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| Bush should be impeached for the war in Iraq. Read how he got us into it |
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Minnesota who was assasinated before the
2002 election by the conservative white trash
that rules this country so they could take
control of the senate and ram their agenda
down the throats of the american people
(who will transfer it back to him after he leaves
office) defrauded the government billions of
dollars via Tenet Healthcare. I meant to say HCA
Healthcare. See article below. There is the
possiblity he was ecouraged to steal billions,
intentionally allowed to keep a huge slush fund
and made senate leader in order to use this
slush fund to accomplish conservative objectives
with tax payer medicare money. It could have
something to do with a prescription bill for the
elderly without price controls. The
pharmacudicals have all the tax payer money in
the world to use as they wish.
Missouri who was assasinated right
before the 2000 election on behalf of
criminal conservatives who have taken
over our government in order to pass
legislation on behalf of criminals in the
energy, healthcare and Tobacco
industries and force their ideology on the
world. Their agenda is to have an
income distribution like Latin America.
Watch the movie Seven Days in May.
conservatives will take the world to hell in a hand basket. I warned you. If I had the time or desire I'd go back to the works of
JK Galbraith and educate you but you don't want to learn. You just want to continue in your evil ways. So fuck you all. As far
as I'm concerned you should all be exterminated like a rabbid dogs.
I suppose the first thing I would do is restore all the Hartz 4 cuts, especially the cuts to the benefits of the long term
unemployed. I'd have the whole world establish benefits to the long term unemployed and restore all the social welfare and
double what it was in this country. The ruling criminals can stimulate the European economies anytime they want by taking
the profits out of energy and healthcare. The ruling conservative criminals can lower the cost of oil whenever they want but
they prefer to fuck the world over. I would also nationalize the banks. The biggest mistake FDR made was failing to
nationalize the banks. That's why they are the most corrupt institutions around.
One might ask why the Swedish foreign minister was voted days before the country was to vote on whether to join the Euro.
So that’s how the US masters force their will on the EU.
Sweden’s New Moderates gain ground with voters
Christopher Brown-Humes
5th Paragraph, p2, Thursday August 4th Financial Times
“The Social Democrats are not helped by the uncertainty over who will replace Mr Persson as party leader. He might already
have stepped down if Anna Lindh, his foreign minister, had not been murdered just days before Swedes voted against
joining the euro in September 2003.
Mr Persson has said he will fight the 2006 election, but is not expected to stay for long after that. Victory next September
would help secure his legacy.
Mr Reinfeldt is taking nothing for granted, however. He expects the Social Democrats to increase spending on public
services in the next year and to attack his, inexperience in government.
He is also conscious that the Moderates have in previous election campaign!? lost significant support in the six months
before the poll.
"The difference this time is that we have undergone a thorough change," he says of the party's policy shifts. "We have killed
some of our own darlings."
You need to get rid of those who conspired to more than double the price of gas the past few years or nationalize the oil
companies. You could send Mario Cuomo to Italy to help them fix their economy.
Conoco's Net Jumps 51%, FueledBy Oil Prices, Refining Strength
By DAVID BOGOSLAW Dow Jones Newswires
ConocoPhillips said second-quarter profit rose 51%, thanks to high oil prices and strong refining operations, and reiterated
that its full-year production would rise as new projects in the Gulf of Mexico, Venezuela and the North Sea either begin or
increase production.
Conoco of Houston reported net income of $3.14 billion, or $2.21 a share, up from $2.08 billion, or $1.48 a share, a year
earlier. Revenue climbed 34% to $42.6 billion.
In the second quarter, daily production fell 1.3% to 1.54 million barrels of oil
equivalent from a year earlier, as higher volumes from Venezuela, the Timor Sea and the lower 48 U.S. states were more
than offset by lower production in the North Sea and Alaska.
ConocoPhillips stock rose 84 cents to $62.26 in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading.
Although large publicly traded oil companies have been throwing off record earnings of late, boosting daily oil and natural-
gas production has proved much more difficult, as existing fields mature and new ventures are difficult to find. 'The company
said it expects full-year production to rise 3% to the equivalent of 1.6 inillion barrels of oil and gas a day. Earlier this year,
ConocoPhillips reduced its production-growth target for 2005 to 3% from 5%. That doesn't include Conoco's _hare of
production by Russia's OAO Lukoil, which contributes an additional 223,000 barrels of oil equivalent daily.
I In Conoco's refining and marketing business, income from continuing operanons rose 36% to $1.11 billion from' $818
humon a year earlier, as an increase in world-wide refining margins and volumes,_as well as higher U.S. marketing margins,
more than offset higher turnaround and liUiitY: costS':"Refin'1'ries ralfat -97% capacity
.1)utilization, up from 93% a year earlier.
. Conoco "captured the environment of strong demand and refinery tightness" ,in U.S. refining, Del.j.tsche Bank Securities
analyst Paul Sankey said in a re[search note. "International refining and ;chemicals were the only disappointment _in the
result," he added.
: In the exploration and production busi,ness, income from continuing operations _rose 42% to $1.93 billion from $1.35
billion a year earlier, as higher sales prices of'oil and natural gas more than offset higher production taxes in a higher-price
environment, lower foreign-exchange I gains and benefits last year from .changes in Canadian tax law.
