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I got tired of losing
So I covered my tracks
I left love behind me
It was a thing of the past
And I got back on my feet again
With something new in my stride
Well I was just telling my girlfriend yesterday
How I was doing all right
I was living the good life
None of that silly love stuff
Then I went and fell for you
Ain't that just my luck?
I got a house in the country
I got a garden that grows
And I got nobody telling me
"Hey, turn down that radio"
I've made my life real simple
a couple cats and me
I don't get bored and lonely
as long as there's something on TV
I was living the good life
None of that silly love stuff
Then I went and fell for you
Ain't that just my luck.
CCR filed new documents on January 31, 2005, with the German Federal Prosecutor looking into war crimes charges against high-ranking U.S. officials including Donald Rumsfeld: one includes new evidence that the Fay investigation into Abu Ghraib protected Administration officials – it is a comprehensive and shocking opinion by Scott Horton, an expert on international law and the Chair of the International Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. The second is a letter that details how Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee confirms his role as complicit in the torture and abuse of detainees in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq.
In a declaration filed with the prosecutor in Karlsruhe, Germany, Scott Horton, who was asked to consider whether or not the U.S. would conduct a genuine investigation up the chain of command for war crimes, unequivocally states that “…no such criminal investigation or prosecution would occur in the near future in the United States for the reason that the criminal investigative and prosecutorial functions are currently controlled by individuals who are involved in the conspiracy to commit war crimes.” One of the legal issues before the prosecutor is whether the German investigation should be dismissed or deferred so that the U.S. authorities have a chance to conduct their own investigation. The obvious answer from Horton’s affidavit is no. The impossibility of an independent and far-reaching domestic investigation of high-ranking U.S. officials coupled with the United States’ refusal to join the International Criminal Court make the German court a court of last resort.
Horton also reveals that a study he undertook of Major General George R. Fay’s investigation of the Abu Ghraib abuses (The Fay Report, spring 2004) was in fact designed to cover up the role of high-ranking officials. He reports that “certain senior officials whose conduct in this affair bears close scrutiny, were explicitly ‘protected’ or ‘shielded’ by withholding information from investigators or by providing security classifications that made such investigation possible…in each case, the fact that these individuals possessed information on Rumsfeld’s involvement was essential to the decision to shield them.”
Horton cited appeals by leaders of the legal profession in the United States and by the American Bar Association for investigation and action on obvious war crimes, and noted that the Justice Department had failed to act. With the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales now looming, he states “any serious criminal investigation and prosecution would certainly involve Gonzales.”
What that "Pentagon-led group" (shorthand for Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle and Wolfowitz) appears to be imposing is their version of a Tammany-style patronage clubhouse, fronted by the U.S. military. For years now, the neocons have wanted to replace the Baathists with the Iraqi National Congress and their pal Ahmed Chalabi, its leader. Achieving this objective while simultaneously building democracy raises a troubling contradiction, however -- since almost nobody in Iraq has ever heard of Chalabi, scion of a privileged Iraqi family that left the country decades ago. And many of those who have heard about him, over there and back here, would be none too pleased to see him in power.
Yet there are unmistakable signs that the Pentagon will try to wire Iraq for the Chalabi outfit. In today's New York Times, a revealing report by Jane Perlez indicates that Rumsfeld has already leaked his choice to head the "all-important" new Ministry of Information in Baghdad. That would be R. James Woolsey, the former CIA director who now toils at the Booz Allen Hamilton international management consulting conglomerate. As an attorney, Woolsey has represented the Iraqi National Congress; his law firm, Shea & Gardner, registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for the INC. In short, Chalabi's lawyer may soon be serving as information minister for the interim Iraqi government.
Last night's little quote from The Queen of All Iraq wasn't just about the usual Miller-bashing, it was actually a bombshell revelation. Here we have a New York Times reporter going on the record saying that according to a source, the Bush administration was in talks with Chalabi about a position in the new Iraqi government. So, in one neat little package we learn that the Bush administration backs Chalabi and has significant influence over appointments in the new government, once it exists.Crooks and Liars has the video here.
Isn't this important?
Repeat, Judith Miller on Hardball:
We now are told, according to my sources, that the administration has been reaching out to Mr. Chalabi, to offer him expressions of cooperation and support and according to one report he was even offered a chance to be an interior minister in the new government.
TALLAHASSEE -- Rocked by scandals and shoddy results, Gov. Jeb Bush's drive to turn over many state services and millions of taxpayer dollars to private companies appears certain to be slowed by the state's newly minted Republican leaders.
House Speaker Allan Bense of Panama City and Senate President Tom Lee of Brandon say they will put the brakes on privatization efforts this year, a sudden shift away from what has been a cornerstone of Florida government since Bush took office six years ago.
...
"The mother of all privatization efforts is what he is talking about with his Medicaid proposal," said Iris Lav, deputy director of the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which sees Florida as a possible model for what President Bush will propose at the federal level.
I heard that the Pentagon was now exploring what it called the ‘Salvador option’, modelled on the death squads in El Salvador in the 1980s, when John Negroponte was ambassador to Honduras and when Elliott Abrams, now White House adviser on the Middle East, called the massacre at El Mozote ‘nothing but Communist propaganda’. Under the plan, the US would advise, train and support paramilitaries in assassination and kidnapping, including secret raids across the Syrian border. In the vice presidential debate, I heard the vice president say: ‘Twenty years ago we had a similar situation in El Salvador. We had a guerrilla insurgency that controlled roughly a third of the country . . . And today El Salvador is a whale of a lot better.’
I heard that 100,000 Iraqi civilians were dead. I heard that there was now an average of 150 attacks on US troops a day. I heard that in Baghdad 700 people were being killed every month in ‘non-war-related’ criminal activities. I heard that 1400 American soldiers had been killed and that the true casualty figure was approximately 25,000.
I heard that Donald Rumsfeld had a machine sign his letters of condolence to the families of soldiers who had been killed. When this caused a small scandal, I heard him say: ‘I have directed that in the future I sign each letter.’
I heard the president say: ‘The credibility of this country is based upon our strong desire to make the world more peaceful, and the world is now more peaceful.’
I heard the president say: ‘I want to be the peace president. The next four years will be peaceful years.’
