From Wednesday's Houston Chronicle, "E-mail causes Cheney critics to call for inquiry":
Vice President Dick Cheney's ties to Halliburton Co. have again come under scrutiny, after a Pentagon e-mail surfaced suggesting he knew in advance about a decision to award the firm a multibillion-dollar contract without seeking bids from competitors.Lawmakers urged a congressional probe Tuesday after a watch-dog group unearthed an e-mail from an unidentified official at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers indicating the Pentagon "coordinated" with Cheney's office when releasing information about Halliburton's contract to restore Iraq's oil infrastructure.
The March 5, 2003, e-mail, obtained by Washington-based group Judicial Watch and first reported by Time magazine, describes the authority Douglas Feith, the Defense Department's undersecretary for policy, had to both release information about and execute the contract.
In terms of declassifying details about the contract, the e-mail said Feith "approved, contingent on informing WH (the White House) tomorrow. We anticipate no issue, since action has been coordinated w (with) VP's office."
The contract was awarded three days later. That decision, however, was not made public for another two weeks, because — at that point — President Bush had not made the final decision to go to war.
From today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Enron traders derided users":
Enron energy traders in the company's Portland office spoke openly of reducing power supplies and jacking up prices at the expense of consumers and "poor grandmothers," according to recorded phone conversations filed last month with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.The Snohomish County Public Utilities District, which obtained the recordings from the federal government and transcribed them, submitted the transcripts to the FERC as part of its legal proceeding to receive reimbursements for Enron's price increases.
[. . .]
On the calls, traders openly and gleefully discussed creating congestion on transmission lines, taking generating units offline to pump up electricity prices and overall manipulation of the California power market.
They also kidded about Enron's hefty political contributions -- particularly to Bush's 2000 presidential campaign -- and how that could translate into more opportunity for profit in California.
"I'd love to see Ken Lay be secretary of energy," one trader said, referring to the now-disgraced former Enron chief executive whose ties to the Bush administration have drawn criticism from Democrats.
In one transcript, a trader asks about "all the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers of California."
To which the Enron trader responds, "Yeah, Grandma Millie, man. But she's the one who couldn't figure out how to (expletive) vote on the butterfly ballot."
"Yeah, now she wants her (expletive) money back for all the power you've charged right up -- jammed right up her (expletive) for (expletive) 250 dollars a megawatt-hour," the first trader says.
Well, Kenneth Lay - a Bush campaign Pioneer in 2000 - didn't get the Secretary of Energy gig, but he was on the Energy Department transition team when Bush took the White House, and Lay recommended two of the people on the five-member Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (via The Washington Post).
Yes, that would be the same FERC that just received the Enron transcripts.
From yesterday's AP wire via The Boston Globe, "Iraq costs are $119.4 billion and rising; lawmakers ponder how money might have been spent:
Even by Washington standards, the $119.4 billion that President Bush and Congress have provided for the first two years of the war in Iraq is real money.Though a tiny fraction of overall federal spending, the figure is huge in other ways. It dwarfs the $100 million that could hire 2,500 more airport security screeners,the $500 million that could add 69,400 more children to Head Start, the $1 billion that would let 160,000 more low-income families keep federal rent subsidies, Senate Democrats say. Or it could reduce the runaway federal deficit.
The $119.4 billion total, compiled by the White House Office of Management and Budget, is the administration's most comprehensive tally of the war's financial costs so far. Of the total, $97.2 billion has been for military operations, $21.2 billion for rebuilding Iraq's economy and government, and $1 billion for U.S. administrative expenses there.
[. . .]
If not used for war, the money could take a healthy bite out of the government's runaway annual deficits, which are expected to set a record this year exceeding $400 billion. The $119.4 billion is four times this year's federal spending for biomedical research, 14 times what Washington will spend to clean the environment, 26 times the FBI's budget.
The total would also be enough to hand every Iraqi a check for $4,776 about eight times that country's average income.
Lawrence Lindsey, then the White House economic adviser, estimated before the Iraq war that it could cost $100 billion to $200 billion. Other administration officials called the figure far too large and argued that Iraq's oil revenues would let the country largely rebuild itself.
You remember Lawrence Lindsey, right?
"In late 2002, months before the Iraq war started, the Bush administration rebuked its own chief economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, for publicly estimating that a war in Iraq might cost $100 billion to $200 billion. In December 2002, Mitch Daniels, then the director of the Office of Management and Budget, said the cost more likely would be $50 billion to $60 billion — which now looks like a fraction of the actual expenses. (via The San Francisco Chronicle)
From yesterday's AP wire via Yahoo! News, "Bush Campaigns Heavily on Air Force One":
President Bush is using Air Force One for re-election travel more heavily than any predecessor, wringing maximum political mileage from a perk of office paid for by taxpayers.While Democratic rival John Kerry digs into his campaign bank account to charter a plane to roam the country, Bush often travels at no cost to his campaign simply by declaring a trip "official" travel rather than "political."
Even when the White House deems a trip as political, the cost to Bush's campaign is minimal. In such instances, the campaign must only pay the government the equivalent of a comparable first-class fare for each political traveler on each leg, Federal Election Commission guidelines say.
Usually, that means paying a few hundred or a few thousand dollars for the president and a handful of aides. It's a minuscule sum, compared to the $56,800-per-hour the Air Force estimates it costs to run Air Force One.
It is an advantage that Bush and other presidents before him have enjoyed. President Clinton frequently was criticized by Republicans for his record-setting use of Air Force One in the campaign season, and Bush is exceeding Clinton's pace.