Separately, BP PLC said it is increasing planned' expenditures this year for the projects it operates in the Caspian region,
including the key BaJ,m-TbilisiCeyhan pipeline. The British oil company, which controls about 30% of the
_iPeline, increased its annual overall,capital-expenditure plans from about $14 billion to about $14.5 billion. A BP
spokesman said the long-term budget for the projects remains. unchanged.
-Russell Gold contributed to this article.
I read the Financial Times almost everyday and I still can't seem to find the type of article I'm looking for. Joseph Stiglitz's
article titled 'America has little to teach China about a steady economy" is step in the right direction. Rarely does the
financial press run an article by someone who really understands economics. I'd love to see articles by Robert Reich, Robert
Kuttner, Laura Tyson, Mario Cuomo, Bill Clinton and Joseph Stiglitz asking them what they would do right now to address
Europes growth and unemployment problem; what they would do with the EU, what they would do about the trade deficit with
China and the other most important issues of the day. I've been reading The Financial Times for six months and thats the
first really intelligent piece Ive read that directly addressed a significant problem. I suppose I can reprint it here.
July 28 Fin Times
lOSEPH STIGLITZ
America ,has little to teach China about a steady economy
As excitement over China's revaluation has died down -' including jubilation by some of the speculators, who have at last
earned an (albeit modest) return it is time for calmer assessment _ lbout what it does and does not mean for China, for the
US and for the global economy.
There remains considerable uncerainty. Though China has demonstrated a willingness to adjust its exchange rate, we do
not know what wiII follow; will the total adjustment over the next coupie of years be 10 per cent or 40 per cent? The
speculators, surely, will be betting on more. And as china wisely sterilises these inflows, , we can expect a continuing build-
up of reserves, with this being used by speculators and their allies as an argument for further revaluation. But China will,
hopefully, see through this. i
The key question is how the apprecation will affect global imbalances, China's trade surplus and the US trade defitcit and
what, if - any, will be the knock-on' effects. America's trade deficit It of $700bn is nine times China's trade surplus.- China's
economy has been going gangbusters; rapid growth with little inflationary pressure;' The valuation will hardly make a dent.
Even larger revaluations are not likely to do much to the global imbalances.
First, we do not know accurately the size of China's surplus because, in an attempt to circumvent exchange controls, there is
over-invoicing of exports. and under-invoicing of imports - part of speculative flows. The large import content of China's
exports, particularly America, mean that China's competiveness will be little affected. Econo- mists disagree about whether
the import content for exports to America 70 per cent or 80 per cent but,'what- ever, the number, it means that the effective
appreciation was almost._certainly under 1 per cent. In the case of a_larger revaluation, Chinese companies A could
probably respond to the loss of _competitiveness by cutting margins, reducing further the effect of the revaluation. This
revaluation - even if followed by further moderate ones - is likely only to slow the rising tide of China's exports slightly.
But whether this, or a succession of revaluations, eliminates China's trade surplus will have little effect on the more
important problem of global trade imbalances, and particularly on the US trade deficit. Much of China's recent gains in
textile sales, for instance, after. the end of quotas last December came at the expense of other developing countries.
America will once again be buying from them, and so total imports will be little changed.
More fundamentally, the trade deficit equals capital inflows, and capital
inflows equal the difference between domestic investment and domestic savings. That is why, normally, when the, fiscal
deficit goes up (so domestic savings goes down), the trade deficit goes , up. Neither President George W. Bush nor John
Snow, the US Treasury secretary, has explained how China's revaluation will change these basic equations. Unless
domestic investment goes down or domestic savings go up, the, trade deficit will persist, unabated. The trade deficit could
diminish but if it does, it will not be a pretty picture. Domestic investment, for .instance, could go down if we succeed in
getting our wish and China's trade surplus disappears; with China no longer using the money from its trade surplus to fund
our huge fiscal deficit, medium- and long-term interest rates would rise. The economic downturn, and the decrease in
investment, would be compounded -if the increase in interest rates pricked the housing bubble. There is a mYth of mutual
dependence: China needs to export goods to the US, which needs China's money to
finance its deficit. But China could easily make up for the loss of exports to a America - and the well being of its citizens
could even be improved - if some of the money it lends to the US was ( diverted to its own development. China has huge
investment needs, its government is going to lend money, why not finance its own development? Why I not fund increased
consumption at home, rather than that of the richest country in the world, to pay for a tax I cut for the richest people in the
richest I country, or to fight a war which mostt view as anathema? But the US could not so easily' make up for the gap in
fUnd,ing WIthout large increases in UI interest rates, and these couId play havoc with the economy. There is a second myth:
that China would benefit from letting its exchange rate float freely, letting market forces set the 'price. No market economy
has forsworn intervening in the exchange rate, More to the point; no market it economy 'has forsworn macroeconomic
interventions. Governments intervene regularly in financial markets, for instance, setting interest rates: Some market
fundamentalists claim that governments should do none of this. But today, no country' and, few respectable economists
subscribe to these views. The question, then, is what is the best set of interventions in the market? There is a high cost to
exchange rate volatility, and countries where governments have intervened judiciously 'to stabilise their exchange rate have
by and large, done better than those that or have not. _Exchange rate risks impose huge costs on companies; it is costly
and often impossible to divest themselves of this risk, especially in developing counties. The question of exchange rate
management brings up a broader issue: the role of the state in managing the economy. Today, almost everyone recognises
that countries can suffer from too little government intervention just as they can suffer from too much. China has been
balancing and, over the past two decades, markets have become more important, the government less. But the government
still plays a critica1 role. China's particular blend has served the Chinese well. It is not just that incomes have been rising at
an amazing 9 per cent annally, but that high rates have been sustained more than two decades, but the fruits of that growth
have been widely shared, 'From 1981 to 2001, 422m Chinese _move moved out of (absolute) poverty.