I heard Attorney General John Ashcroft say, on the day of his resignation: ‘The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.’
I heard the president say: ‘For a while we were marching to war. Now we’re marching to peace.’
I heard that the US military had purchased 1,500,000,000 bullets for use in the coming year. That is 58 bullets for every Iraqi adult and child.
Washington Post (1/31/2005)--A federal judge ruled this morning that special military tribunals the Pentagon has used to determine the likely guilt of most of the 500 men held at a prison in Guantanamo Bay -- and to justify their continued imprisonment -- are illegal.
U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green. . . said the military's combatant status review tribunals are stacked against the detainees, and deny them crucial rights. She said some detainees may indeed be guilty and pose a danger to the United States, but the government must first give them a lawful hearing on the evidence against them. Green said the detainees are entitled to Fifth Amendment rights, including the advice of a lawyer and a fair chance to confront the evidence against them. The judge found the tribunals have largely denied those rights.
Green noted in particular that there are widespread allegations, and some evidence, that detainees were tortured or abused during interrogations. She said such information makes extremely suspect any confessions of terrorist activities, upon which the military relies heavily in its tribunal decisions to determine that someone is an enemy combatant.
WASHINGTON — Emboldened by their success at the polls, the Bush administration and Republican leaders in Congress believe they have a new opportunity to move the nation away from the system of employer-provided health insurance that has covered most working Americans for the last half-century.
In its place, they want to erect a system in which workers — instead of looking to employers for health insurance — would take personal responsibility for protecting themselves and their families: They would buy high-deductible "catastrophic" insurance policies to cover major medical needs, then pay routine costs with money set aside in tax-sheltered health savings accounts.
Elements of that approach have been on the conservative agenda for years, but what has suddenly put it on the fast track is GOP confidence that the political balance of power has changed.
With Democratic strength reduced, President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Bakersfield) are pushing for action.
Supporters of the new approach, who see it as part of Bush's "ownership society," say workers and their families would become more careful users of healthcare if they had to pay the bills. Also, they say, the lower premiums on high-deductible plans would make coverage affordable for the uninsured and for small businesses.
The problem with the modern personal computing environment is that, in some fundamental sense, it's a broken business. "There's a poison in the computer industry," Hertzfeld says, "and that is the fact that the common software base is controlled by a predatory software company with a lack of ethics." In case you didn't get the reference, Hertzfeld is talking about Microsoft, which, through Windows, controls the underlying software development base for the PC industry -- essentially, it controls the standards, the keys to empire. "Microsoft is not a good steward of the standards," Hertzfeld says, and if Microsoft is to be beaten, and if a company like Apple is to exert more dominance in the PC world, Microsoft has got to first lose control of the standards. Hertzfeld actually believes that this is occurring; Microsoft is in fact slowly losing its grip on the software development standards, he says. "But I don't think Apple is the driver of that dynamic -- I think the free software movement is pushing that."
I've been talking to Peter Edelman, a Georgetown University law professor who is thoughtful, liberal, incredibly decent -- and alarmed over the national budget President Bush will shortly propose.
"For virtually all of my adulthood," he said, "America has had a bipartisan agreement that we ought to provide some basic framework of programs and policies that provide a safety net, not just for the poor but for a large portion of the American people who need help to manage.
"There've been exceptions -- the first Reagan term with David Stockman, the brief ascendancy of Newt Gingrich -- but while we've argued about the specifics, the basic framework has been there.
"With this budget, the basic framework is being dismantled."
Before you dismiss it as partisan hyperbole, hear Edelman's specifics: The basic structure of Social Security is under attack (on the grounds that the program is in crisis, though most respected economists say it isn't). Pell Grants for college tuition are on the cutting block. So are Section 8 housing vouchers (which started under Richard Nixon) and food stamps. Programs that have offered some protection for people in the lower third of the economy are under threat of evisceration.
And the rationale for the attack is a budgetary crisis created by the gift of $1.8 trillion in tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.
America's largest brewing company, Anheuser-Busch, released its latest product last week -- a beer that contains caffeine.
Obviously, this is a monumental cultural milestone and it raises important questions that we as a society must answer. For instance: Is adding America's favorite stimulant to America's favorite alcoholic beverage the greatest scientific breakthrough of the 21st century? Or the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it? Or what?
U.S. Encouraged by Vietnam Vote:
Officials Cite 83% Turnout Despite Vietcong Terror
by Peter Grose, Special to the New York Times (9/4/1967: p. 2)
WASHINGTON, Sept. 3-- United States officials were surprised and heartened today at the size of turnout in South Vietnam's presidential election despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign to disrupt the voting.
According to reports from Saigon, 83 per cent of the 5.85 million registered voters cast their ballots yesterday. Many of them risked reprisals threatened by the Vietcong.
The size of the popular vote and the inability of the Vietcong to destroy the election machinery were the two salient facts in a preliminary assessment of the nation election based on the incomplete returns reaching here.
***
Pending more detailed reports, neither the State Department nor the White House would comment on the balloting or the victory of the military candidates, Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Van Thieu, who was running for president, and Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, the candidate for vice president.
A successful election has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson's policy of encouraging the growth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam. The election was the culmination of a constitutional development that began in January, 1966, to which President Johnson gave his personal commitment when he met Premier Ky and General Thieu, the chief of state, in Honolulu in February.
The purpose of the voting was to give legitimacy to the Saigon Government, which has been founded only on coups and power plays since November, 1963, when President Ngo Dinh Deim was overthrown by a military junta.
Few members of that junta are still around, most having been ousted or exiled in subsequent shifts of power.
Significance Not Diminished
The fact that the backing of the electorate has gone to the generals who have been ruling South Vietnam for the last two years does not, in the Administration's view, diminish the significance of the constitutional step that has been taken.
The hope here is that the new government will be able to maneuver with a confidence and legitimacy long lacking in South Vietnamese politics. That hope could have been dashed either by a small turnout, indicating widespread scorn or a lack of interest in constitutional development, or by the Vietcong's disruption of the balloting.
American officials had hoped for an 80 per cent turnout. That was the figure in the election in September for the Constituent Assembly. Seventy-eight per cent of the registered voters went to the polls in elections for local officials last spring.
