermine the concept of evolution and promote creationism. Tell you what, while we're at it why don't we just reintroduce the concept of bleeding as a legitimate medical procedure? Or perhaps we could wave flowers around to protect ourselves from the 'flu while we're on our way to the local witch-burning. I dunno, if this keeps up pretty soon we'll be back to the educational level of cavemen. Oh, I'm sorry - cavemen didn't exist. My bad.
4. Dennis Miller
In Idiots 140 that CNBC have given Dennis Miller a show, and that Miller has promised that the show, "however political, will not be partisan." Funny that, because last week Dennis announced that he won't be making any jokes about George W. Bush. "I like him," Miller said. "I'm going to give him a pass. I take care of my friends." All right Dennis, cut the brown-nosing. So you're going to have a political, nonpartisan show, without mentioning the president of the United States, eh? That should be interesting. Gee, I can't wait for yet another cable news TV show that spends an hour a night shitting on Democrats and ass-kissing Republicans. God damn liberal media.
5. Peter Shoomaker
Believe it or not, there's actually some good news coming out of Iraq. According to General Peter Shoomaker, the head of the US Army, "There is a huge silver lining in this cloud." Oh yeah? Yeah. Apparently the fact that the Army is actually at war is a "tremendous focus" for those in the military. "There's got to be a certain appetite for what the hell we exist for," said Shoomaker. Uh, okay. See, according to Shoomaker, "War is a tremendous focus... Now we have this focusing opportunity, and we have the fact that [terrorists] have actually attacked our homeland, which gives it some oomph." Oomph? Oomph? Well I'm glad somebody's enjoying this. I do hope the families of the 500+ dead American soldiers are just as happy that their sons and daughters gave their lives for General Shoomakers ultra-realistic training exercise. Oomph, indeed.
6. David Duke
David Duke wants to run for office again - just as soon as he gets out of federal prison for mail and tax fraud. The former Ku Klux Klan leader is considering running for the seat of Republican Rep. David Vitter, and presumably stands a great chance considering he's a convicted felon and the former leader of one of the world's most famous hate organizations. Uh... but seriously, what is David Duke thinking? Does he seriously believe that a man who was sent to prison for bilking his supporters the last time he ran for office, not to mention a man who headed a group which is most closely associated with lynching black people, can really win a seat in the House representing Louisiana? Ah, wait a minute...
7. Billy Tauzin
Would you like to earn $1 million dollars a year? Sound tempting? Well that's what Billy Tauzin will be making if he accepts a job offered to him recently by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association, one of Washington's most powerful lobbying organizations. The PhRMA wants Tauzin as their new boss, and they clearly have impeccable timing. See, Tauzin is currently chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee which oversees the Food and Drug Administration and the pharmaceutical industry. And funnily enough, he just had a major hand in the very recent Medicare bill which only just scraped through Congress after Democrats complained that it would seriously damage Medicare and provide massive handouts to pharmaceutical companies. And now the bill has passed, the biggest pharmaceutical lobbyists in Washington want to give him a million dollars a year to be their new boss. Kinda makes you wonder when they started hashing out the details of this job offer, doesn't it?
8. Halliburton
You've probably all seen it by now - the gag-inducing Halliburton commercial in which a soldier on the telephone bravely fights back tears before jumping up and announcing "It's a girl!" (And just think - if he weren't stuck in Iraq guarding Halliburton's newly-acquired oilfields the poor bastard might have been at home when his baby was born.) Halliburton's new push to promote themselves as the loving, caring benefactors of our troops in the field somewhat flies in the face of previous reports that Halliburton subsidiary KB&R provided "blood all over the floor" of kitchens, "dirty pans," "dirty grills," "dirty salad bars" and "rotting meats ... and vegetables" in some military messes they operated. But it doesn't matter because Halliburton may soon be out of this world - you'll be absolutely astonished to discover that George W. Bush's plan to put a man on Mars will benefit Dick Cheney's former company enormously. Here's what "veteran Halliburton scientific adviser" Steve Streich had to say in Oil & Gas Journal back in 2000 - "[Mars exploration is] an unprecedented opportunity for both investigating the possibility of life on Mars and for improving our abilities to support oil and gas demands on Earth." Yup, it's yet another taxpayer-funded multi-billion-dollar handout for the vice president's favorite former company. Oh, and by the way, according to the Washington Post, "Administration officials scoffed at the idea that Halliburton had anything to do with the development of the space policy." Got that? Scoffed.
9. Welfare Republicans
This is interesting: according to a recent op-ed in the New York Times, "Each year, the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit research group, crunches numbers from the Census Bureau to produce an intriguing figure: how much each state receives in federal spending for every dollar it pays in federal taxes." These states are then classified as "Giver" or "Taker" states. If on average a state's population pays more in federal taxes than it receives in federal spending, it's a "Giver" state. If the opposite is true, it's a "Taker" state (for example, for every dollar the average North Dakotan paid in federal taxes last year, he received $2.07 in federal benefits - North Dakota is a "Taker" state. The average Minnesotan, on the other hand, received 77c for every dollar he spent - so Minnesota is a "Giver" state). But here's the kicker: the vast majority of "Taker" states are - you guessed it - states that went for George W. Bush in 2000. (Bush got 78% of his electoral votes from "Taker" states.) And the vast majority of "Giver" states went for Al Gore. (Gore got 76% of his electoral votes from "Giver" states.) So what does this mean? Well, it means that despite what Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and the rest of the right-wing spin machine tells you, Republicans are not constantly under attack from the federal government which wants to take their money and distribute it to lazy shiftless liberals. In fact the opposite is true - the constituents of the red states are living off the tax dollars of those who live in the blue states. But since the Republican Congress decides where all that tax money goes, there's not much we can do about it. Bummer eh?