"It's really something that's abused," said Bill Allison, managing editor of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, government watchdog group.
"On the one hand, the president can't fly coach," Allison said. "But on the other hand, taxpayers are in essence subsidizing campaign trips, something that goes against the grain of how the political system is supposed to operate."
[. . .]
Bush has logged more than 68,000 miles this year on Air Force One, all within the continental United States except for a quick run to Mexico in January. With rare exceptions, he confines his travels to the more than a dozen states he and Kerry are fighting hardest for, and to places where he is raising campaign money.
Of those states, Bush has made five trips to Pennsylvania, four each to Missouri, Florida and Ohio, and three to Wisconsin. He also has flown to 24 fund-raisers for himself and the Republican Party.
The White House labeled travel to fund-raisers "political." Likewise, it deemed as "political" a thank-you mixer with big donors in Georgia, his first campaign rally in Orlando, Fla., and bus tours through Michigan, Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin, meaning his campaign paid a share of the costs.
But of the more than $203 million Bush has raised for his re-election, less than 1 percent has gone to reimbursing the government for travel costs this year.
[. . .]
It is difficult to say precisely what the Bush campaign is repaying the government per trip. The White House refuses to:
- Provide lists of political aides who travel with Bush and whose travels are financed by the re-election campaign; or say how many political aides go on any given trip, or even offer a range.
- Provide dollar figures on reimbursements for specific trips. Bush's re-election campaign periodically reports to the FEC lump reimbursement sums for unspecified travel.
- Say how it decides which trips are official rather than political.
An Associated Press tally of Bush's travels shows he has made at least 114 trips in the 17 months since January 2003.
Clinton flew Air Force One on 123 domestic trips between January 1995 and mid-October 1996, a period of 22 months. It was a record for re-election-related travel aboard the presidential aircraft, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
Anyone care to add in all those trips to Crawford our habitually vacationing President has taken?
He still hasn't supplied sufficient evidence to justify this:
May 2004
Spc. Michael J. Wiesemann, 20, of North Judson, Ind.
Lance Cpl. Benjamin R. Gonzalez, 23, of Los Angeles, Calif.
Lance Cpl. Kyle W. Codner, 19, of Wood River, Neb.
Cpl. Matthew C. Henderson, 25, of Lincoln, Neb.
Pfc. Richard H. Rosas, 21, of Saint Louis, Mich.
Pfc. James P. Lambert, 23, of New Orleans, La.
Spc. Alan N. Bean Jr., 22, of Bridport, Vt.
Sgt. Kevin F. Sheehan, 36, of Milton, Vt.
Pfc. Daniel P. Unger, 19, of Exeter, Calif.
Spc. Beau R. Beaulieu, 20, of Lisbon, Maine
Pfc. Owen D. Witt, 20, of Sand Springs, Mont.
Staff Sgt. Jorge A. MolinaBautista, 37, of Rialto, Calif.
Spc. Jeremy L. Ridlen, 23, of Maroa, Ill.
Staff Sgt. Jeremy R. Horton, 24, of Carneys Point, Pa.
Lance Cpl. Andrew J. Zabierek, 25, of Chelmsford, Mass.
Cpl. Rudy Salas, 20, of Baldwin Park, Calif.
Pfc. Leslie D. Jackson, 18, of Richmond, Va.
Sgt. 1st. Class Troy L. Miranda, 44, of DeQueen, Ark.
Spc. Michael C. Campbell, 34, of Marshfield, Mo.
Pfc. Michael M. Carey, 20, of Prince George, Va.
Staff Sgt. William D. Chaney, 59, of Schaumburg, Ill.
Staff Sgt. Joseph P. Garyantes, 34, of Rehoboth, Del.
Spc. Marcos O. Nolasco, 34, of Chino, Calif.
Lance Cpl. Bob W. Roberts, 30, of Newport, Ore.
Spc. Mark J. Kasecky, 20, of McKees Rocks, Pa.
Spc. Carl F. Curran, 22, of Union City, Pa.
2nd Lt. Leonard M. Cowherd, 22, of Culpeper, Va.
Senior Airman Pedro I. Espaillat Jr., 20, of Columbia, Tenn.
Staff Sgt. Rene Ledesma, 34, of Abilene, Texas
Sgt. James W. Harlan, 44, of Owensboro, Ky.
Pfc. Michael A. Mora, 19, of Arroyo Grande, Calif.
Sgt. Brud J. Cronkrite, 22, of Spring Valley, Calif.
Spc. Philip I. Spakosky, 25, of Browns Mill, N.J.
Command Sgt. Maj. Edward C. Barnhill, 50, of Shreveport, La.
Pfc. Brian K. Cutter, 19, of Riverside, Calif.
Pfc. Brandon C. Sturdy, 19, of Urbandale, Iowa
Spc. Jeffrey R. Shaver, 26, of Maple Valley, Wash
Lance Cpl. Jeremiah E. Savage, 21, of Livingston, Tenn.
Spc. Kyle A. Brinlee, 21, of Pryor, Okla.
Pfc. Andrew L. Tuazon, 21, of Chesapeake, Va.
Sgt. Rodney A. Murray, 28, of Ayden, N.C.
Spc. Philip D. Brown, 21, of El Paso, Texas
Spc. Isela Rubalcava, 25, of El Paso, Texas
Spc. Chase R.Whitman, 21, of Oregon
Spc. James J. Holmes, 28, of East Grand Forks, Minn.
Cpl. Dustin H. Schrage, 20, of Brevard, Fla.
Staff Sgt. Hesley Box, Jr, 24, of Nashville, Ark.