Before the results of the presidential election started to come in, the American officials warned that the turnout might be less than 80 per cent because the polling place would be open for two or three hours less than in the election a year ago. The turnout of 83 per cent was a welcome surprise. The turnout in the 1964 United States Presidential election was 62 per cent.
Captured documents and interrogations indicated in the last week a serious concern among Vietcong leaders that a major effort would be required to render the election meaningless. This effort has not succeeded, judging from the reports from Saigon.
:But Senate Democratic leaders did not attempt to rally their ranks to vote against Rice.An important lesson: Your officials need to hear from you. Don't let up.
Instead, the Democratic leadership was reserving its political capital for a stand against...Alberto R. Gonzales.
"Frankly, there is much more angst over Gonzales, and there comes a practical choice: Having been (branded) an obstructionist party for so long, do you lead with Rice ... or do you take on a candidate who is more problematic?" one staffer said.
This is fascinating on a number of levels:
1. This is the first report that Senate Dems are organizing an effort to oppose Gonzales.
2. By reading this article, you might think that Senate Dems were always planning an organized effort to stop Gonzales.
When in fact, it wasn’t that long ago when leading Dems were talking up Gonzales.
And it was even more recent when critical Dems were couching their comments with the prediction that Gonzales would still be easily confirmed.
The turnaround in attitude is a message to the grassroots about the influence they can have.
In 2002, the much-derided Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle led the Dems, standing for good government and union rights, refusing to rubber-stamp Bush’s proposal, trying to pass a decent bill.It is in no one's legitimate interest to have these jobs outsourced. (Just look at Iraq.) The Republicans are looking at these as more contracts to reward their supporters, and the suppression of those who truly do think it's their job to do what's best for their country.
While Bush gave veto threats and the GOP filibustered, it was Daschle and the Dems that were painted as obstructionists.
And it was Sen. Max Cleland that paid the political price for standing on principle.
(LiberalOasis had contended that it was Bush taking the political risk. Wrong.)
Broken Dems then voted for Bush’s version soon after the ’02 election.
Because of that experience, the Dems’ gut reaction may be to shy away from taking the issue on. But that would be a big mistake.
The political situations aren’t parallel. The drumbeat for war was far stronger then, and the issue only centered on Homeland Security.
Today, we’re talking about civil service protections throughout the government. Not as easy to attack someone’s patriotism for that.
There would be attacks of course. Most likely, Dems would be accused of fealty to a special interest, the unions.
Dems shouldn’t be afraid of standing with unions, but at the same time, you don’t want to only base your argument on what would be good for a single constituency.
You want to talk about what’s good for the public.
Effective, credible government is good for the public. A politicized workforce is not.
Like most of you (fuck, I hope all of you), my first reaction was that this sign located just outside of Salem, Oregon was just fucking awful, but then I thought of trying to find a solution. Fuck fighting them in court, any victory against them would just be a victory at the cost of free speech laws, so that's no good. And I'm pretty sure they can't be 'reasoned' with, so what to do?
If I lived near this stretch of road, my solution would be to bring ALL my trash there. If the Nazis are responsible for keeping this stretch of highway clean, then I'd like to do my part to ensure that it's so choked with refuse that you can't drive down it without holding your nose and screaming, "C'mon you anti-semitic douchebags, get those dirty diapers out of my way!".
Hell, I think I'd even go as far as using that stretch of road as my own personal rest stop. It'd be worth it just to imagine the look on the local grand dragon's face as he brings his toothless buddies to see their new sign and squints his eyes and exclaims, "Is that human shit that someone has smeared all over our sign?"
This week Kennedy declares war on this new "enemy within" -- the term his father applied to the Mafia lords who were subverting American politics, business and labor -- with a passionate, sweeping indictment of the Bush-sanctioned rape of our environment in the latest issue of Rolling Stone. Kennedy lays out in legal-brief detail how, under Bush, the federal agencies supposed to be guarding our air, water and natural resources have been systematically turned over to the industry foxes that are ravaging them. But the tone of his lengthy essay is far from lawyerly. Kennedy's original subtitle was "Corporate Fascism and the End of Nature."And here:
In the book, Kennedy implies that we live in a fascist country and that the Bush White House has learned key lessons from the Nazis.Either you see it, or you don't.
"While communism is the control of business by government, fascism is the control of government by business," he writes. "My American Heritage Dictionary defines fascism as 'a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership together with belligerent nationalism.' Sound familiar?"
He quotes Hitler's propaganda chief Herman Goerring: "It is always simply a matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
Kennedy then adds: "The White House has clearly grasped the lesson."
Kennedy also quotes Benito Mussolini's insight that "fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
"The biggest threat to American democracy is corporate power," Kennedy told us. "There is vogue in the White House to talk about the threat of big government. But since the beginning of our national history, our most visionary political leaders have warned the American public against the domination of government by corporate power. That warning is missing in the national debate right now. Because so much corporate money is going into politics, the Democratic Party itself has dropped the ball. They just quash discussion about the corrosive impact of excessive corporate power on American democracy."
Regarding the Florida [gay adoption] law, the president responded, "I don't know this particular case."
He continued by focusing on the "ideal in society" of children being raised by a man and a woman. "And I believe children can receive love from gay couples, but the ideal is -- and studies have shown that the ideal is where a child is raised in a married family with a man and a woman."
The polling stations were housed in schools, by and large, and several rooms were taken over for the balloting. In each, the cardboard screens were held together with red tape, and then the ballot was dropped in those plastic bins you see on television. The ones I saw were all about three-quarters full.
It was a marked departure from Iraq's elections in the past, which Saddam won handily, of course.
“I feel like a free man,” said Muhammad Abad al-Badawi, a shopkeeper who had just finished voting. “For the last 35 years, we were electing nothing. They were fake elections.” He's supporting Allawi, “because he's a decent man” and he will fix the security situation.
But I have to say, it seems like he's already fixed it, at least for today. Today's highly restrictive measures are untenable, of course, and no one can live like this for long, but for a day, the insurgency was kept at bay.