10. Traditional Values Coalition
And finally: ha ha, we annoyed the nutjobs! Meet the Traditional Values Coalition, who are either a) too cheap to hire a proper polling company or b) too scared that if they DO hire a proper polling company they won't get the results they want. So instead they made the foolish mistake of resorting to the thoroughly unreliable online poll method, only to be surprised when their poll was horrendously skewed against them. But guess what - Democratic Underground is to blame! According to the TVC, "Radical Democrats are bragging on the DemocraticUnderground.com web site that they've been skewing the results of TVC's marriage poll by voting more than once." Hilariously, the TVC's poll "Would you vote for a presidential candidate who supports same-sex marriage or civil unions?" ended up with a "Yes" vote of 34,537 and a "No" vote of 26,550. According to the TVC, this means that DUers have a "disturbing, flexible morality" (of course, holding a poll which you know beforehand is going to produce a particular result in your favor is entirely moral behavior). Hypocrisy also appears to be a "Traditional Value" - despite accusing us of a "rather paranoid view of the world," the TVC is apparently worried that messing with their stupid online poll is comparable to voting in a real election, suggesting that "it appears that we can expect widespread voter fraud this November from Clintonoid activists." Man, these guys are dumb. Mind you, while we're on the subject of paranoia, bear in mind that the Traditional Values Coalition are also responsible for the Homosexual Urban Legends series. So I guess bigotry and hate are "Traditional Values" too! (Incidentally the TVC also says that "One would hope that individuals voting in an online poll would have the personal integrity to vote only once - not multiple times." Well gee, I dunno - they should ask the experts.) See you next week!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/04/141.html
Despite Big Gov’t Gigs, Halliburton Posts Losses
by Pranjal Tiwari (bio)
Jan 30 - The US-based transnational conglomerate Halliburton received over 40 percent of its fourth-quarter revenue from massive US government contracts in Iraq, yet still posted a net loss for the period, largely as a result of findings against the company’s labor practices. Bloomberg reported that Halliburton, the oil and construction firm formerly headed by US Vice President Dick Cheney and with close links to the Bush administration, made over $2 billion in the fourth quarter from construction contracts for Iraqi oil fields, and contracts providing services to the US occupation forces in Iraq.
The BBC reported in May of 2003: "Halliburton’s role in post-war Iraq includes operating Iraqi oil fields." It also noted that an "emergency contract for firefighting and capping Iraqi oil wells was awarded to Halliburton without a bidding process in March [2003]." Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) was also awarded a lucrative contract for the "operation of facilities and distribution of products" to the US military in Iraq.
However, these contracts were not enough to stop the company posting a $947 million net loss in the fourth quarter. Bloomberg reported that the company blamed its losses on massive pay-outs for domestic occupational health and safety abuses. Several charges have been filed by ex-workers placing blame on Halliburton subsidiaries for asbestos-related illnesses. It was noted that $1.1 billion was most recently paid by the parent company as part of its asbestos settlements, which the Guardian (UK) estimated to total around $4.5 billion.
Many of these charges revolve around Dresser Industries, Inc., a Halliburton subsidiary, which has faced asbestos-related damages claims dating back to the 1970s. According to the Los Angeles Times, thousands of workers developed lung cancer and respiratory diseases from being exposed to asbestos at work.
The industry publication Insurance Journal says Halliburton has attempted to dodge payment of the settlements in various ways, including filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the liable subsidiaries. The Los Angeles Times also reported that a July 2003 proposal by Congress to create a "national fund" for asbestos victims was actively supported by Halliburton, which stood to save over $3.5 billion from the plan.
The acquisition of Dresser Industries by Halliburton around four years ago was described as "the high point of Mr. Cheney's five-year Halliburton career" by the New York Times.
© 2004 The NewStandard.
http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=158
More Halliburton News, Brought to You By Halliburton
A Tale of Two "Employees"...Oops...Make That "Workers"
By DAVID VEST
January 30, 2004
Hardly had the words "unfairly maligned" escaped Dick Cheney's lips when his former company found itself neck-deep in yet another bribery scandal. Halliburton praised itself for "strong internal detective work" as it revealed the latest "apparent overcharges," amounting this time to $6.3 million.
"In the towns I am tracked by phantoms having weird detective ways," wrote Thomas Hardy.
The phantom detective agency formerly run by Cheney appeared to be going to extraordinary lengths to protect rather than divulge the identities of the two "employees" who allegedly demanded and got $6M in kickbacks for subletting a contract to a Kuwaiti firm (whose identity is also a mystery).
Elements missing from both the "detective report" and, alas, the media coverage of the scandal: Who were these mysterious "employees"? How high up in the corporate hierarchy were they? What were their job titles? What has happened to them? Where are they now?
Forbes called them "workers," as though they carried lunch buckets and sang Woody Guthrie songs. Apparently Forbes believes "workers" are typically in a position to sign-off on major international contracts and demand multi-million dollar kickback fees.
Most accounts since the story broke have simply identified the alleged bribe-takers as humble "employees." In some versions they appear as "officials" or even "staffers." Sent by a temp agency, perhaps?
It was up to The Guardian and a few other sources, mostly outside the U.S., to identify the perps as "executives."