Spc. James E. Marshall, 19, of Tulsa, Okla.
Pfc. Bradley G. Kritzer, 18, of Irvona, Penn.
Cpl. Jeffrey G. Green, 20, of Dallas
Pfc. Jesse R. Buryj, 21, of Canton, Ohio
1st Lt. Christopher J. Kenny, 32, of Miami, Fla.
Sgt. Marvin R. Sprayberry, III, 24, of Tehachapi, Calif.
Sgt. Gregory L. Wahl, 30, of Salisbury, N.C.
Pfc. Lyndon A. Marcus, Jr., 21, of Long Beach, Calif.
Gunnery Sgt. Ronald E. Baum, 38, of Hollidaysburg, Pa.
Staff Sgt. Erickson H. Petty, 28, of Fort Gibson, Okla.
Staff Sgt. Todd E. Nunes, 29, of Chapel Hills, Tenn.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael C. Anderson, 36, of Daytona, Fla.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Trace W. Dossett, 37, of Orlando, Fla.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Scott R. Mchugh, 33 of Boca Raton, Fla.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Robert B. Jenkins, 35 of Stuart, Fla.
Petty Officer 3rd Class Ronald A. Ginther, 37 of Auburndale, Fla.
Capt. John E. Tipton, 32, of Fort Walton Beach, Fla.
Spc. Ervin Caradine, Jr., 33, of Memphis, Tenn.
Pvt. Jeremy L. Drexler, 23, of Topeka, Kan.
Sgt. Joshua S. Ladd, 20, of Fort Gibson, Miss,
Staff Sgt. Oscar D. Vargas-Medina, 32, of Chicago, Ill.
Spc. Ramon C. Ojeda, 22, of Ramona, Calif.
Spc. Trevor A. Wine, 22, of Orange, Calif.
Uncannily like his father and other presidents before him, George W. Bush is in the crosshairs of the curse of the wartime president.It goes like this: Since the end of World War II, America has fought in Korea, Vietnam, Gulf I and Gulf II. No president responsible for taking America into those wars, or escalating the conflict, won an additional term.
In 1952, the Korean War forced Harry Truman to forget re-election. In 1968, Vietnam finished off Lyndon Johnson. In 1992, George H.W. Bush's unwillingness to demobilize a presidency tainted by the perception of defeat snatched from the jaws of victory led to his humbling defeat.
Like father like son, George W. Bush has cloaked himself as a wartime president. Like his father, the younger Bush fails to discern that there is something about America that does not love war or wartime presidents. Instead, Americans favor candidates who evoke the nation's favorite three words, "peace and prosperity". (San Francisco Chronicle)
President's Discusses Memorial Day in Weekly Radio Address
Radio Address by the President to the Nation
May 29, 2004
[...]Through our history, America has gone to war reluctantly because we have known the costs of war. And in every generation, it is the best among us who are called to pay that price. Those who have paid those costs have given us every moment we live in freedom, and every living American is in their debt. We can never repay what they gave for this country. But on this holiday, we acknowledge the debt by showing our respect and gratitude. (emphasis ours)
This from a President who went to war greedily, and who still doesn't understand the terrible costs of his war.
From "As prices soar, fuel standards get a look" in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
The Bush administration is considering removing environmental requirements for a multitude of gasoline blends as one way to increase existing supplies of gasoline and fight soaring prices, Commerce Secretary Donald Evans said in an interview with The Associated Press.[...]
Evans said one of the areas the administration was exploring was what it could do to reduce the requirements for different types of gasoline blends in different parts of the country to deal with specific pollution problems.
Yeah, because we can't be bothered to deal with pollution problems if gas prices are high. It's another example of the Bush Administration's backward thinking: go with the quick fix today, because we'll be out of office when the consequences start coming down.
That's not what we elect a president to do. He's supposed to be a leader, not a schemer. A leader would work to address the reasons we are so dependent on oil, even if the results won't be seen for years or even decades. But this President is too caught up in his own declining fortunes to offer real leadership. That's where the quick fix comes in.
Yesterday the New York Times published a critique of its coverage of the war in Iraq:
[W]e have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been. In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged. Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged -- or failed to emerge.[. . .]
The problematic articles varied in authorship and subject matter, but many shared a common feature. They depended at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on "regime change" in Iraq, people whose credibility has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks. (The most prominent of the anti-Saddam campaigners, Ahmad Chalabi, has been named as an occasional source in Times articles since at least 1991, and has introduced reporters to other exiles. He became a favorite of hard-liners within the Bush administration and a paid broker of information from Iraqi exiles, until his payments were cut off last week.) Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by U.S. officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq. Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organizations -- in particular, this one.
Some critics of our coverage during that time have focused blame on individual reporters. Our examination, however, indicates that the problem was more complicated. Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper. Accounts of Iraqi defectors were not always weighed against their strong desire to have Saddam Hussein ousted. Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all.
One example (more examples here):
April 21, 2003, as American weapons-hunters followed American troops into Iraq, another front-page article declared, "Illicit Arms Kept Till Eve of War, an Iraqi Scientist Is Said to Assert." It began this way: "A scientist who claims to have worked in Iraq's chemical weapons program for more than a decade has told an American military team that Iraq destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war began, members of the team said."The informant also claimed that Iraq had sent unconventional weapons to Syria and had been cooperating with al-Qaida -- two claims that were then, and remain, highly controversial. But the tone of the article suggested that this Iraqi "scientist" -- who in a later article described himself as an official of military intelligence -- had provided the justification the Americans had been seeking for the invasion.