The US economy is growing at a third the pace of China's. Poverty is rising and median household incomes in real terms,
declining. America's total net savings are much less than China’s. China produces far more of the engineers and scientists
that are necessary to compete in the global economy than the US, while America is cutting its .expenditures on basic
research as it increases military spending. Meanwhile, as America's debt. continues to balloon, its president wants to make
tax cuts for the richest people permanent. With all this in mind, China's leaders may not feel they need to seek advice from
the US on how to manage either the exchange rate or the_economy.
l writer' is University Profe_sor at Columbia University and was awarded Ie Nobel Prize in economics in 2001
Joseph Stiglitz will answer questions on China, the US and the global economy
Live online from 3pm BSf on Aug 2. Send questions to ask@ft.com. Answers will be at www.ft.com/stiglitz
I
Bush: Ruining The American Dream
By Stephen Crockett
Jul 18, 2005, 15:14
I believe Americans will look back later this century to the rise of Bush Republicanism to explain why the American Dream
became the American Nightmare and why the great American Democratic Experiment started by the Founding Fathers
failed. The names of Bush, Cheney, Delay, Frist, Rove, Rice, Harris, Scalia, Thomas and Blackwell will be linked forever with
the decline of United States. Corporate America will be the institutional power blamed for the political rise of Bush
Republicanism and the resulting destruction of America's greatness!
America was a great nation long before it was a world-class military or economic power. America was great based on the
ideas advanced by our Founding Fathers. We were to have a government of and by the people. We were to be a nation of
laws. Wealth and power were to play a role in government but not be the government. The power of the elite was to be
curbed by principles.
The set of principles advanced by our Founding Fathers defined America. They were the American Dream. They began the
great American Democratic Experiment! For the next two hundred years, American history was the story of making the
American Dream a reality and the great American Democratic Experiment a success.
These struggles were not easy. Elite elements constantly struggled against both the American Dream and our expanding
Democracy. We had to overcome slavery, expand voting rights to include the poor and women, struggle to devise an
economic system that would permit the American middle class to grow and prosper and fight to curb tendencies toward
racism and religious intolerance. Excessive concentrations of wealth were always threatening to undo the good work of
millions of Americans accumulated over generations.
Only in the last few decades of the 20th Century did America start to suffer the excesses of success. The working classes
and middle classes made America great in economic and military terms by strictly supporting the great American Democratic
Experiment. The American Dream had for most Americans become a reality. Most Americans took this situation for granted
and did not see that threats to it were always going to exist.
The seeds of disaster were being nurtured by the increasingly bitter, resentful economic elite. The idea had grown among
these elements that their wealth should give them the right to rule over the American nation. They systematically gathered
their forces and set out to undermine our system of government and politics.
Billions of dollars were eventually expended to distort the political processes and corrupt both political discussion and
government. Rules concerning both elections and economic monopoly power slowly were assaulted until they were no
longer obstacles blocking the elite from ruling the nation basically unchecked.
Politics became nasty to discourage the average citizen from getting involved. Media fell almost exclusively under Corporate
control to keep citizens in ignorance of their declining political and economic role in America's future. The economy was
opened to foreign wealthy elements to increase the collective power of the elite and put pressure on America's working
classes and middle classes. The poor and minorities became the popular scapegoats because the wealthy financed these
efforts to shift the blame from themselves for their policies. Tax burdens fell for the wealthiest and Corporations while rising
for others. The wealthiest and Corporations created a national debt and profited by financing that debt collecting interest.
The standard of living of the average Americans began to decline. They started wars to make themselves profits.
Other nations created very successful systems of national healthcare for all citizens. In America, wealthy political figures like
Bill Frist, Tom Delay and George Bush stopped this from happening. Millions of Americans suffered ill health and premature
deaths because of their actions. The Corporate Media abetted this horrible political policy crime against the American
Dream.
Our system of free elections fell under the control of private, Republican connected corporations. The voting counting
systems became both private and secret. They could no longer be trusted. Government actors like Ken Blackwell and
Katherine Harris seemed to act to promote Republican victory instead of honest counting. Supreme Court Justices like
Scalia and Thomas ignored long-standing judicial precedents and conflict of interest standards for federal judges to secure
election victories for Bush Republicans. Americans lost faith in our election processes. Corporate elites rejoiced.