Whatever they were, they were placed high enough to be negotiating contracts big enough to permit them to skim off $6 million.
Assume, then, that we are talking about "executives." What happened to them?
Both the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press reported last Friday that Halliburton had fired them. Most press accounts have repeated the firings as fact. Reuters, however, originally reported that Halliburton "declined to say the employees had been fired."
Most interestingly, CBS News (also last Friday) cited unnamed sources who claimed the two people "left before the problem was discovered and were not fired." Did they leave with the $6M?
If two "employees" grabbed $6M in kickbacks, some might (and did) wonder, why was it Halliburton (and not, say, the two crooks who took the bribe) who cut the check to reimburse the government? Is corporate money one thing, but personal money another?
"The key issue here," said Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall, "is self-disclosure and self-reporting."
Actually, Wendy, the issue is corruption.
Hall's efforts to turn a confession of criminal behavior into an orgy of self-congratulation were nothing compared to the company's decision to relaunch an ad campaign to "counter negative publicity." Actually, the ads have been running since last November, with spots airing on CNN, MSNBC, Fox and selected local news programs.
When they first appeared, Preston Turegano (of Sign-on San Diego) observed that the campaign makes Halliburton unique among other Iraq and Afghanistan contract holders, who "do not have TV spots ballyhooing their business in the Middle East." He found the ads reminiscent of the campaign Saudi Arabia launched in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, carried out for the most part by Saudi men.
Halliburton is running paid print announcements, too. In a Houston Chronicle ad, CEO Dave Lesar says "not many companies have our know-how" then proceeds to call flipping omelets for troops a "special skill," not a "special interest."
Lesar somehow neglects to mention the fact that, as NBC News reported last December, the Pentagon has repeatedly warned Halliburton and its subsidiary KBR that U.S. troops in Iraq were being served dirty food in dirty mess halls. The Pentagon reported finding "blood all over the floor," "dirty pans," "dirty grills," "dirty salad bars" and "rotting meats and vegetables" in military messes the company operates in Iraq.
Blood all over the mess hall floor. Including the one where George W. Bush posed with a turkey on Thanksgiving.
http://www.counterpunch.org/vest01302004.html
Uncle Sam looks into meal bills
Halliburton refunds $27 million as result
By DAVID IVANOVICH
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
Feb. 2, 2004, 10:21PM
WASHINGTON — Halliburton Co. has agreed to reimburse the U.S. military more than $27 million for possible overcharges associated with serving up food for American troops in Iraq and Kuwait, Pentagon officials said late Monday.
In the latest blow to the Houston company's military contracting business, Pentagon auditors are examining possible overbillings at five dining facilities in those two countries.
And now, auditors with the Defense Contract Audit Agency want to take a closer look at the books for an additional 53 facilities.
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Pentagon auditors had alleged the company may have overcharged as much as $16 million for meals served at Camp Arifjan, a U.S. base outside Kuwait City.
During a routine review, auditors raised questions about bills being generated by Saudi subcontractor Tamimi Global Co.
Last July, for instance, Tamimi billed the government for 42,042 meals a day while only serving up 14,053 meals a day, the Wall Street Journal, which obtained a copy of an e-mail sent out to contracting officials, reported.
That overestimation alone pushed up costs by about $3.5 million.
The bills in question were racked up over nine months last year, Pentagon officials said Monday.
Last Friday, Halliburton notified the Pentagon that it would reimburse the military $16 million until questions about the discrepancies are resolved.
Then on Monday, Halliburton told the military it would refund $11.4 million more to cover possible overcharges at an additional four bases.
Halliburton will apparently fulfill these pledges by delaying billing for charges owed until the outstanding issues are resolved.
Halliburton serves meals as part of a 10-year contract valued at $3.6 billion to build bases, cook food, wash clothes, deliver mail and provide other basic services for U.S. troops.
Halliburton officials argued Monday that estimating the number of troops and civilian workers who might sit down for a given meal is no easy task.
"Wartime conditions make it hard to 'guess who is coming to dinner,' " the company said in a prepared statement. "This is not a neighborhood restaurant where you can quickly total up all the dinner tabs."
Because of security concerns, commanders don't want their troops signing in for meals, company officials said.
Military leaders also don't want the troops to have to wait in long lines for chow.
"At times, soldiers are on leave or troops are shifted to other locations," Randy Harl, KBR's chief executive officer, said in a prepared statement.
"We have served more than 50 million meals to soldiers in the past year, and any assignment of this size is, of course, going to be subject to question."
Company officials say they are discussing with military planners ways to better estimate the number of troop meals that might be necessary.
Until the billing issues are resolved, Halliburton has agreed not to submit new bills for Tamimi's services.
Company officials insisted, however, that the decision should not be construed to represent some kind of "admission."
"There have been no conclusions reached," the company said.
"This is a normal part of the audit process for the DCAA to raise questions and request additional materials."
On Capitol Hill, reaction to the news was swift.
"If the reports are true, this is blatant overcharging," said Rep. Henry Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee and a frequent Halliburton critic. "Basic common sense says you don't charge for tens of thousands of meals that you don't serve."
This is not the first time Pentagon auditors have questioned Halliburton's bills for its cafeteria services.
Late last year, Pentagon auditors said Halliburton may have tried to charge the government $67 million more to manage cafeterias for U.S. troops than the company had agreed to pay the subcontractors hired to do the work.
Pentagon officials said they thought that overbilling was a result of poor oversight at the company.