The Times never followed up on the veracity of this source or the attempts to verify his claims.
[. . .]
We consider the story of Iraq's weapons, and of the pattern of misinformation, to be unfinished business. And we fully intend to continue aggressive reporting aimed at setting the record straight.
The Bush Administration should set the record straight, too.
From yesterday's Christian Science Monitor, "National Parks fast falling into disrepair":
Leaky lodge roofs. Potholed roads. Beaches closed for lack of a lifeguard. Not enough rangers in their Smokey Bear hats teaching kids about flora and fauna.It's not a picture Americans want to imagine for their national parks - the "crown jewels" often likened to European cathedrals.
But as the nation approaches the year's first holiday weekend when families head for the mountains, seashore, and battlefield monuments, there's a groundswell of concern (bordering on revolt) among current and retired US Park Service employees over the condition of national parks.
Despite the efforts and rhetoric of Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Park Service Director Fran Miainella, the backlog of much-needed park maintenance continues to grow, these employees say.
Insiders have leaked a Park Service memo ordering park superintendents to refer to budget-driven program cuts as "service level adjustments." Such adjustments, the memo suggests, could include closing visitor centers on some holidays, cutting back on ranger talks and tours, eliminating lifeguard services at beaches, and closing parks two days a week. In a sideshow drama, the chief of the park police in Washington has been threatened with dismissal for speaking out about budget needs and staffing levels.
Meanwhile, a coalition of environmental groups has just sued the Interior Department over its failure to minimize the air pollution impacts of nearby development on more than a dozen national parks and wilderness areas in the Rocky Mountain West. Interior is charged with failure to uphold the Clean Air Act around parks.
The President outlined his plan for Iraq last night at the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania. It was heavy on the optimism:
The rise of a free and self-governing Iraq will deny terrorists a base of operation, discredit their narrow ideology, and give momentum to reformers across the region. This will be a decisive blow to terrorism at the heart of its power, and a victory for the security of America and the civilized world.[...]
There are difficult days ahead, and the way forward may sometimes appear chaotic. Yet our coalition is strong, our efforts are focused and unrelenting, and no power of the enemy will stop Iraq's progress.
[...]
[Iraq] is moving every week toward free elections and a permanent place among free nations. Like every nation that has made the journey to democracy, Iraqis will raise up a government that reflects their own culture and values.
Still, Bush did admit that the road ahead was difficult. He correctly pronounced the names of Iraqis and U.N. personnel and gave a verbal nod to the abuses at Abu Ghraib. He said over and over again that the Iraqis would be in charge after June 30, not the Americans. All of these were the right things to say.
The problem is, we don't believe him. To paint the American Plan and the transition to self-rule itself in such orderly and prophetic terms is reflective of the Administration's naivete throughout the entire war in Iraq. Perhaps they haven't noticed that lies were told, plans have gone awry, leaders have failed to lead.
It would be wonderful if Iraq's transition goes better than we expect it to. The Iraqis have suffered too long to begrudge them that. But the fact that Bush ended the speech by pointing to Afghanistan as his example of what should happen in Iraq --
These two visions -- one of tyranny and murder, the other of liberty and life -- clashed in Afghanistan. And thanks to brave U.S. and coalition forces and to Afghan patriots, the nightmare of the Taliban is over, and that nation is coming to life again.
-- means that he's as clueless as he's always been. The eight hundred Americans who have died fighting for Bush's foreign policy deserve better.
From today's New York Times, "The North Korean Uranium Challenge":
" The discovery that North Korea may have supplied uranium to Libya poses an immediate challenge to the White House: while President Bush is preoccupied on the other side of the world, an economically desperate nation may be engaging in exactly the kind of nuclear proliferation that the president says he went to war in Iraq to halt.Yet to listen to many in the White House, concern about North Korea's nuclear program brings little of the urgency that surrounded the decision 14 months ago to oust Saddam Hussein. When Mr. Bush has been asked about North Korea in recent months, he has emphasized his patience. He does not refer to the intelligence estimates that North Korea has at least two nuclear weapons, or to the debate within the American intelligence community about whether North Korea has spent the past 18 months building more.
Instead, he lauds the progress he says the United States has made in organizing China, Russia, Japan and South Korea to negotiate as one with the North Koreans - though those talks have resulted in no progress so far in ending either of North Korea's two major nuclear programs.
Just last week, the Pentagon even announced it was removing a brigade of troops that had been securing South Korea's border with the North, and sending it to provide additional forces for the Iraqi occupation.
With international inspectors recently reporting that North Korea may have shipped uranium, already processed into a gas that can be fed into centrifuges for enrichment into bomb fuel, the White House has been silent. On Sunday, a White House spokesman declined to talk about the reports, other than to issue a statement at the president's ranch in Texas that the news proves the need for "the United States policy for North Korea to disarm in a complete, verifiable and irreversible fashion."
"I admit there appears to be more than a little irony here," said one senior administration official, when asked how what he thought Mr. Bush might have said in public if Saddam Hussein - instead of Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader - had been suspected of shipping raw material for nuclear weapons to a country like Libya. "But Iraq was a different problem, in a different place, and we had viable military options," he continued. In North Korea, he said, Mr. Bush has virtually none. Indeed, the problems and the threats are different, even though Mr. Hussein's Iraq was lumped with North Korea as part of the "axis of evil" that President Bush cited in 2002.
Even hawks within the administration - a group led by Vice President Dick Cheney, who said on a trip to Asia last month that "time is not necessarily on our side" - see no major risk that North Korea will lash out at its neighbors or the United States.