Which is why, several of us journalists here are going to call this elections for the Iraqis. My friend Mitch and I were discussing this and regardless of who wins in the polls, the Iraqis won here and proved themselves—for a day, at least—stronger than the insurgency. And that's a very big symbolic victory. A huge one, in fact, and Iraqis should take great pride in themselves. When they had the opportunity, they stood up and were counted. The real losers were the Sunnis who didn't participate. They missed a golden opportunity to take part in a process that, while flawed, were the only game in town. I don't know what's going to happen next, and a civil war may still erupt, but if it does, the elected government—one elected by Shi'a and Kurds, for the most part—will have the moral high ground in it.
You said that I would be sorry if you went away
You said I wouldn't be happy without hell to pay
You said the teardrops would fall
Between the bedroom walls
You said that I would regret
Well it hasn't happened yet
Your friends come over and offer to take me to eat
They all seem so sorry I'm sufferin' so much misery
They said to just give a call
Next time that I start to crawl
I always say yeah, you bet
But it hasn't happened yet
I don't have anyone
I'm havin' fun
No one is into me
No one's a mystery
I see you on the street
My heart don't skip no beat
Lovers' hostility
Don't mean a thing to me
I find it hard to remember the good times we had
Call me insensitive, now that it's over I'm glad
You said when big shadows fell
It would be too hard to tell
My light from your silhouette
Well it hasn't happened yet
No it hasn't happened yet.
I can't touch you nowGreat song. I've never seen Phil live although I'd love to. People sometimes confuse him with The Other Phil Roy, the longtime owner of the now-departed Grendel's Lair on South Street. (There's a Gap there now.)
I'm paralyzed
I'm like a child
With the saddest eyes
You won't talk to me
You're over me
You won't take me back
I need you back
You're so alive
Makes me numb
I could survive
But I don't want to
You're the ruby and I'm the lead
Feeling heavy
Am I dead
But last night I had a dream
I saved your life
I proved my love
I took the bullet
I killed a shark
I kissed your hand
I thawed your heart
I thawed your heart.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 - The Central Intelligence Agency is refusing to provide hundreds of thousands of pages of documents sought by a government working group under a 1998 law that requires full disclosure of classified records related to Nazi war criminals, say Congressional officials from both parties.
***
For nearly three years, the C.I.A. has interpreted the 1998 law narrowly and rebuffed requests for additional records, say Congressional officials and some members of the working group, who also contend that that stance seems to violate the law.
These officials say the agency has sometimes agreed to provide information about former Nazis, but not about the extent of the agency's dealings with them after World War II. In other cases, it has refused to provide information about individuals and their conduct during the war unless the working group can first provide evidence that they were complicit in war crimes.
Think happy thoughts and you can fly!
Hughes, a corporate despot, was also a notorious anti-Semite (one of the reasons that he surrounded himself with "pure" Mormons as his personal staff), as well as a briber of politicians--the infamous "Hughes loan" of $205,00 to Richard Nixon's brother Donald, a loan that was never repaid, almost sank the then-vice president's political career. And Hughes' exaggerated nationalism and anti-Communism turned him into a front-man for and help-mate of the Central Intelligence Agency for years. For example, Hughes' chief of staff, Robert Maheu--as the late investigative columnist Jack Anderson famously revealed--was the point man who, with the help of the Mafia, organized attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro on the CIA's behalf. Offshore islands that Hughes had leased were used as training bases for CIA raids into Cuba. And Hughes was a paranoid madman and a major drug addict.
But it is Hughes' role in the blacklist and the anti-Communist witch-hunt that is the most shameful--as is Scorcese's silence on the matter in his cinematic hagiography.
Each year, millions of Chinese citizens travel from impoverished inland villages to take their first industrial jobs in China's export factories. Young and mostly female, they are sent by their parents in search of wages to supplement their families' income. They join an enormous submerged caste of temporary factory workers who are stripped of civil and political rights by China's system of internal passport controls.
They enter the factory system and often step into a nightmare of twelve-hour to eighteen-hour work days with no day of rest, earning meager wages that may be withheld or unpaid altogether. The factories are sweltering, dusty, and damp. Workers are fully exposed to chemical toxins and hazardous machines, and suffer sickness, disfiguration, and death at the highest rates in world history. They live in cramped cement-block dormitories, up to twenty to a room, without privacy. They face militaristic regimentation, surveillance, and physical abuse by supervisors during their long day of work and by private police forces during their short night of recuperation in the dormitories.
They can do little to relieve their misery. Their movements are controlled by the Public Security forces, who ruthlessly enforce the pass system. They are not permitted to seek better-paying jobs reserved for privileged urban residents. If they assert their rights, they are sent back to the countryside, or worse. Attempts to organize unions or to strike are met with summary detention, long-term imprisonment, and torture.
- AFL-CIO
Petition to the U.S. Trade Representative
March 16, 2004
But this is only one aspect of how different hate crimes are from their parallel crimes. There are several more, and they are substantial. Bias crimes are far more likely to be violent than are other crimes. They also may be distinguished by their extraordinary impact on the victim. As bias-crimes expert Frederick Lawrence notes, "Bias-crime victims have been compared to rape victims in that the physical harm associated with the crime, however great, is less significant than the powerful accompanying sense of violation. The victims of bias crimes thus tend to experience psychological symptoms such as depression or withdrawal, as well as anxiety, feelings of helplessness, and a profound sense of isolation."
Finally, bias crimes cause an even broader injury to the general community, both local and national. They create racial distrust and misunderstanding within the immediate communities where they occur, and their occurrence can cast a shadow over an entire community's reputation. (Just ask folks in Jasper, Texas.) Perhaps just as important, they violate basic principles of equality of opportunity and freedom of association by threatening and intimidating targeted segments of society, and widen the not-insignificant racial divide in this country.
Bush's fakery makes it harder to get anyone to focus on the real problems. When he announces a billion dollar program to combat poverty, people legitimately wonder why so much money does so little to change anything.
It has to be repeated again and again: Not a single program has been funded through Bush's Millennium Challenge Account. Not one. Bush's promises don't feed children, buy mosquito nets, build schools, or cure AIDS. They give people the illusion that something is being done, while things get worse.
Just seen on BBC world news: Sharon Stone stood up today during a conference at Davos and offered $10000 to the President of Tanzania, who requested funds desperately needed to fight malaria and other diseases.
She then asked others in the audience--primarily businessmen--to stand with her to give the money immediately to the President.