This is not the first time Halliburton has had to refund the Pentagon possible overcharges stemming from its military support services.
Last month, Halliburton refunded the Pentagon $6.3 million after revealing that two former employees may have accepted "improper payments" from a Kuwaiti subcontractor, as part of an alleged scheme to overbill the Army Materiel Command.
Pentagon auditors have also criticized Halliburton for what they argued could be $61 million worth of possible overcharges for trucking gasoline in from Kuwait to Iraq, in a separate contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The auditors identified possible "irregularities" related to the fuel purchases and asked the Defense Criminal Investigative Service with the Pentagon Inspector General's office to examine the issue more closely.
Pentagon officials are interested in examining the behavior of government employees, not Halliburton workers, in connection with that probe.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2384533
Breaking the Press, American Politics Journal, February 2, 2004
By Alan Bisbort
Feb 2, 2004, 12:11
My wife called me from work the other day. In a hushed voice, she said, "Did you hear about Halliburton?"
My first thought was, "What now? What could Halliburton possibly have done that would be so bad, given all its other well-documented sleaziness, as to elicit a hushed phone call from my wife?" I hesitated to ask, though. I've gotten into too many heated discussions with my wife about politics these past three years, and the one place I want peace and serenity during these dark Bush days, is in my own home.
My wife still holds out a candle, if not a torch, for the Fourth Estate. She's an award-winning journalist with unimpeachable integrity and peerless talent, and she toils honorably for a daily newspaper that one could fairly describe as "mainstream." Though my wife can't wait to vote against Bush and Cheney, she will not broach any suggestion-which I am all too ready to make-that the American press has failed miserably, terribly, disgracefully in covering their administration. And yet it is demonstrably true: The American mainstream press (print, radio, television) has given these backroom criminals a free pass that was not offered Clinton and Gore. Or Nixon and Agnew, for that matter. The Fourth Estate is, as Bartcop has dubbed it, "the good puppy press."
So I bit my tongue and said, "No...what?"
Perhaps hoping to show me that the mainstream press does hold the Bushies' feet to the fire, my wife then tells me about an item she found in the Wall Street Journal. It seems two Halliburton officials took kickbacks to hire a Kuwaiti company for Iraqi contract work.
"That surprises you?" I ask, thinking she's going to hit me with a punchline. Two corporate sleazebags taking millions in kickbacks is such small beer for Halliburton, it barely warrants mentioning. "That's all the story reported?"
I could hear my wife sighing.
I instantly recalled a story that appeared in this same Wall Street Journal the month before the November 2000 election. It, too, was about Halliburton and it detailed how the company, when Dick Cheney was its CEO, brokered oil pipeline deals with the military dictatorship of Myanmar, against an order from Pres. Clinton asking American companies not to have financial dealing with the junta. Furthermore, those Myanmar deals utilized slave labor. Slave labor! Illegal deals! Tyrants as business partners! Sounded like SOP for the GOP to me!
As it happened, I was at a Society of Professional Journalists convention when this Myanmar story broke in the WSJ. Though I pointed it out to some of the other convention goers-copies of the paper were distributed free to all comers-I was greeted with stony silence, dismissive and hostile stares. Furthermore, my attempts to inject a note of skepticism among these shakers and movers of the Fourth Estate about a potential Bush-Cheney administration-citing a lengthy piece by another of their colleagues about Cheney's legacy of press muzzling, published in American Journalism Review, also distributed free at the convention-was seen as bad manners. Bush, they seemed to want to believe, would never stoop to such things.
I'll never forget, in particular, the looks of a fresh scrubbed bunch of people from a public radio affiliate who were seated at my table during the awards banquet (full disclosure: my wife was there to pick up an award for her writing). They weren't openly hostile to me when I, rather passionately, argued that Bush and Cheney would be the worst thing that could possibly happen to a free press in the United States. They just didn't seem to have room in their minds to ponder such a possibility. I was bumming them out, frankly.
More than two years later, I experienced this same profound sense of disconnect from mainstream media at a Connecticut Forum the day after Bush declared war on Iraq. The event, called "A Nobel Evening," featured a panel of three Nobel Peace Prize recipients (Jody Williams, Elie Wiesel, Oscar Arias) and was moderated by Juan Williams, the slick former Washington Post reporter who now plays "moderate" on NPR and PBS, among other venues.
When Oscar Arias suggested to Williams that the American press was biased and its coverage of George W. Bush was completely one-sided, the terminally suave moderator was ruffled. Williams gasped and sputtered, "What....what do you mean?!," as if he had never heard such a view expressed, though it's one widely shared by millions of Americans and drew one of the most sustained ovations at the forum that night.
A little background on Juan Williams is in order. Lest I be accused of maligning the great moderator, I defer to the Columbia Journalism Review for the following reality check on Mr. Williams:
"On Thursday, October 10, 1991-- a day before testimony by Anita Hill had even begun, the [Washington Post] carried across the top of its op-ed page a six-column piece headed OPEN SEASON ON CLARENCE THOMAS in which staff writer Juan Williams vented his moral outrage over the liberals' 'mob action' and 'indiscriminate... smear,' and asserted, with seemingly authoritative dismissiveness, that '[Hill] had no credible evidence of Thomas's involvement in any sexual harassment, but she was prompted to say he had asked her out and mentioned pornographic movies to her.'