Dick Cheney held private meetings with oil industry executives to set government policy in government offices with
government staff. Many believe that these meeting included detailed plans where American oil companies were dividing up
Iraq's oil fields in a post invasion plan long before the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Many believe that the current high oil prices
were planned at these same meetings. Cheney refuses to release the details to the American taxpayer. Scalia and Thomas
expanded executive privilege power to protect Cheney and deny American knowledge about their government's actions.
George Bush started appointing federal judges holding radically elitist, anti-democratic views and pro-Corporate political
philosophies at every opportunity. Judges were appointed who held views like "Social Security is a communist idea" and
"government has no power to regulate pollution" and "money is free speech" to life-long positions of power in the federal
courts. Bill Frist threatened to change the rules of the US Senate and thwart the intentions of our Founding Fathers just to
get these radical judges into positions of power.
Failing a serious political revolt and a shake-up in our current political system, I fear the future for the American nation and
the American Dream is extremely bleak. I think Bush Republicanism may finally have killed the great American Democratic
Experiment. I will spend the rest of my life fighting to rekindle the flames of both the American Dream and American
Democracy but I am unsure of victory. I am just one little guy and relatively unimportant. To my fellow citizens, I ask one
question - "Are you with me?"
Written by Stephen Crockett (co-host of Democratic Talk Radio www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com ). Mail: 7A Planville Drive,
Fayetteville, TN 37334. Email: midsouthcm@aol.com.
Jane Fonda to Oppose Iraq War on Bus Tour
Jul 25, 9:04 AM (ET)
(AP) Jane Fonda poses for a portrait at the Four Seasons Hotel Sunday, April 10, 2005, in Los Angeles....
Full Image
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - Actress and activist Jane Fonda says she intends to take a cross-country bus tour to call for an end
to U.S. military operations in Iraq.
"I can't go into any detail except to say that it's going to be pretty exciting," she said.
Fonda said her anti-war tour in March will use a bus that runs on "vegetable oil." She will be joined by families of Iraq war
veterans and her daughter.
They plan to return to the Santa Fe area, where she was promoting her book, "My Life So Far" on Saturday.
Prompted by a question from the audience, Fonda said war veterans that she has met on a nationwide book tour have
encouraged her to break her silence on the Iraq war.
"I've decided I'm coming out," she said.
Hundreds of people in the audience cheered loudly when Fonda announced her intentions to join the anti-Iraq war
movement.
"I have not taken a stand on any war since Vietnam," she said. "I carry a lot of baggage from that."
Fonda incited controversy in July 1972 when she was photographed sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun while on
a tour of the country to drum up support to end the war.
You need to nationalize these health insurance companies.
WellPoint Second-Quarter Profit Climbs
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
INDIANAPOLIS - WellPoint Inc., the largest U.S. health insurer, on Wednesday said earnings rose in the second quarter as
costs were kept in check and net investment income rose.
Net income rose to $559.4 million, or 90 cents per share, for the three months ended June 30 from $237.9 million, or 83
cents per share, a year earlier. Earnings for the latest quarter were reduced by 10 cents per share by costs related to the
settlement of two national lawsuits with physicians.
Excluding the settlement costs, the result topped the 97 cent mean estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.
Wellpoint shares fell 50 cents to $67.79 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange, but were still near their recent
high of $71.79.
Wellpoint Inc. was formed by the November 2004 acquisition by Anthem Inc. of the former WellPoint Health Networks Inc.,
after which Anthem adopted the WellPoint name.
Revenue rose to $11.3 billion from $4.61 billion. On a comparable basis, assuming results for both periods include the
operations of the former WellPoint Health Networks, revenue grew 8 percent, driven primarily by strong membership gains
and disciplined pricing in the individual and small group and large group businesses.
WellPoint said medical enrollment topped 28.8 million members at the end of the quarter, an increase of 16.2 million
members from a year ago. On a comparable basis, medical enrollment grew by 1.6 million members, or 6 percent, from 27.3
million members at June 30, 2004.
On a comparable basis, WellPoint maintained selling, general and administrative costs at 16.5 percent of revenue. The
company said it achieved targeted savings of $35 million in the quarter from the combination of Anthem and WellPoint.
Net investment income more than doubled to $159.8 million from $70.7 million.
WellPoint now expects earnings for the year of about $3.91 per share, including the 10 cents per share settlement charge,
partially offset by a tax benefit of 4 cents. Revenue is expected to total roughly $44.6 billion, with medical enrollment
increasing by 4 percent.
Turn Left
A Berlin taxi driver and others explain the latest trend in German politics. By Jo-Ann Mort
Trick or Treaty
CAFTA looks dead -- but it might come to life in a Medicare-style midnight surprise. By Mark Leon Goldberg
Steering and Splitting
A look at the mysteries of the AFL-CIO’s civil war. By Harold Meyerson
Just Say No
Democrats don't have to filibuster John Roberts -- but they don't have to vote for him, either. By Matthew Yglesias
The Summer of Short Attention Spans
If you can't beat 'em, distract 'em. By Terence Samuel
Thumb War
Two Republicans battle over whether Congress should lean on scientists who disprove conservative theories. By Chris
Mooney
The Shifter
Bush's change of standard for firing a leaking staffer last week was staggering. He can't be allowed to get away with it. By
Michael Tomasky
The Model Candidate
He’s an Iraq war veteran, he’s running for an open seat in a red state -- and the DCCC has left him hanging. By Jim McNeill
The Soul of the Nation
Two singers grasp for signs of hope in the pop of the moment. By Devin McKinney
Strange Beasts
Thai director Weerasethakul’s delightfully idiosyncratic film, Tropical Malady, plunges into a jungle legend. By Noy
Thrupkaew
Turn Left
A Berlin taxi driver and others explain the latest trend in German politics.