Bill Frist, sitting on the stage, asked her to sit down, but she did not. She said, and I paraphrase, "The people in the President's country are dying today and we need to give him the funds today."
She gathered $1,000,000 in only 5 minutes.
I'm not kidding when I say I'm afraid of a dollar collapse. It's not just that the high deficits and unprecedented foreign control over the economy. It's all these timebombs waiting to go off. Everyone knows about the baby boomers and Social Security/Medicare, but that's not going to be the end of it: Pensions have dwindled or gone bankrupt, homes have been remortgaged, and the adult children who might have helped are in hock like never before. All that "deficit as percentage of gross national product" talk isn't reassuring. 9/11 proved that a fast-rising GNP is not a law of nature. When the Israel/Northern-Ireland type terrorism begins, it's safe to say consumer confidence will take a hit.
So yes, I am really scared. I just don't know what to do about it. Not politically, I mean as a selfish SOB! For example, with my retirement savings -- I called the Big Name Financial Outfit which manages my work's 401(k) plan and apparently I wasn't his first "apocalypse call." One suggestion was to shift towards European market funds. But if the dollar collapses, other economies will falter too (that's why the world may take unilateral action to prop up the dollar. Zeesh, I never expected to read something like that, but it was in today's papers...) There's the historic risk-adverse investment: gold. It's at a pretty high price already, but who am I to argue with history? (This company also has an investment fund that is indexed against inflation. $20 apples, anyone?)
And what about the present -- what am I supposed to do with my life? Pundits may be safe, but I don't think there's going to be a huge demand for quasi-patent attorneys who can handle simple pro bono family law cases. I've even considered taking a LPN nursing program at my community college, but there's a waiting list! My point is this: as much as we need to fight the good political fight, a little practical CYA is the least the left can do for itself if/when we're proved right. Suggestions welcomed!
So, it went on this way, with the pro-war side taking precedence.UPDATE: I corrected some of the spelling to make it more readable and added a link to Rabbi Waskow's center here in Philadelphia.
Then, during the third commercial break Rabbi [Arthur] Waskow stood up and loudly said, "I was invited here to speak, but then was told I could you would not allow anyone from the religious community to sit in the front row and that I would be allowed to make a comment later if I would take a seat in back. But now I have been told that I will not be allowed to speak at all."
(Upon hearing that, I realized that nobody had spoken from a religious/faith based perspective, and wondered if that was indeed intentional).
He went on, "So I will ask my question now during the break so as not to cause embarrassment to you, Mr. Koppel."
Ted Koppel said, "Thank you, go ahead."
The Rabbi spoke: "You do not want the religious community to speak because we DO see the BIG picture (referencing a marine who had spoken earlier, saying that people who were for ending the occupation in Iraq did not see the big picture).
"We know the story of the Pharoah, who tried to hold back God's people, and that the Pharoah's lust for power was so great that we pushed his army against the Hebrews again and again no matter how many times he failed... he continued to deny the circumstances until the army of Egypt was beat down and depleted at the expense of his subjects." (I wish I could communicate the eloquence with which he spoke)...
"President Bush is the Pharoah, and he has stripped the American people of basic social services such as healthcare and education in order to arrogantly keep up his holy war. I will no longer stand for the U.S. government and the media denying the religious community our voice. The common people of the United States and of Iraq and elsewhere are suffering."
Then he said he was done, (there was definitely some applause during parts of his speech) and he was escorted out the church where the Nightline episode was being taped.
Antother outburst happened toward the last half hour when a tall older African American gentleman went up to a mic without permission and said, "ask Richard Perle about the PNAC... that's all I've got to say... I'm outa here!"
***
I think they will probably re-shoot Ted Koppel's closing. [NOTE: They did.]
I just wanted you to post this so the whole story could get out there... pass it on as you deem appropriate.
I am really feeling at this moment that the media is intentionally trying to appear as they foster "free speech" and "open dialogue", but are actually doing everything they can to keep dissenting views muted and to a minimum.
But Edwards's instincts tell him that tepid politics are exactly what the Democrats don't need now. "I don't think this is about moderate, conservative, liberal," he says. "Americans are looking for strength, an idealistic strength. They want to know what we'd do on Day One if we ran the country."Well, yeah. That's what I've been saying, and that's what James Carville was saying.
Moral issues matter, Edwards says, but Democrats won't look moral by getting into a bidding war over how often they can invoke the name of God. Instead, Democrats should speak with conviction about an issue that has always animated them: the alleviation of poverty. "I think it is a moral issue; it's something we should be willing to fight about and stand up for," he says.
Those who counsel caution, he says, would let calculation push Democrats away from their historical commitments. "They think it's associated with some political label," he says, carefully avoiding the L-word himself. "They think that a lot of people who live in poverty don't vote and don't participate and so they don't think there's a lot of political capital there."
Edwards, who is planning to set up a center to study ways to alleviate poverty, is enough of a politician to insist that he wants to advocate not only on behalf of the destitute but also for those just finding their footing on mobility's ladder. But he offers the unexpected claim that the very voters who have strayed from the Democrats would respond forcefully to the moral imperative of aiding the poor.
"The people who love their guns and love their faith, they care about this," Edwards says. "There is a deep abiding feeling of moral responsibility people have about those who are doing everything right and are still having a hard time."
It's the 'no interest like self-interest' rule, and it's every man for himself," said an aide to a Senate Republican committee chairman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to maintain good relations with the White House. "He's discovering the fine line between having a mandate and being a lame duck."
Richard Flahavan, spokesman for Selective Service, tells Rolling Stone that preparing for a skills-based draft is "in fact what we have been doing." For starters, the agency has updated a plan to draft nurses and doctors. But that's not all. "Our thinking was that if we could run a health-care draft in the future," Flahavan says, "then with some very slight tinkering we could change that skill to plumbers or linguists or electrical engineers or whatever the military was short." In other words, if Uncle Sam decides he needs people with your skills, Selective Service has the means to draft you -- and quick.That's why it's so necessary to trump up a reason - say, Iranians flying a plane into a nuclear reactor.
But experts on military manpower say the focus on drafting personnel with special skills misses the larger point. The Army needs more soldiers, not just more doctors and linguists. "What you've got now is a real shortage of grunts -- guys who can actually carry bayonets," says McPeak. A wholesale draft may be necessary, he adds, "to deal with the situation we've got ourselves into. We've got to have a bigger Army."