Unbeknownst to readers of Williams's piece; and unbeknownst to viewers who on the following day (Friday, October 11) happened to catch him expounding his views in conversations with Peter Jennings on ABC...Williams himself had two weeks earlier become the subject of an internal inquiry into allegations of sexual harassment by several female colleagues. What's more, Williams's personal interest in the issue of sexual harassment would be unbeknownst to us still, if newly appointed Post executive editor Leonard Downie, Jr., had had his way: upon learning that media writer Howard Kurtz (who had been alerted to the rage among women in the newsroom) was preparing to write a story, he ordered Kurtz to stop."
As a side note, those who think the Washington Post's rightward tilt began with George W. Bush, I remind you that this above episode occurred one year before Bill Clinton was elected to his first term.
Which is why, on that March night last year, the sanctimonious, supercilious look that Juan Williams gave Oscar Arias, a man of inspiration and courage who prevailed over Ronald Reagan in Central America without having to fire a shot in anger, quite nearly sent me over the edge of the balcony.
"Yes, Mr. Arias is correct and you know it, Don Juan!" I wanted to shout, but I bit my tongue.
Flash forward to this week. Only seconds before my wife called with the latest Halliburton horror, I had received an email from someone with a piece pasted in it critically documenting three recent softball interviews conducted by Juan Williams for NPR with Condi Rice, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove regarding the war in Iraq. No other voices were allowed to disrupt Williams' shameless whoring for the White House.
That was followed by another email from a former U.S. Army intelligence officer now living in Europe. In his message, he'd pasted an article by a real journalist named Chris Floyd, published in the Moscow Times, the feistiest English-language daily in Russia.
Floyd's piece suggested that Halliburton may be involved in transporting weapons of mass destruction INTO Iraq. Yes, you heard correctly.
Quoting Floyd: "Last week, Pentagon auditors called for a formal investigation of 'overcharges' by Cheney's Halliburton hirelings. The well-connected corporation...is accused of skimming $61 million in excess cream from a shady deal to import Kuwaiti gasoline into the conquered land. To carry out this choice bit of war profiteering, Halliburton hooked up with Altanmia Marketing of Kuwait. Altanmia was given exclusive rights to ship Kuwaiti gasoline to Iraq - 'even though it had no prior experience transporting fuel,' U.S. Congressional investigators report. So what is the firm's actual expertise? Investments, real estate -- and acting as 'representative agents for companies trading in military and nuclear, biological and chemical equipment,' The Wall Street Journal reports." [There's that radical leftist WSJ rag again !]
Further: "Strangely enough, Kuwaiti energy officials had never heard of Altanmia before the Halliburton deal. They had recommended several experienced distributors -- with far cheaper rates -- to the Americans, but were told that Altanmia was the only choice, The Wall Street Journal reports."
Along with this article, my intelligence friend appended a message: Could it be that this shady Kuwaiti company that was hired by Cheney's Halliburton to transport petrol from Kuwait to Iraq at twice the going rate -- a company, mind you, that has no prior experience in tranporting petrol, but is really a company that specializes in representing companies that trade in military, nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons equipment -- is charging so much to do something else? Such as transporting and planting WMD into Iraq that we can than 'discover' and say, 'see, we told you all along, the weapons of WMD are there! Saddam had them.'? Could it be? You can bet that this "discovery" -- and it will have to be a whopper! -- will occur before election day."
Sinister, yes. Beyond the realm of possibility? Not in the least. In fact, given what we've learned about the Bushies-mostly from sources other than our own mainstream press and from Paul O'Neill-I would say it's a distinct possibility. Every other revelation that originated outside the mainstream press-dismissed by the "serious journalists"-has turned out to be true. Why not this one, too?
My wife would hear none of it, though. When I told her about the article regarding the gas-hauling company-documented by Wall Street Journal!-she found a pretext to get off the phone quickly, lest she be subjected to another one of my admittedly tiresome (but truth-filled) diatribe about Bush, Cheney and the neutering of the American mainstream press.
Alan Bisbort is a columnist for the Hartford Advocate.
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_4921.shtml
Halliburton's $2.4 million bribe revisited
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
HALLIBURTON, the construction firm which was once headed by the U.S Vice President Richard Cheney, has been involved in several bribery scandals in the developing countries including Nigeria.
Last year, the company confessed to offering a bribe of $2.4 million to some Nigerians in order to obtain favourable tax rebates. Obviously, the tax evaded as a result would have exceeded the amount paid out as bribe at the time. At today’s exchange rates the bribe alone would be worth about 270 million; the tax evaded several times that amount.
Given the government’s often stated position on corruption Vanguard and, indeed, the people would have expected the government to investigate the matter and to publicly identify those involved and to prosecute them. This apparently has not been the case. The matter, like most others involving highly placed individuals in the corridors of power, has been conveniently swept under the carpet.
Vanguard strongly believes that the matter should not be handled that way for two reasons: first, Halliburton stands accused of major tax evasion which, by itself, is a criminal offence for which penalties have been established including the payment of the taxes evaded plus a penalty for the evasion whether wilful or inadvertent. It is not clear that Halliburton has paid in full what the nation should receive.
Second, Halliburton was engaged in bribery, another criminal offence, which carries its own penalties which it must pay together with its collaborators in the crime. Till today government has not informed the general public how the cases of tax-evasion and bribery committed by Halliburton have been disposed off.