By Jo-Ann Mort
Web Exclusive: 07.27.05
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On a recent afternoon Berlin, where I went to write an article about an exhibit of Israeli art at the Martin-Gropius-Bau,
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder maneuvered a vote of no confidence to try to dissolve the government. So I was curious to
know what my taxi driver thought about the political situation, and we talked while riding from the Jewish Museum in
Kreuzberg to the Bauhaus Museum. She pointed out to me the spot along the canal that marks where Rosa Luxemburg’s
murdered body was dumped, as the canal flows among fancy apartment buildings and new glassy high rises.
I don’t normally practice the fine journalistic art of asking taxi drivers their political opinions, but this time I hit pay dirt. My taxi
driver, Hannah Lehman, told me she’d worked as a teacher but then bought her own cab when she couldn’t get a teaching
job. As an activist in the 1970s and 1980s, Lehman was in the “same circle of friends” as German Foreign Minister Joschka
Fischer. Back then, they were fighting for fair housing. Fischer, who once drove a taxicab himself, along with his Green
Party, has been a major disappointment to Lehman and others who feel that the party has moved far from its anti-
establishment roots.
“Now he’s like the people he didn’t like,” she complained, and she disapproves of his choice of partnership with Schroeder’s
Social Democratic Party (SPD). Schroeder is a “chancellor for the bosses.” Even though she acknowledges that the German
economy is impacted by problems throughout Europe, by low-cost labor, and by globalization, she blames Schroeder for the
economic woes and won’t support the Greens to rejoin him in government. Like others who have fallen out of love,
especially with the Greens, she is thinking of voting for a new left-wing party, led by the former SDP leader-- and now
defector-- Oskar Lafontaine, the new Labor and Social Justice Party. This party was organized by Lafontaine and
disillusioned Social Democrats (in coalition with Gregor Gysi, the former chief of the East German PDS -- the party that
emerged from the East German Communist Party and which was renamed The Left Party this past weekend).
From my informal poll among some of Germany’s young people hanging out in the trendy Mitte district in former East Berlin,
and at the Live 8 concert held near the Brandenburg Gate in July, many of them appear intrigued by this newest left
formation. To them, the current Red/Green governing coalition does not represent the left but, rather, the establishment.
(After all, many of the children of the Greens were raised by countercultural parents who have now become the
establishment.) By posturing to the left, the Lafontaine-Gysi duo is picking up on a floating confusion and economic
insecurity that these young people feel, along with some trade-union anger at Schroeder’s attempted economic reforms.
Sixteen years after unification, most of the frustration comes from a lack of jobs in Germany and a surge in globalization.
The irony is that the trappings of our global economy are what have partly transformed East Berlin into hipster central.
Oranienburger Strasse, a major thoroughfare through the Mitte, once home to a substantial Jewish community in pre-Nazi
Germany, went into quiet disrepair during the communist years. It now outrivals New York’s East Village for street and café
life at all hours. (Well, not all hours -- at nine on a recent weekday morning, I was one of the few souls up and out looking for
coffee.) According to the bartender at my hotel, under East German reign, there was only one bar on this street; that one
has since closed. This neighborhood, one of the first neighborhoods to gentrify after unification, has now become so
commercial that many artists (among the first to transform these streets in the early 1990s) have moved farther east as
gentrification continues throughout the former eastern quarters.
Identity politics seems to hold sway in this former working class district more than the economic issues that drive disgruntled
left voters like Hannah Lehman. Workers themselves -- aside from taxi drivers and service workers -- are scarce. One young
woman, a history major, told me that, while she voted Green last time -- and while her parents raised her, in good early-
Green style, partly on a commune -- she was thinking of voting further to the left this time: perhaps for a new fringe party
with a familiar name (the Gray Panthers) or for the new lefty mixture.
This young woman told me she was thinking of voting for a fringe left-wing party (and fringe was the word she used). But
when I asked her if she considered that her protest vote would be a vote for the conservatives, she thought for a moment
and then responded that at least the Christian Democrats are headed by a woman -- Angela Merkel, who comes from East
Germany -- and that it would be nice to see a woman in power. Lehman, the taxi driver, appeared a bit more skeptical about
Merkel, however, as we passed the gleaming CDU (Christian Democratic Union) headquarters, a large glass structure
across the street from the Bauhaus Archives. She yearned instead for a man to lead again, but one from history. Willy
Brandt, she tells me, recalling the legendary SPD leader who served as Germany’s chancellor from 1969 to 1974, was what
a left-wing leader should be.
Jo-Ann Mort, who writes frequently about Israel, is co-author of Our Hearts Invented a Place: Can Kibbutzim Survive in
Today’s Israel? (Cornell University Press).