The country is broke; American military officials say it can barely afford the jet fuel to give its fighter pilots time to train. Iraq, too, was in desperate economic straits, but it at least had oil revenue, skimmed from the United Nations oil-for-food program, and active trade. North Korea is literally starving; millions have died of malnutrition.
But the same poverty that makes North Korea less of a military threat makes it a potent proliferation threat. For years, the North's main export has been missiles. It has sold them to Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Libya and others, often sending its engineers abroad to fabricate custom designs. The reports of likely uranium sales to Libya have created the chilling possibility that the North has now found a new and profitable product - and that Libya may not have been the only customer. "Many predicted that sooner or later we would have to worry about the North Koreans not only as users but as exporters of nuclear technology," said Daniel Poneman, a former national security official and co-author of "Going Critical" (Brookings Institution Press, 2004), a new book about the first North Korean nuclear crisis in the mid-1990's. It was this fear that Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage expressed to Congress last year, when he warned that North Korea would not have to develop complete nuclear arms to become a serious threat; it could sell ingredients.
In short, if the North's sales to Libya are confirmed, the nightmare that Mr. Bush discussed so often last year - the sale of "the world's worst weapons to the world's most dangerous dictators" - may be happening at the other end of the axis. Iraq, it turns out, had little or nothing to sell.
From today's Guardian (UK), "Bush's super fundraisers join the queue for favours":
The Sun shone on the plush grounds of the Ritz-Carlton Lodge in rolling Georgia countryside. But the resort's four championship golf courses were strangely empty for a pleasant spring weekend.Instead, 300 of America's most powerful men and women sat in a windowless conference room to receive the thanks of their hero: President George Bush.
The 300 form part of an elite donor network that has turned Bush's campaign into the most powerful fundraising machine in US history. They are dubbed Pioneers (for rustling up $100,000) and Rangers (getting $200,000). But now, it was revealed to the gathering at the 'appreciation weekend', a new level of fundraiser was to be created.
Those Rangers able to generate another $250,000 could become Super Rangers, the cream of the cream of Republican cash cows. But they had to do it by 15 August. It is a tribute to the awesome levels of power and influence in the room that many would expect to pass that test.
But critics question what people who raise half a million dollars for the Republican cause expect in return. The secretive ranks of Pioneers, Rangers and now Super Rangers expose the huge influence of cash on US policy. Many gain positions in government. Their firms win billions of dollars worth of federal contracts. Legislation is shaped to benefit their industries.
Since 1998, Bush has raised at least $296 million (£175m) in campaign contributions. It is believed up to half of that huge sum has come from just 630 people. Last week Bush's 2004 re-election fund hit a record $200m, doubling the total set in 2000, and it is expected to top $250m. It gives the Republicans tremendous firepower.
At the centre of this torrent of money lie the Pioneers and Rangers. Formed by four family friends in 1998 when Bush was still governor of Texas, they have grown into a nationwide network of influence. With its different levels, the aim is to make top donors compete for influence. 'When you do that, the sky is really the limit. They give more and more, but in the end it is all just gravy for the Bush train,' said Andrew Wheat, director of Texans for Public Justice, a group that monitors the network.
Certainly the benefits of donating seem clear. A report by the group revealed that, out of 630 elite donors from 2000 and 2004, almost one quarter were given an appointment from the administration - including 24 ambassadorships and two cabinet positions. In 2002 more than $3.5 billion of federal contracts were given to 101 companies that between them boasted 123 Pioneers or Rangers. 'We believe this is only the tip of the iceberg, too. This is only the stuff that we have been able to find out about,' said Wheat.
Nor is the campaign choosy about where its contributions come from: 146 of the donors have been involved in corporate scandals or helped to run companies that have. Most obvious was Kenneth Lay, former boss of disgraced energy firm Enron. But others have been linked to financial murkiness on Wall Street, pollution problems and even health issues. The network has 78 donors linked to campaign finance scandals.
But the success of the donor network keeps growing. The Super Rangers initiative was only announced last week, yet at least 25 are already believed to exist. However, only one name has become public. He is Alberto Cardenas, a longtime Florida Republican who now works as a lawyer and lobbyist for Tew Cardenas, a law firm with offices in Miami and Washington.
The network is extremely 'clubby' and close-knit. Four main families are at its centre. First is the Bush clan itself. It boasts seven family members who have made at least Pioneer status, including Bush's sister Dorothy Bush Koch and his uncle, HT 'Bucky' Bush. Then comes Richard Egan, a Massachusetts millionaire, whose sons Chris and Michael have also made the grade. Joining them with three members each are the Fox family, who own the Harbour Group finance firm with major investments in China, and the Reynolds family of land developers. The April meeting was held on land owned by the Reynoldses.
The industries the network spans are also tightly knit. Almost 20 per cent of the elite donors come from the world of finance, while 18 per cent are lawyers and lobbyists.
Donors work hard for the cash. In order to bypass strict campaign laws limiting individual donations to $2,000, each donor 'bundles' together cheques from his own circle of friends and employees. But the effort seems worthwhile.
A classic example is that of West Virginia coal baron James Harless, a Pioneer in 2000 and 2004, therefore contributing at least $200,000 to the Bush campaign. He saw his grandson appointed to a Department of Energy team looking at drawing up new policies. The Bush administration then reversed a campaign promise to reduce carbon dioxide emissions that bedevil the coal industry and eased environmental restrictions on opencast mining.
'Here is where ordinary Americans are sold down the river. When donations affect policy, it is ordinary people who end up biting the bullet,' Wheat said.