Michael O'Hanlon, a military-manpower scholar at the Brookings Institute, believes a return to a full-blown draft will become "unavoidable" if the United States is forced into another war. "Let's say North Korea strikes a deal with Al Qaeda to sell them a nuclear weapon or something," he says. "I frankly don't see how you could fight two wars at the same time with the all-volunteer approach." If a second Korean War should break out, the United States has reportedly committed to deploying a force of nearly 700,000 to defend South Korea -- almost half of America's entire military.
Rep. Curt Weldon, vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has met the unidentified defector several times in Paris over the last 22 months. Weldon said the defector has been accurate in predicting several important developments in the Iranian regime since February 2003. The developments were said to have included those in Iran's nuclear weapons programs and support for Al Qaida.Oh, my old buddy Curt, the guy I used to cover as a reporter... Let's just say I take everything he says with a heapin' pile o'rock salt.
The persistent gap in life expectancy between African-Americans and whites is one measure of the deep inequalities that remain in our society - including highly unequal access to good-quality health care. We ought to be trying to diminish that gap, especially given the fact that black infants are two and half times as likely as white babies to die in their first year.It's not as if they're Republicans. Who cares?
Now nobody can expect instant progress in reducing health inequalities. But the benefits of Social Security privatization, if any, won't materialize for many decades. By using blacks' low life expectancy as an argument for privatization, Mr. Bush is in effect taking it as a given that 40 or 50 years from now, large numbers of African-Americans will still be dying before their time.
Is this an example of what Mr. Bush famously called "the soft bigotry of low expectations?" Maybe not: it isn't particularly soft to treat premature black deaths not as a tragedy we must end but as just another way to push your ideological agenda. But bigotry - yes, that sounds like the right word.
One day after President Bush ordered his Cabinet secretaries to stop hiring commentators to help promote administration initiatives, and one day after the second high-profile conservative pundit was found to be on the federal payroll, a third embarrassing hire has emerged. Salon has confirmed that Michael McManus, a marriage advocate whose syndicated column, "Ethics & Religion," appears in 50 newspapers, was hired as a subcontractor by the Department of Health and Human Services to foster a Bush-approved marriage initiative. McManus championed the plan in his columns without disclosing to readers he was being paid to help it succeed.Well, Mr. Horn, there's a pretty simple way to clear all that up: Release all the names and let us judge for ourselves.
***
The problem springs from the failure of both Gallagher and McManus to disclose their government payments when writing about the Bush proposals. But one HHS critic says another dynamic has led to the controversy, and a blurring of ethical and journalistic lines: Horn and HHS are hiring advocates -- not scholars -- from the pro-marriage movement. "They're ideological sympathizers who propagandize," says Tim Casey, attorney for Legal Momentum, a women's rights organization. He describes McManus as being a member of the "extreme religious right."
Horn denies the charge: "It's not true that we have just been selectively working with conservatives." According to news accounts, the administration seeks to spend $1.5 billion promoting marriage through marriage-enrichment courses, counseling and public-awareness campaigns.
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Health plans with high patient-paid deductibles, embraced by many Republicans as a market-based solution to quell soaring medical-care costs, lead to poorer quality care and increasing patient debt, a study released on Thursday said.I've read so many policy wonks - liberals, too, mind you - who are pontificating about this.
With the new plans, individuals typically pay the first $1000, or $2000 for families, spent on medical care each year. The plans are coupled with so-called health savings accounts, or HSAs, which allow patients to set aside tax-free funds to defray health expenses.
But a survey of data from 4,000 adults with health insurance found that about half of patients with a high-deductible plan racked up medical debt and were faced with other billing woes, compared with 31 percent of those with more traditional health plans, according to the research group Commonwealth Fund, which studies health policy issues.
"Health savings accounts coupled with high-deductible health plans have potential pitfalls, especially for families with low incomes or individuals with chronic disease," said Karen Davis, president of the foundation, which studies health policy. "The evidence is that increased patient cost-sharing leads to underuse of appropriate care."....
Top CIA Guy: Good. Death squads like the ones we created in El Salvador? Terrorist murders like the ones we had so much fun with in Nicaragua?
Number Two Guy: On the way, sir. That Mr. Negroponte is an expert on the stuff from way back and the rumor mill even has Elliott Abrams coming back in. Happy days are here again.
Top CIA Guy: Well, get on that. Politicians purchased?
Number Two Guy: Well, we got our guy in the PM’s office and we’re handing out plenty of bucks to get people to back our guy on election day. Lots of the same Ilopango guys are happy for the chance to take out the old playbooks. If necessary, some of the old Saigon coup guys are available for consultation.
Top CIA Guy: Okedoke. Have we taken care of the opposition in places like Faluja?
Number Two Guy: Destroyed the village in order to save it, sir.
Top CIA Guy: Ha, ha, ha, very funny. But you’re right, we don’t have to worry about those votes. Got the journalists paid off?
Number Two Guy: You have to ask? Even those homos at the Department of Education have picked up on that game.
Top CIA Guy: What about them new-fangled journalists? What do you call them, buggers?
Number Two Guy: Bloggers, sir, bloggers. And frankly, I’m amazed at your audacity at even imagining that we would ever compromise the beauty, the integrity, and the power of this medium that is certain to sink the mainstream media dinosaurs and replace them with the likes of Glenn Reynolds and those guys at Powerline. I resign, effectively immediately, and not only that, I’m going to tell Jeff Jarvis on you. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself written about on Buzzmachine.
[Gets up in a huff and leaves the room]
Top CIA Guy: [Watches Number Two walk out and presses a red button on his telephone] Have him killed.
While not the first member of Congress to call for a withdrawal of the troops, Kennedy is the first senator to do so. And his remarks continued what has been a long and blistering assault on the administration’s Iraq policies.Imagine. "Pessimistic." When there are so many good explosions happening in Iraq.
Republican National Committee spokesman Brian Jones criticized Kennedy’s timing.
“Its remarkable that Sen. Kennedy would deliver such an overtly pessimistic message only days before the Iraqi election,” said Jones. “Kennedy’s partisan political attack stands in stark contrast to President Bush’s vision of spreading freedom around the world.”