Trick or Treaty
CAFTA looks dead -- but it might come to life in a Medicare-style midnight surprise.
By Mark Leon Goldberg
Web Exclusive: 07.27.05
Print Friendly | Email Article
An eleventh-hour attempt by the Republican House leadership to save the unpopular Dominican Republic-Central American
Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) trade pact has apparently shifted into overdrive. If rumors abuzz on Capitol Hill are to be
believed, members of Congress who seek CAFTA’s defeat had best stock up on No-Doz and Red Bull. And if you’re an
undecided Republican, some hockey pads wouldn’t hurt either.
Several sources have told the Prospect that they believe that House GOP leaders are planning to hold a vote on CAFTA at
midnight sometime this week, hoping that enough anti-CAFTA members won’t stick around for the late-night fete. As
CAFTA's opponents currently constitute a majority in the House, the GOP leadership intends to steal a victory by coercing,
cajoling, or simply outlasting the CAFTA opponents.
After being stalled for more than a year, CAFTA passed the Senate in a 54-to-45 vote last month. As it stands, about 180
Democrats and 28 to 30 Republicans solidly oppose the deal, which is essentially the extension of the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to Central American countries and the Dominican Republic. That leaves about two dozen or so
undecided Republicans who have previously indicated their opposition, but are nonetheless swayable. If we are to believe
Arizona Republican Jim Kolbe, who told Washington Trade Daily that the GOP leadership would "twist some Republican
arms until they break in a thousand pieces," coercion will be used at least as much as carrots to see this bill through.
For dissenting Republicans who wish to keep their arms (or subcommittee chairmanships), a late-night roll call would provide
an excuse to duck out of casting a vote that may be popular at home but would embarrass the leadership. For their part,
House Democrats would be forced into a war of attrition as they wait -- and wait, and wait -- for the vote to be called. After
all, CAFTA needn’t win the support of a majority of Congress to pass, only a majority of those present at the time of a vote
once a quorum of 218 members is established.
Signs of this last-minute legislative strategy became apparent on Monday, July 25, when U.S. Trade Secretary Rob Portman
-- flanked by three southern Republicans who had formerly opposed the treaty -- called a press conference to announce a
side deal on textiles. The congressmen were from textile-producing districts in Alabama and South Carolina; to win their
support, Portman hammered out a last-minute deal that would, among other things, exclude Chinese fabric from the pocket
linings of trousers produced in CAFTA countries, thereby increasing the share of American cotton in, say, Nicaraguan
pants. Aaron Neville would be proud.
To be sure, not all southern Republicans from textile-producing states think with their pants. Some, like North Carolina’s
Walter Jones, consider themselves answerable to a higher authority and have staked out a principled opposition to the deal.
"I came to Washington to do what is right -- from the teachings of my Lord and for the people of Eastern North Carolina,"
Jones said in a press release. "I think we all want trade with the countries of Central America. But trade will not work unless
it's fair -- fair for Central American and fair for American workers. This trade agreement is flawed."
But flawed policy and poorly written bills haven’t stopped the GOP leadership from ramming through unpopular legislation in
the past. Indeed, if Republican leaders do wait until the wee hours of the morning to call a vote on CAFTA they’d simply be
replicating the arm-twisting used to secure the passage of the Medicare prescription-drug benefit by one vote in 2003. Back
then, as connoisseurs of Tom DeLay’s ethics scandals will recall, the majority leader used an unprecedented three-hour
extension to the 15-minute roll-call vote to visit a number of recalcitrant GOP backbenchers and make them offers they
wouldn’t refuse.
Given that CAFTA’s future is not clear, a late-night roll-call vote on CAFTA would present DeLay and company with a similar
opportunity. Most of the treaty's Democratic detractors -- particularly in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus -- have held firm
in their opposition and will do so at least until the treaty is amended to include meaningful labor and environmental
obligations. Other pro-labor Democrats, like Maine’s Michael Michaud, steadfastly oppose CAFTA for fear that it will hasten
the flight of local manufacturing jobs.
But as the clock nears 12, the question remains: Can the rest of CAFTA’s opponents resist the temptation to fold in the
midnight hour?
Mark Leon Goldberg is a Prospect writing fellow.
Copyright © 2005 by The American Prospect, Inc. Preferred Citation: Mark Leon Goldberg, "Trick or Treaty", The American
Prospect Online, Jul 27,
Rove's Backers Use 'CounterSpy Defense'
By Robert Parry
July 26, 2005
In defending White House political adviser Karl Rove, American conservatives have adopted an argument used by U.S.
leftists three decades ago to rebut accusations that CounterSpy magazine's naming of CIA station chief Richard Welch in
Greece contributed to his murder.
The argument – used then to defend CounterSpy and now to protect Rove for outing CIA officer Valerie Plame – was that
the covers for the two CIA officers had previously been blown and that the CIA hadn’t done enough to maintain the secrecy.
Over the past two weeks, following revelations that Rove discussed Plame’s CIA role with journalists in 2003, right-wing
commentators have asserted that no crime was committed because Plame’s CIA identity was “common knowledge” to some
of her friends and because her cover had already been breached.