From Thursday's New York Times, via the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "GAO says Medicare video violated law":
The General Accounting Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said yesterday that the Bush administration had violated federal law by producing and disseminating television news segments that portray the new Medicare law as a boon to the elderly.The agency said the videos were a form of "covert propaganda" because the government was not identified as the source of the materials, broadcast by at least 40 television stations in 33 markets. The agency also expressed some concern about the content of the videos, but based its ruling on the lack of disclosure.
The consequences of the ruling were not clear. The GAO does not have law enforcement powers, but its decisions on federal spending are usually considered authoritative and are taken seriously by officials in the executive branch of the government.
The decision fuels a political debate over the new Medicare law. President Bush and many Republicans in Congress say the law will provide immense assistance to millions of elderly and disabled people. But Democrats say the law will do little for the elderly and is so flawed that the government had to resort to an illegal public relations campaign to sell it to the public.
The GAO said that a specific part of the videos, a made-for-television "story package," violated the prohibition on using taxpayer money for propaganda. People seeing the videos as part of a newscast would "believe that the information came from a non-government source or neutral party," it said.
William Pierce, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, who helped develop the videos, said: "We disagree. It's not covert. TV stations knew the videos came from us and could have identified the government as the source if they had wanted to."
The GAO said, however, that the intended audience, it said, was not television news directors, but viewers, and "the video news releases did not alert viewers that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services was the source."
Two videos end with the voice of a woman who says, "In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting." A third video is narrated, in Spanish, by a man who identifies himself as "Alberto Garcia, reporting" from Washington.
The accounting office said the videos were "not strictly factual news stories" and were flawed by "notable omissions and weaknesses" in their explanation of the Medicare law. But the main problem, it said, is that they were "misleading as to source."
Federal law prohibits the use of federal money for "publicity or propaganda purposes" not authorized by Congress.
The accounting office said the Bush administration's misuse of federal money "also constitutes a violation of the Anti-deficiency Act," which prohibits spending in excess of available appropriations. Officials run serious legal risks if they spend federal money for purposes not authorized by Congress. But Medicare officials are unlikely to face any penalties.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said he was drafting legislation that would require the Bush-Cheney campaign to reimburse the Medicare trust fund for the cost of producing and disseminating the videos.
The administration put the cost at $42,750, but refused to provide any documentation, so the amount could not be confirmed, the GAO said.
From "White House Is Trumpeting Programs It Tried to Cut" via the New York Times:
Like many of its predecessors, the Bush White House has used the machinery of government to promote the re-election of the president by awarding federal grants to strategically important states. But in a twist this election season, many administration officials are taking credit for spreading largess through programs that President Bush tried to eliminate or to cut sharply.For example, Justice Department officials recently announced that they were awarding $47 million to scores of local law enforcement agencies for the hiring of police officers. Mr. Bush had just proposed cutting the budget for the program, known as Community Oriented Policing Services, by 87 percent, to $97 million next year, from $756 million.
The administration has been particularly energetic in publicizing health programs, even ones that had been scheduled for cuts or elimination.
Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, announced recently that the administration was awarding $11.7 million in grants to help 30 states plan and provide coverage for people without health insurance. Mr. Bush had proposed ending the program in each of the last three years.
The administration also announced recently that it was providing $11.6 million to the states so they could buy defibrillators to save the lives of heart attack victims. But Mr. Bush had proposed cutting the budget for such devices by 82 percent, to $2 million from $10.9 million.
Whether they involve programs Mr. Bush supported or not, the grant announcements illustrate how the administration blends politics and policy, blurring the distinction between official business and campaign-related activities.
[...]
The contrast between politics and policy is particularly striking when the administration takes credit for spending money appropriated by Congress against the president's wishes.
In April, Secretary Thompson announced that the administration was awarding $3.1 million in grants to improve health care in rural areas of Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, New Mexico and New York. He did not mention that the administration was trying to cut the same rural health program by 72 percent, to $11.1 million next year, from $39.6 million.
Mr. Thompson likewise recently boasted that the administration was awarding $16 million to 11 universities to train blacks and Hispanic Americans as doctors, dentists and pharmacists. But at the same time, the administration was urging Congress to abolish the program, on the ground that "private and corporate entities" could pay for training.
More Republicans driving the nation's economy. Let us know when you find the "compassionate" part:
On April 24, 2003, President Bush visited a Timken Co. bearings plant in Canton, Ohio, where he praised Timken's productivity and said his plan to end the double taxation of stock dividends would mean "companies like Timken have got a better capacity to expand, which means jobs." The dividend tax was cut. And Timken? The Post's Dana Milbank reports that company, run by a big Bush supporter, announced last week that it's shutting down the Canton operation, which employs 1,300. (Washington Post)
From Dana Milbank's "White House Notebook" in the Washington Post:
On May 3, Vice President Cheney delivered a speech to the employees of the Wal-Mart distribution center in Bentonville, Ark. According to local newspapers, both Wal-Mart and the Bush-Cheney campaign described the speech as official -- taxpayer-funded -- White House business.For all anyone around here knew, it was an official visit," columnist Brenda Blagg wrote in the Morning News of northwest Arkansas. "The Arkansas office for Bush-Cheney '04 certainly thought so and was appropriately 'hands off,' as a spokesperson put it. . . . The visit came about, according to a Wal-Mart spokesman, because the White House called the company's Washington office and said the vice president wanted to come tour the distribution center, meet the company's associates and 'say good things about Wal-Mart.' "
But at the speech, Cheney did more than say good things about the retailer. He said a lot of bad things about John F. Kerry.