So not surprisingly, when Ranking Democrat John Conyers offered this modest proposal in the Judiciary Committee, the Republicans rejected it based on a red herring. Chairman Sensenbrenner claimed it wasn't necessary because Democrats could bring resolutions of inquiry requesting information from the Administration.
Yet, when Democrats and Conyers did introduce these resolutions - for example in the wake of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal - the Republicans rejected them as unnecessary. Then, when a motion was presented to the House to initiate an independent inquiry, not a single Republican voted for it, and the search for accountability was squelched - even today, we have not had anything close to a full accounting of that scandal.
The Republicans on the Armed Services Committee also rejected a similar amendment offered today by Ranking Democrat Ike Skelton.
A senior Iranian diplomat negotiating with Europe over Iran's controversial nuclear programme is also at the heart of deals with US energy companies to develop the country's oil industry.
Conservatives in Iran's parliament have asked how Sirus Naseri can play these dual roles.
Members of the US Congress, already concerned about trade between US energy companies and Tehran, are now likely to give even closer attention to a contract agreed with a foreign subsidiary of Halliburton earlier this month.
Hersh, on the other hand, is the journalistic equivalent of Oliver Stone: a hard-left zealot who subscribes to the old counterculture conceit that a deep, dark conspiracy is running the U.S. government. In the 1960s the boogeyman was the "military- industrial complex." Now it's the "neoconservatives." "They overran the bureaucracy, they overran the Congress, they overran the press, and they overran the military!" Hersh ranted at UC Berkeley on Oct. 8, 2004.There, there, Max. I know in the fevered world of the Wall St. Journal's editorial page, it was easy to confuse wishful thinking with fact.
JAN. 30 is here at last, and the light is at the end of the tunnel, again. By my estimate, Iraq's election day is the fifth time that American troops have been almost on their way home from an about-to-be pacified Iraq. The four other incipient V-I days were the liberation of Baghdad (April 9, 2003), President Bush's declaration that "major combat operations have ended" (May 1, 2003), the arrest of Saddam Hussein (Dec. 14, 2003) and the handover of sovereignty to our puppet of choice, Ayad Allawi (June 28, 2004). And this isn't even counting the two "decisive" battles for our nouveau Tet, Falluja. Iraq is Vietnam on speed - the false endings of that tragic decade re-enacted and compressed in jump cuts, a quagmire retooled for the MTV attention span.As usual, Rich does more with a movie review than most political pundits manage to say with a years' worth of columns.
But in at least one way we are not back in Vietnam. Iraq hawks, like Vietnam hawks before them, often take the line that to criticize America's mission in Iraq is to attack the troops. That paradigm just doesn't hold. Americans, including those opposed to the war, love the troops (Lynndie England always excepted). Not even the most unhinged Bush hater is calling our all-volunteer army "baby killers." This time, paradoxically enough, it is often those who claim to love the troops the most - and who have the political power to help alleviate their sacrifice - who turn out to be the troops' false friends.
For all the program's success in economic terms, the government continues to direct billions of dollars to a safety net for those whose contributions were not large enough to ensure even a minimum pension approaching $140 a month. Many others - because they earned much of their income in the underground economy, are self-employed, or work only seasonally - remain outside the system altogether. Combined, those groups constitute roughly half the Chilean labor force. Only half of workers are captured by the system.
Even many middle-class workers who contributed regularly are finding that their private accounts - burdened with hidden fees that may have soaked up as much as a third of their original investment - are failing to deliver as much in benefits as they would have received if they had stayed in the old system.
"The story today is going to be very discouraging to the American people," Mr. Bush said. "I understand that. We value life. And we weep and mourn when soldiers lose their life.And right here, that was the part where he smiled - when he was talking about weeping and mourning.
You, doing that thing you do
Breakin' my heart into a million pieces
Like you always do
And you
Don't mean to be cruel.
You never even knew about the heartache
I've been going through
Well I try and try to forget you girl
But it's just so hard to do
Every time you do that thing you do
I know all the games you play
And I'm gonna find a way to let you know
That you'll be mine someday.
Cause we
Could be happy, can´t you see?
If you only let me be the one to hold you
And keep you here with me
'Cause I try and try to forget you girl
But it's just so hard to do
Every time you do that thing you do
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith announced today that he would leave his position this summer. As he has informed Secretary Rumsfeld, Mr. Feith made his decision for personal and family reasons.
Pelletiere, who holds a doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley, is the author of "America's Oil Wars." He served as the CIA's senior policy analyst on Iraq throughout the Iran-Iraq war and, in 1988, became a senior research professor at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle. He headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States.
***
He said the Bush administration is corrupt in that it has put its self-aggrandizement ahead of the needs of the country. The administration also has refused to admit to its ineptitude, he said.
"Bush is tarred with both," he said.
He said there was no need to go to war with Iraq. But that the country is waging a war there owes much to the "security apparatus" created to fight the Cold War.
Once it ended, he said, the apparatus needed a new enemy to justify its existence.
"They wanted to keep the cash flowing to the military-industrial complex," he said.
Pelletiere said bureaucrats, not military leaders, are making the war decisions. As such, the war planners in the beginning decided to fight through air power. That was a mistake, he said.
"Popular guerrilla wars cannot be suppressed with air power."
The war is not about protecting national security or bringing democracy to the Iraqis, he said. It is about oil.
"The administration was lured into going to war by the prospect of appropriating Iraq's oil."
It's going to go very bad, folks. You know, if you have not sold your stocks and bought property in Italy, you better do it quick.
And the third thing is Europe -- Europe is not going to tolerate us much longer. The rage there is enormous. I'm talking about our old-fashioned allies. We could see something there, collective action against us. Certainly, nobody -- it's going to be an awful lot of dancing on our graves as the dollar goes bad and everybody stops buying our bonds, our credit -- our -- we're spending $2 billion a day to float the debt, and one of these days, the Japanese and the Russians, everybody is going to start buying oil in Euros instead of dollars. We're going to see enormous panic here.
But he could get through that. That will be another year, and the damage he's going to do between then and now is enormous. We're going to have some very bad months ahead.
WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) on Wednesday ordered his Cabinet secretaries not to hire columnists to promote their agendas after disclosure that a second writer was paid to tout an administration initiative.