For instance, an editorial in the right-wing Washington Times asserted that Plame’s identity “was compromised twice before
her name appeared” in Robert Novak’s column of July 14, 2003.
“Mrs. Plame’s identity as an undercover CIA officer was first disclosed to Russia in the mid-1990s by a Moscow spy,” the
Times said. “In a second compromise, officials said a more recent inadvertent disclosure resulted in references to Mrs.
Plame in confidential documents sent by the CIA to the U.S. Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy in Havana. … Cubans
read the classified material and learned the secrets contained in them, the officials said.” [Washington Times editorial, July
19, 2005.]
Denouncing Agee
In the mid-1970s, a similar debate raged over CounterSpy, a magazine associated with renegade CIA officer Phil Agee, for
listing Welch’s name before the CIA station chief was gunned down in Athens in 1975.
Though U.S. officials, including then-CIA Director George H.W. Bush, blamed CounterSpy for contributing to Welch's death,
the magazine’s defenders noted that Welch had been previously fingered as a CIA officer by a European publication and
that the CIA had carelessly assigned him a house previously used by CIA station chiefs.
But the CounterSpy defense didn’t stop Congress from citing the Welch assassination as the principal justification for
passing a law in 1982 making the willful identification of a CIA officer a criminal offense.
That law is now at the center of the investigation into whether officials in George W. Bush’s administration committed a crime
by disclosing Plame’s identity as retaliation for her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, writing that Bush had
“twisted” intelligence in hyping Iraq’s nuclear weapons program.
Ironically, conservatives – who staunchly supported the 1982 law and denounced Agee as a traitor – are now claiming the
law should not apply to Rove. In doing so, they are citing some of the same reasons that caused liberals to oppose the law’s
enactment as a response to the outing of Welch.
But the flaw in both the CounterSpy and Rove defenses is that just because information might have reached a limited
number of unauthorized people doesn’t mean that everyone who might want to harm a CIA officer knows the facts. For
instance, there’s no evidence that Moscow or Havana shared what they might have known about Plame with al-Qaeda or
other Islamic terrorists.
Yet by leaking the Plame information to Novak, Bush administration officials exposed to al-Qaeda and its allies not only a
CIA officer who was involved in tracking weapons of mass destruction, but also overseas agents who may have assisted
Plame in her work and the cover company she used while spying abroad.
Similarly, the Greek assassins who gunned down Welch may or may not have known about the earlier leak of his name or
about the use of his residence by previous CIA station chiefs. It’s also unclear if the terrorists read CounterSpy.
But by listing Welch’s name, CounterSpy increased the danger to the CIA station chief – just as Rove and other Bush
administration officials heightened risks for Plame and anyone who assisted her in tracking WMD shipments.
A ‘Secret’ Memo
In July 2003, Bush administration officials also had reason to know that Plame was still an undercover agent, since the
paragraph in a State Department memo that mentioned her identity and her marriage to Wilson was marked “S” for secret,
according to press reports. [Washington Post, July 21, 2005]
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who is heading the leak investigation, has reportedly focused on the memo, which was
carried aboard Air Force One on July 7, 2003, a day after Wilson wrote a New York Times op-ed article criticizing Bush’s
assertions that Iraq had sought yellowcake uranium from Niger.
A day later, on July 8, right-wing columnist Robert Novak told Rove that he (Novak) had heard that Plame had sent Wilson
on the mission to Niger, according to a lawyer who has spoken to several news organizations. The lawyer said Rove
responded, “I heard that, too.” [Washington Post, July 17, 2005]
Although the administration has never spelled out why it considered Plame’s alleged role in sending her husband on the
Niger mission so significant, the point apparently was to raise doubts about Wilson’s manhood, as a guy who needed his wife’
s help to get a job.
The more salient point would seem to be that Wilson’s judgment that Iraq was not seeking yellowcake uranium turned out to
be correct. Even by July 2003, U.S. weapons inspectors were discovering that pre-invasion claims about Iraq’s WMD
stockpiles and a nuclear weapons program weren’t checking out.
On July 11, 2003, CIA Director George Tenet apologized for not keeping the yellowcake reference out of the State of the
Union speech. “This did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches,” Tenet said.
Despite that admission, the Bush administration continued its behind-the-scenes assault on Wilson and his credibility. Time
correspondent Matthew Cooper interviewed Rove about Wilson on the same day as Tenet’s apology and Rove disclosed
that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA on WMD issues.
According to an internal Time e-mail, Cooper informed his editor that Rove offered a “big warning” not to “get too far out on
Wilson” and that “KR said” the Niger trip was authorized by “wilson’s wife, who apparently works at the agency (CIA) on wmd
issues.” [Newsweek, July 18, 2005, issue]
‘Said Too Much’
In a little-noticed part of Cooper’s account, Rove also revealed that he was aware of the classified nature of the information
surrounding Wilson’s trip.
Cooper said his notes reveal that after discussing Wilson’s CIA wife, Rove said “material was going to be declassified in the
coming days that would cast doubt on Wilson’s mission and his findings.” In ending the conversation, Rove said, “I’ve
already said too much,” according to Cooper. [Time, July 25, 2005, issue]
The next day, July 12, 2003, Cooper said he received confirmation of Rove’s information about the CIA employment of
Wilson’s wife from Lewis “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
In the same time period, White House officials reportedly were circulating the information about Plame to other reporters. “A
senior administration official flagged the role of Wilson’s wife, almost in passing, to the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus,”
the Post reported in a later chronology of the case.