Vanguard would want government to speak out on these issues as the reports from abroad increasingly paint the picture of Halliburton as a company known for bribery and questionable deals. The company is still operating in Nigeria and Nigerians need to know that we are dealing with a responsible corporate citizen not a habitual felon.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/columns/c103022004.html
spree -- somehow I suspect this may be a case of one of those things about the human female that we human males are just not destined to comprehend (. . .) (lol)
My Dime -- ah, the gloves are really starting to come off now! -- gotta love it! -- THANK YOU for these posts!
zitboy --
so you are not one of those Christian fundamentalists; thank you for answering that question -- but what I said about those Christian fundamentalists (and by all means not all Christian fundamentalists; in case this hasn't been clear all along, I absolutely respect every person's right to be religious [or not] in attempting [or not] to understand and answer, or to at least find some personal accomodation with, the larger questions implicit in our being here; I have absolutely no issue whatsoever with anybody based solely on their religious beliefs or practices as such, period) -- anyway, what I said about those Christian fundamentalists, precisely and solely because they do wish politically to destroy this nation as a secular constitutional republic and to remake it in their own image according to the diktats of their own particular chosen religious beliefs and dogma, everything I've said about them stands, and you have yet to reply with a single thought of any substance in response or rebuttal
I am still curious, and perhaps others here are as well -- did you support that Mississippi judge's insistence on placing that 10 Commandments monument in the entry to the public courthouse housing his court? -- do you agree with what Falwell and Robertson said re 9/11, that we deserved it, that it was god's punishment for this nation's having become too heedless of his word and commandments?
even more to the point, to help us all understand whether you really are or are not fairly lumped together, politically and agenda-wise, with those Christian fundamentalists, let me ask the question point-blank (where I do believe I've made clear where I stand on this level) (. . .) -- do you believe that those Christian fundamentalists should be entitled or allowed to cause our secular law and government to cast aside the separation of church and state, and to explicitly incorporate those Christian fundamentalists' own particular version of god and god's commandments?
and forgive me, but back to Jefferson one more time -- only someone like you, so totally unwilling or unable to understand or acknowledge what deism is, could possibly contend that Jefferson was not a deist (where the fact that he may never have written, at least not publically, that he was a deist as such is hardly surprising, given the crap he was already taking from certain Christian fundamentalists of his day for what he had dared to write publicly) -- Jefferson was the quintessential deist; and as shown again and again (in particular in language you didn't bold) in what you yourself have quoted of Jefferson, his studies and appreciation of Jesus were strictly of Jesus as an ethicist and philosopher of great wisdom, and explicitly not of Jesus as any sort of a religious figure as such -- ignore, deny or gloss over that distinction all you want, it's real and it's pertinent to, indeed dispositive of, this point, whether you agree, or like it, or not -- that's the truth of it -- and for you to have had the sheer unmitigated gall to draw a parallel between your ridiculous fantasy-of-a-pretext 'persecution' of today's Christian fundamentalists on the one hand, and the very real persecution suffered by Jefferson at the hands of certain Christian fundamentalists of his day on the other, in order to argue of all things that Jefferson if he were here today would support those Christian fundamentalists of today whose explicit agenda is to destroy the very Constitution and nation he helped to create, indeed to become entitled under color of law and with the power of the government to do to the rest of us now what certain Christian fundamentalists of his day could only do to him privately, well . . . that was just breathtakingly intellectually dishonest . . . I mean, DAMN, dude, that was COLD . . .
(btw, I gotta admit I can't say I'm suprised that I'm not the only one who's ever found your bs a little hard to take -- and my oh my but isn't that a very cute little 'saintly martyr' complex to complement that nifty little 'persecution' complex you've got going for yourself there, as if your rank bs therefore doesn't stink like any other rank bs, as if I or anybody else should therefore give your bs deference it doesn't deserve -- thanks for sharing)
zitboy -- yeah yeah yeah, we all know today's Christian fundamentalists are being 'persecuted' anytime any court properly acts to block, or anyone correctly and rightfully speaks out against, their self-centered and self-indulgent crusade to subvert and destroy the Constitution and diminish and destroy the rights and liberties of the rest of us -- and up is down and down is up -- yeah right
and yes indeed, there's that word, 'secularists' -- oooooh, scary, is that used like the word 'communists' was used back in the days of McCarthy? -- and btw, didn't you forget the adjective 'evil', or would that have been redundant? (. . .)
we 'secularists' aren't 'persecuting' anyone, you whiny, obnoxious, lying prick! -- what a crock!! -- that crap, the utterly ridiculous claim that Christian fundamentalists are being 'persecuted' because they (you included?) aren't just being allowed to hijack and destroy this secular constitutional republic's law and government, is insidiously dangerous 'Big Lie' propoganda of the purest and worst sort -- the indisputable truth is that there is not now and never has been any real 'persecution' whatsoever of Christian fundamentalists in this country, either in terms of their private religious beliefs and practices or in terms of their legitimate participation on an equal footing with the rest of us in our secular constitutional government; indeed, there has never been any other nation in history where Christian fundamentalists have been so completely protected in their right to their private religious beliefs and practices as they have been and continue to be here -- but that's just not good enough for them/you, now is it -- gotta have it all, the Constitution and the rest of us be damned, eh?