"This November, the American people will have a clear choice on the economy," he said. "President Bush has stood firmly by his conviction that lower taxes are critical to growth and jobs. The president's opponent takes a somewhat different view." After more than 600 words picking apart Kerry's record, Cheney said: "I am confident that six months from now, with a clear choice before them, the American people will choose the confident, steady, principled leadership of President George W. Bush."
Democrats say the trip, if official, would have violated campaign finance rules. Rep. John W. Olver (Mass.), the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee governing White House expenses, wrote to the White House seeking an explanation. But Cheney spokesman Kevin Kellems said that the trip was, from the start, a campaign event, and that those who said otherwise were misinformed.
Among the misinformed was Wal-Mart's chief spokesman, Jay Allen. "I was under the impression it was initially a White House event," Allen said. "I was told in the last few days it was a campaign event."
The visit to Wal-Mart was appropriate in one way: the world's biggest retailer succeeds by paying its associates low wages, vigorously opposing unionization, forcing unpaid overtime and offering bare-bones benefits.* No wonder the Republicans approve.
*See Wal-Mart Watch
From an editorial in yesterday's Tomah Journal (WI), "Bush visit symbolizes scripted politics":
Only bona-fide George W. Bush supporters could enter President Bush's Friday campaign rally in La Crosse. According to Sandra McAnany of Norwalk (see letter to editor), Bush partisans who monitored checkpoints asked people to unbutton their shirts so that nobody with an off-message t-shirt could attend the event. McAnany said she and her 9-year-old son were barred from entering as a result.Oh well, it was Bush's campaign rally, and it's up to the campaign to decide who gets to see the President and who doesn't (provided that the Bush-Cheney campaign reimburses the city of La Crosse for security costs). However, the experience of McAnany and her son symbolizes an increasing feature of modern politics - people of opposing political persuasions don't talk to each other anymore. In fact, they hardly associate with each other.
It's not just political rallies where this phenomenon occurs. In an increasingly fragmented media market, more and more people consume only media outlets that reinforce their political viewpoints. Commercial talk radio, far from a forum of ideas, is a monologue with like-minded callers for props. On those rare instances when a challenging caller gets through, especially one who can successfully articulate an opposing point of view, the disc jockey cuts the caller off. It's revealing that the king of political talk, Rush Limbaugh, failed spectacularly on ESPN's pre-game football show. It was the one time he ventured beyond a setting he didn't control.
Like Bush's La Crosse rally and Limbaugh's radio show, too much of our politics is staged without any genuine give and take. Perhaps America could learn something from the British, where the Prime Minister must submit to weekly questions from Parliament. The questions are often rough and pointed, but it gets people with different points of view in the same room talking to each other. Imagine Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold asking the President serious questions about the Patriot Act. Such exchanges are far too rare in our national politics.
It's sad when organizers of a political rally can't stand to have people with opposing viewpoints standing side by side. It would seem that a President who describes himself as a "uniter, not a divider" could have withstood a few Democrats attending his political rally, even if they wore t-shirts questioning an administration policy, but that would have deviated from the script. And in today's politics, the script is everything.
The Iraq prisoner abuse scandal shifted Sunday to the question of whether the Bush administration set up a legal foundation that opened the door for the mistreatment. Within months of the Sept. 11 attacks, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales reportedly wrote President Bush a memo about the terrorism fight and prisoners' rights under the Geneva Conventions."In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions," Gonzales wrote, according to the report in Newsweek magazine. Secretary of State Colin Powell "hit the roof" when he read the memo, according to the account.
Asked about the Gonzales memo, the White House said, "It is the policy of the United States to comply with all of our laws and our treaty obligations." (from yesterday's Washington Post,
"Abuse Scandal Focuses on Bush Foundation")
At least as of February, many of the 100 or so prisoners categorized by American officials as "high value detainees" because of the special intelligence they are believed to possess, had been held since June 2003 for nearly 23 hours a day in strict solitary confinement in small concrete cells without sunlight, according to a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross.While not tantamount to the sexual humiliation and other abuses inflicted on Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, the conditions have been described by the Red Cross as a violation of the Geneva Conventions, the international treaty that the Bush administration has said it regards as "fully applicable" to all prisoners held by the United States in Iraq. (from today's New York Times, "Some Iraqis Held Outside Control of Top General")
From "Bush holds his summit amid the toxic waste sites" in the Independent:
President George Bush is to bring leaders of the world's richest to Sea Island next month to showcase his "environmental stewardship".But the island - the most beautiful of the sub-tropical Golden Isles off the Georgia coast - is in one of the most polluted areas of the American South. Glynn County, which contains Sea Island - the site of next month's G8 summit - is home to 16 hazardous waste plants.
A nearby polluting paper mill is being closed down while the leaders of the world's richest countries, including Tony Blair, are in the neighbourhood.
Fourteen months after American troops entered Iraq, the President is still trying to justify his decision to invade. Still refusing to admit that it was the American invasion that brought terrorists to Iraq, not the other way around, yesterday he used the gruesome death of Nick Berg for his own political purposes. Of course, what Bush left out was the fact that Nick Berg and hundreds of other Americans, Iraqis and others would be alive today had he not attacked Iraq without good reason in the first place.
President Bush on Friday blamed al-Qaida supporter Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for beheading American Nicholas Berg and cited him as an example of Saddam Hussein's "terrorist ties" before the U.S.-led war in Iraq.Bush's revival of accusations linking Saddam to terrorism comes as the president faces growing doubts among Americans over his Iraq policy.