The president said he expects his agency heads will "make sure that that practice doesn't go forward."
"All our Cabinet secretaries must realize that we will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet," Bush said at a news conference.
AUSTRALIAN Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib was tied to the ground while a prostitute menstruated on him after he failed to co-operate with interrogators, his lawyer said yesterday.
Interrogators also told the Sydney man they had killed his family and superimposed animals' heads on photos of his wife and children, Mr Habib's lawyer Steven Hopper said yesterday.
***
He said Mr Habib also said he was subjected to interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay like those used on prisoners at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has long held that it is legal for supervisors to vigorously campaign against union organizing efforts. Even employers who force employees to attend anti-union meetings are acting lawfully. Yet the Bush-appointed majority of the Board recently ruled that pro-union conduct by a supervisor was objectionable, coercive, and grounds for overturning a five-year-old union election victory.
31 in the rotary-wing transport crash (cause not determined) at al-Rutbah town, western desert, pop 25,000 (and 2,000,000 sheep).
The air crew were from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing. The aircraft was a CH-53 Sea Stallion, configured as a troop transporter.
The transportees were from the 1st Marine Division, based out of Camp Pendleton in San Diego.
4 from RPGs after being lured (via tip) to ambush in Haditha village, al-Anbar, also 1st Marine Division.
1 from RPGs at Dulyiyah town (pop 50,000) unit not identified. 2 wounded. FOB Pacesetter.
Apparently we had a little problem with the silo doors on 200 of our missiles in Montana last Friday - the things flew open. Silo doors are something other countries watch with spy satellites because one takes a dim view of silo doors popping open: they're only supposed to open when missiles are about to launch. Doors popping open presents the risk that other countries will launch-on-warning, which, as the old bumper sticker had it, can ruin your whole day.
Interestingly, Infoshop is the one news site carrying the story, and the link is timing out this morning.
There's a Counterpunch account that's somewhat thinly sourced. It does have an interesting history of previous incidents, which mostly involved a door here or there, apparently. If 200 flew open at once, let's just be glad we're at a period of extremely low tension among nuclear states.
WASHINGTON -- A Senate Judiciary Committee divided along partisan lines advanced Alberto Gonzales' nomination as attorney general to the full Senate today despite Democratic complaints that he is too close to President Bush to be effective as the nation's top law enforcement official.
"It's hard to be a straight shooter when you're a blind loyalist," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
Republicans muscled Gonzales' nomination through the panel on a 10-8 party line vote and are expected to use their 55-44 advantage to confirm him there next week at the earliest.
Alberto Gonzales's nomination as attorney general goes before the Senate at a time when the Republican majority is eager to provide newly elected President Bush with the cabinet of his choice, and the Democrats are leery of exposing their weakened status by taking fruitless stands against the inevitable. None of that is an excuse for giving Mr. Gonzales a pass. The attorney general does not merely head up the Justice Department. He is responsible for ensuring that America is a nation in which justice prevails. Mr. Gonzales's record makes him unqualified to take on this role or to represent the American justice system to the rest of the world. The Senate should reject his nomination.
Somewhere between 9 and 10 a.m. Monday, the phone rang in the office of Jeff Thomason, a project manager for a development company that is building 150 homes in Chesterfield, N.J., off Exit 7 of the New Jersey Turnpike.
"I'm hurt and I can't play in the Super Bowl," the caller said. "How would you like to play?"
It was not a joke. The caller was Chad Lewis, the Philadelphia Eagles' starting tight end and Thomason's friend. The day before, Lewis caught two touchdown passes in the Eagles' 27-10 victory over the Atlanta Falcons, which put them in Super Bowl XXXIX against the New England Patriots on Feb. 6 in Jacksonville, Fla.
In 2002, syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher repeatedly defended President Bush's push for a $300 million initiative encouraging marriage as a way of strengthening families.
But Gallagher failed to mention that she had a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help promote the president's proposal, reveals Howard Kurtz in Wednesday runs of the WASHINGTON POST.
"The Bush marriage initiative would emphasize the importance of marriage to poor couples" and "educate teens on the value of delaying childbearing until marriage," she wrote in National Review Online, for example, adding that this could "carry big payoffs down the road for taxpayers and children."
Gallagher explains to Kurtz: "Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it? I don't know. You tell me." She said she would have "been happy to tell anyone who called me" about the contract but that "frankly, it never occurred to me" to disclose it.
***
National Review Editor Rich Lowry said of the HHS contract: "We would have preferred that she told us, and we would have disclosed it in her bio."
Electricity surging up through sidewalks left at least three city dogs with shocked paws yesterday and had Con Edison crews busy trying to prevent a repeat of last year's pedestrian electrocution.
Two Brooklyn dogs were zapped when they stepped on a charged portion of a Clark St. sidewalk, near Hicks St., just after noon yesterday, witnesses and firefighters said.
"He jumped up and started screaming," dog trainer Jennifer Bauch said of Cooper, the 68-pound pooch she was walking yesterday in Brooklyn Heights.
"He's normally very calm because he's on Prozac. I knew something was desperately wrong."
***
Con Edison spokesman Chris Olert said crews found stray voltage coming up from the ground, presumably from a frayed cable. He said the problem cable was removed and being inspected.
The incidents have become a routine part of winter, especially when melting snow and salt get into frayed or nicked underground electrical cables, Olert said.
Last January, Jodie Lane, 30, of the East Village, was killed when she fell on an electrified grate while walking her dog on E. 12th St.
For the first time, Human Rights Watch has issued a report that harshly criticizes a single industry in the United States, concluding that the nation's meat packing industry has such bad working conditions that it violates basic human and worker rights.Don't worry, I'm sure the USDA is right on top of it.
In a report issued today, Human Rights Watch, often echoing Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," found that jobs in many beef, pork and poultry plants were so dangerous that the industry violated international agreements promising a safe workplace.
Noting that the industry's injury rate was three times that of private industry over all, the report describes plants where exhausted employees slice into carcasses at a frenzied pace hour after hour, often suffering injuries from a slip of the knife or from repeating the same motion more than 10,000 times a day. The report describes workers being asphyxiated by fumes and having their legs cut off and hands crushed.
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