I take it you did support that crackpot Mississippi judge's outrageous crusade to place that religious icon in the entry to his courthouse to intimidate the unworthy faithless? -- and in keeping with the big lie which he spouted and you too seek to spread, no doubt you believe that he's been 'persecuted'?
and I also take it you agree with Falwell and Robertson and their folks (who by the way, for any who are not aware of this, since dubya took office have had and continue to have unprecedented private access available to nobody else, via weekly telcon briefings directly with dubya and company, to review and discuss the issues of the day and the best ways for them to advance their shared strategies for our future) that 9/11 was only possible, and indeed was god's own punishment, because this nation had lost god's favor and protection due to its abhorrent respect and tolerance for the rights and views of those of its citizens other than Christian fundamentalists?
folks, take a good long look at zitboy and his fellow zealots; carefully listen to and consider their lies and their avowed goals -- THEY are our greatest, most dangerous, most immediate and most insidious enemy, bar none -- THEY care nothing at all for the rest of us or our rights and liberties -- THEY are the ones who before any others will indeed destroy our great nation if we, the rest of us, allow them to do so . . .
it was indeed wisely and correctly stated long ago that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; and even now, we are being tested -- folks, this is NOT a drill, repeat, this is NOT a drill . . .
migo -- I believe a key starting point to understanding what happened and how is that unprecedented separate office headed by Ms. Rice interposed by dubya and gang between the intelligence community and the White House, isolating/insulating the White House from (responsibility for) direct input from the intelligence community -- you may recall the role of that separate office ('oops! we just goofed the vetting process! so sorry -- it'll NEVER happen again!') in that now seemingly forgotten snafu re how that claim which our intelligence community had long known to be a totally and patently false fabrication, that Iraq was actively seeking to import significant quantities of uranium from an African nation, just somehow nonetheless made it into one of dubya's key pre-war speeches advocating and seeking to justify the invasion of Iraq (a speech to the United Nations, I believe -- ??) . . .
zitboy --
whatever, opie -- to hell with your relentlessly disingenuous mischaracterizations of what I've said -- we've stated our positions; those who read our posts can and will reach their own conclusions -- though I will add that your "fact" (oh, really?) of your version of god, and your ignorant, malicious and absolutely ludicrous corresponding assertion that a person cannot truly have ethics or be moral without having your sort of religious belief, your sort of faith in your sort of god, do indeed say it all about you and the profound lack of substance of your stunningly misguided, arrogant, narrow-minded and self-serving rhetoric . . .
migo -- obviously enough I trust, I for one have concluded that the Senate and House voted as they did because dubya and company knowingly lied to them both about the totality of the available intelligence, and about their true intentions -- and I can't tell you how much it hurts me that Powell was (forced to be? willingly agreed to be?) part of that -- and similarly, of course, in my opinion the current politically expedient campaign to shift the responsibility for those lies away from dubya and company by scapegoating what I see as our professional and highly dedicated intelligence community, as imperfect as it inevitably has to be in trying to know everything of importance about our difficult and complex world, is beyond disgusting and very dangerous to our future security
wow, rooster, more bs as usual -- just where exactly did I ever say Saddam is good? (btw, when can we expect your recital of all the recent martial-law states where there were never any detentions or tortures, let alone murders, of citizens suspected of disloyalty to the regime?)
ah, zitboy -- please forgive me oh great one, how could I fail to recognize that of course you know everything and that of course all of modern science that you don't agree with is full of sh@! -- what would we do without ya? -- you really ought to be setting straight the Pentagon and all those other folks who really matter, rather than wasting your genius and time enlightening us peons, ya know -- lol
seriously, will you ever stop making up lies about me and what I'm doing in my responses to your stuff? -- I did read what you posted, I did actually consider it, and I then properly dismissed it as hogwash
(as you damn well know, btw, in referring to known climatic history I was referring to the most recent millions of years, the same being the relevant period for understanding our current climate, and not the remote ancient history of our little rock -- and also btw, how do you explain the very distinct cooling, on the order of 1 degree C, that was observed worldwide in the year or two following the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines? oh, of course, bullsh@! data -- I shoulda known -- must be frustrating as heck the way obviously bad data keeps getting in the way of your sublime and indisputable truths . . .)
rooster -- it is precisely because of what we do know, most particularly (even beyond the whole WMD thing) that Hussein had not one thing directly to do with 9/11 or with any plans anybody's ever found any evidence of to do something else like 9/11 (and in fact to the day he was captured with documents to such effect in his possession was ordering his followers to have nothing to do with any radical Islamists in fighting against our occupying forces), that we know dubya was "nuts" in terms of the lies he told us and was in fact serving those who e.g. control Halliburton with this whole plan he and his fellow neo-fascists, er, neo-cans had SINCE BEFORE HE WAS ELECTED (and thus since well before 9/11) to invade Iraq -- and as for what happens under martial-law regimes, you either are incredibly naive and uninformed or apparently once again just cannot handle the truth -- would you care to name for us the martial-law authoritarian regimes of the last couple hundred years (far-right or far-left in ideology, take your pick) where such things HAVEN'T happened?
bulldzr -- I guess that attempt of mine at a little sardonic humor in response to rooster's blather was a bit TOO sardonic, lol
in all seriousness, however, I sincerely hope that we all realize and understand that if this nation does tip over into a martial-law fascist state, then such things as the detention, torture and yes even murder of citizens whose loyalty is questioned will indeed occur, and needing to be constantly on guard to avoid such a fate, against which there will be no such thing as any recourse to any courts, will indeed become an inescapable and absolutely routine reality of our daily lives . . .