On July 14, 2003, Novak’s column made public the secret about Plame’s CIA identity. Novak also wrote that “two senior
administration officials told me Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate” the yellowcake report.
Although the CIA soon submitted a criminal referral to the Justice Department about the leaking of Plame’s name, the case
languished until December 2003 when U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald was appointed as a special prosecutor. The case gained
new momentum in July 2005 with the disclosure of Rove’s role in identifying Plame.
Yet almost as stunning as this month’s revelations about Rove has been the lock-step reaction from right-wing
commentators – as well as the Republican National Committee – as they lined up to defend Rove and continue trashing
Wilson.
A major point in Rove’s defense has been that Plame was based at CIA headquarters at Langley, Va., supposedly making
her CIA employment “common knowledge” around Washington. The reasoning seems to be that identities of home-based
CIA officers are so readily known in Washington that no one can blame Rove for giving up Plame’s identity.
This pro-Rove argument has a jaded worldliness popular with TV pundits who are fond of quipping that “there are no
secrets in Washington” – except, of course, the many that they don’t know about.
In the Plame case, Rove’s defenders are suggesting that the identities of CIA officers are everyday fodder for Washington
cocktail parties, after which journalists supposedly rush back to the office to spice up their stories with “secret” CIA identities.
But that just isn’t true. As a journalist who has covered intelligence issues for a quarter century, I have never encountered
that kind of cavalier attitude toward the naming of CIA officers. In interviews and conversations that I’ve had even with
government officials I’ve known for years, they steer clear of naming CIA personnel they work with
The rule of thumb is to assume that a CIA officer’s name is a national security secret unless you specifically know otherwise.
At the CIA, public identities are mostly limited to employees in the press office and senior agency officials, such as the
director and deputy directors.
Not only do most government officials take pains to protect the identities of CIA employees, but so do most journalists who
may learn the names of CIA officers while working on articles. CIA identities are only used in stories if the countervailing
principle of the public’s right to know is so compelling that use of the name can’t be avoided.
Novak’s column was an aberration from these longstanding Washington ground rules. Plus, the violation was striking
because the justification for disclosing Plame was so weak – that she may have recommended her husband for the trip to
Niger.
Since Wilson was otherwise qualified for the assignment and since his conclusion about the bogus Niger claims turned out to
be true, it’s never been entirely clear why the White House considered his wife’s role in the trip important enough to override
the mandate for protecting the identity of CIA officers.
It’s also still a mystery why the discrete secret of Plame’s identity would have been shared with political operative Rove – and
by whom.
Wilson concluded that the outing of his wife was an act of retaliation – and there is evidence to support that suspicion. In
September 2003, a senior White House official told the Washington Post that at least six reporters had been informed about
Plame before Novak’s column appeared. The official said the disclosures about Plame were “purely and simply out of
revenge.”
(The myth that Plame was not a clandestine officer at the time of Novak’s column gained traction because of a mistaken
report on July 15, 2005, by the Associated Press, which misinterpreted a comment that Wilson made during a CNN interview.
The AP took Wilson’s comment that “my wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity” to mean
that she had already left the covert world, when Wilson actually meant that Novak’s column ended her covert career. AP ran
a correction but conservatives widely circulated the erroneous report.)
Flip-Flop
Another stunning part of the Rove defense has been how quickly right-wing commentators have flip-flopped from their
traditional hard-line stance decrying the unauthorized disclosure of national security secrets.
For instance, six months ago, Tony Blankley, editorial page editor of the Washington Times, suggested prosecuting New
Yorker investigative reporter Seymour Hersh on espionage charges (carrying a possible death penalty) for disclosing secret
U.S. military reconnaissance operations inside Iran.
In a Jan. 19, 2005, column entitled “Espionage by any other name,” Blankley argued that Hersh had given sensitive secrets
to the enemy by describing U.S. preparations for war with Iran. Blankley cited the precedent of the government using the
Espionage Act to convict Navy analyst Samuel Morison for selling photos of a Soviet ship to a Jane’s military publication in
the mid-1980s.
Yet Hersh’s article had an obvious importance to a national public debate about whether the Iraq War should be extended to
Iran. Hersh’s New Yorker article was alerting the American people to how advanced the war planning already was.
No similar argument could be made about an overriding need for the public to know the identity of Valerie Plame. Yet, the
Washington Times – along with other conservative news outlets – decried the Hersh leak while defending the Rove-Novak
leak.
There is also irony in the Washington Times making pronouncements about espionage when it has been kept afloat since
1982 with secret financing from Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who was unmasked in a 1978 congressional investigation as a
covert agent of the South Korean government trying to penetrate U.S. media and politics.
[For more on Moon’s espionage role – and his ties to the Bush family – see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the
Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq.]
But the right-wing campaign to continue denigrating Joe Wilson carries another troubling message: that some Washington
conservatives care less about genuine national security than they do about protecting their friends and maintaining their
political dominance.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His new book,
Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also
available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'