bulldzr --
thanks for your thoughts -- my response:
you can rest assured that I do not underestimate dubya, or those who run him -- instead, perhaps I'm giving us all a bit more credit than you are for the ability to recognize the lies and bs and the attacks on our rights and liberties we're being force-fed by this administration for what they are, and to get off our butts to go vote to prevent four more years of this administration -- it's gonna be a tough and ugly campaign, no doubt, but I see the reality of what dubya and gang have been up to since dubya took office catching up with him and proving his undoing -- to me at least, it's clear that that's already happening, and I don't see that trend reversing or disappearing before the election
re the Declaration of Independence -- its purpose was to list our immediate grievances with the Crown and to sever ourselves from the Crown as the only means left to us to redress those grievances -- and as a practical matter here at that time, oppression specifically of religious freedom by the Crown just was not a burning issue; as a practical matter, people here then in fact by and large had freedom of religion, which of course was a primary reason why many if not most who had come here up to that time had done so -- accordingly, I respectfully disagree with your inference from the text of the Declaration of Independence that people here then didn't care much about freedom of religion; they cared deeply about it, it just wasn't in fact a big immediate issue between them and the Crown at that time
lastly, of course the American Revolution was about money and power, as well as individual rights and liberties; but that is not at all inconsistent with, nor does it in any way change, the fact that separation of church and state, as essential to securing all individual rights and liberties and not only freedom of religion, was a fundamental principle guiding the formation of this nation, as fundamental as any other embodied in the Constitution
zitboy -- Joseph Goebbels you ain't
but hey -- keep dreaming, keep trying, maybe someday . . .
("botox boy" -- is that all you've got? -- you sound scared . . .)
and because you can't handle my points or argument, you just punt and call me a drunk -- nice touch -- very classy
lmao
Concerns simmer over student drug testing
Friday, January 30, 2004 Posted: 3:58 PM EST (2058 GMT)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sixteen-year-old Garrett Dush says he doesn't take drugs and wouldn't mind being tested for them at school under a program being championed by President Bush.
But Garrett's father, Cris Dush, is concerned about how his son, a high school sophomore from Brookville, Pennsylvania, or other students would be selected for testing.
"It'd have to be random," says Cris Dush, who works at a state prison outside of Brookville, about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. "If the kid is going to feel targeted ... I wouldn't want that."
The idea of steering America's kids clear of drugs has broad support. But the $23 million White House plan to increase testing in schools is drawing sharp criticism from some parents, school administrators and civil liberties activists.
Bush's plan, unveiled last week in his State of the Union speech, would expand a $2 million program that last year funded drug testing in eight school districts. A Supreme Court case in 2002 upheld the authority of schools to test students who participate in extracurricular activities, like sports teams.
Federal guidelines under which those students are tested have been kept deliberately vague to give schools and communities broad discretion. But Bush and his drug policy director insist test results be kept confidential.
"The aim here is not to punish children, but to send them this message: 'We love you, and we don't want to lose you,"' Bush said.
Word can still get out, according to some administrators as well as critics. That's troubling to civil liberties groups who say children who need help could end up in jail instead.
"They're saying this is to help, not punish," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance in New York, which fiercely guards against government privacy violations and questions the effectiveness of drug testing. "But it always starts with that. And inevitably, the next shoe to drop is: 'We need to punish people in order to help people."'
Mixed response
In Nelson County, Kentucky, all high school athletes in fall sports were tested for drugs at the beginning of the school year, followed by two more rounds of tests for randomly selected athletes. This spring, students involved in other extracurricular activities -- like band or yearbook -- also will start random testing, said Karen Johnson, the school district's director of federal grants.
"It's been accepted very well," Johnson said. The county received $284,203 from the federal government last year to help pay for drug testing.
"If students want to play sports, they know they have to be clean," she said. "A lot of times, drug use is the result of peer pressure. But if they have a reason, they can say, 'I can't do that.' It gives them an out without looking like they're a nerd or something."
Students who test positive are temporarily pulled off their team and receive counseling from a school adviser, Johnson said. Police are not called, and students rarely, if ever, risk being suspended or expelled from school, she said.
Already, Republican lawmakers, led by Rep. John Peterson of Pennsylvania, are pushing legislation they envision could let school districts randomly test all students grades 8-12 -- not just those in after-school activities.
For whatever reason, drug use among junior- and senior-high school students has been on a two-year decline, a recent University of Michigan study showed.
Less than half of school districts test any students for drugs, said Paul Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators. Those that do have scant resources to follow up with medical intervention.
"We've got school districts who think it's wonderful, and are doing it, and others who think it's terrible," said Houston, whose Arlington, Virginia-based group represents 14,000 school superintendents nationwide. "It sort of depends on the local communities, their values."
Privacy concerns are another matter.
In most cases, students who test positive are sent to school counselors instead of doctors for intervention and treatment, said Julie Underwood, general counsel for the National School Boards Association. For the most part, she said, schools "are real good about student privacy," but word of a positive drug test can still get out.
"Students probably know," Underwood said. "For many school administrators, it may not be a concern, because part of the total picture is making sure that students understand the negative consequences of drug use."
She said it's unlikely that school districts shield all positive drug tests from the law.
But to Garrett Dush and three other Brookville teens who were in Washington last week, that doesn't matter much.
"I don't think you have to worry about it if you're not doing it," Garrett said. "So it wouldn't be a big deal if any of your friends found out your test results."
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/01/30/student.drug.testing.ap/index.html
migo -- truth and honesty matter not even one little bit to our diminutive plucked hen of a gadfly -- who will be one of those pathetic little folks always lurking on your doorstep or at your window listening for something, anything he can twist into something, anything he can whisperedly report to the local commandant in hope of being allowed to watch the next citizen hauled in for disloyalty be tortured and then murdered . . .