At a fund-raising lunch in Bridgeton, Mo., Bush said Zarqawi was an example of the threat posed by the ousted Iraqi leader. "We knew he (Saddam) had terrorist ties. The person responsible for the Berg death, Zarqawi, was in and out of Baghdad prior to our arrival, for example," Bush said. (Reuters)
Bush must be the only person on the planet who can get Muslims to quote the Pope:
Pope John Paul II will tell U.S. President George W. Bush that he is wrong on Iraq during their envisaged meeting on June 4, a senior Vatican official said Thursday, May 13.Cardinal Pio Laghi said the pontiff will warn Bush that American forces in Iraq are damaging efforts to bring religions together, and that Washington should have better understand of the Islamic world.
The cardinal also expected the pontiff to tell Bush that his policies in the Middle East in general were not helping the cause of peace.
Referring to revelations this month of torture and humiliating mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers, Laghi asked "how is it possible to remain in Iraq if these abuses continue?"
"We must above all build cultural understanding between peoples and I do not believe that our American friends are doing that," he said.
"Bombing mosques, going into holy places, putting women soldiers in contact with naked men shows a lack of understanding of the Muslim world which I can only call surprising," said the Vatican official.
"Pope To Fault Bush On Iraq", Islam Online
It seems he is a consensus builder after all.
Courtesy Helpful Reader Eric, "Conservatives Restive About Bush Policies", via the Washington Post:
After three years of sweeping actions in both foreign and domestic affairs, the Bush administration is facing complaints from the conservative intelligentsia that it has lost its ability to produce fresh policies.The centerpiece of President Bush's foreign policy -- the effort to transform Iraq into a peaceful democracy -- has been undermined by a deadly insurrection and broadcast photos of brutality by U.S. prison guards. On the domestic side, conservatives and former administration officials say the White House policy apparatus is moribund, with policies driven by political expediency or ideological pressure rather than by facts and expertise.
Conservatives have become unusually restive. Last Tuesday, columnist George F. Will sharply criticized the administration's Iraq policy, writing: "This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts." Two days earlier, Robert Kagan, a neoconservative supporter of the Iraq war, wrote: "All but the most blindly devoted Bush supporters can see that Bush administration officials have no clue about what to do in Iraq tomorrow, much less a month from now."
From yesterday's AP wire, via the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, "Medicare card providers invest big in Bush":
A few weeks after the Bush administration named Medco to be one of the first Medicare drug card providers, a company executive helped throw a $100,000 fund-raiser for the president that was headlined by Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.The role of Medco Specialty Pharmacy Services President Alan Lotvin, a co-chairman of the mid-April event in New Jersey, is just one of the ways prescription drug card providers have reached out to Washington politicians over the last two years.
In all, companies that won approval from Thompson's department to be the first Medicare drug discount card providers spent at least $35 million lobbying in 2003, and their executives and lobbyists donated or raised hundreds of thousands of dollars more for Bush's re-election, an Associated Press review found.
Democratic rival John Kerry received a much smaller amount from the same group.
While spokesmen for Thompson and Lotvin say the fund-raiser wasn't connected to the drug cards, a longtime Washington lobbyist says it provides a textbook example of how big companies sow goodwill and win access when business is pending before the government.
"I think it is generally recognized in Washington that involvement in the campaign finance process certainly often can be very helpful to your legislative agenda," said Wright Andrews, a former president of the American League of Lobbyists. "It does tend to provide you better access in that people logically are likely to at least ensure that they hear you out."
[. . .]
A handful of the winning companies make up the greatest share of the political spending.
In addition to Merck and Medco, others with seven-figure lobbying expenses in 2003 included Blue Cross & Blue Shield Association (at least $8.1 million), Aetna (at least $2.9 million), Wellpoint Health Networks (at least $1.5 million),Pacificare ($1.42 million) and United Healthcare ($1.2 million).
Some lobbyists who helped the companies make their case in Washington last year have strong ties to the Bush re-election campaign or administration.
For instance, PacifiCare's lobbyists last year included Tom Loeffler, who raised at least $200,000 for Bush's 2004 campaign, and Jack Howard, a former White House employee who worked as deputy assistant to the president for legislative affairs.
Company executives also have played a role in the Bush campaign. United Health Group's chairman and chief executive, William McGuire, earned the label Bush "Pioneer" by raising at least $100,000 for Bush's campaign, as did Todd Farha, chairman and CEO ofWellcare Health Plans, and Samuel Skinner, a member of card provider Express Scripts' board of directors.
Michael Hightower, who collected at least $200,000 for the Bush campaign to become a Bush fund-raising "Ranger," is vice president of government relations for Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Florida.
The political donations of employees of companies that won the prescription cards overwhelmingly favored Bush - at least $280,000 of their contributions went to the president's campaign compared to about $60,000 for Kerry's campaign, Federal Election Commission records show.
[. . .]
Bush spokesman Terry Holt said the money Bush received from drug-card company employees represented a tiny fraction of the more than $180 million Bush has raised.
That's right - it's nothing compared to what power plants donate.
President Bush Reaffirms Commitments in Iraq
Statement by the President
The Pentagon
May 10, 2004
11:55 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Secretary, thank you for your hospitality, and thank you for your leadership. You are courageously leading our nation in the war against terror. You're doing a superb job. You are a strong Secretary of Defense, and our nation owes you a debt of gratitude.
Translation: I can’t fire Rumsfeld because it would look like we did something wrong. And we only do right. Besides, Dick said not to.
I've just completed a meeting here at the Pentagon with members of my national security team, as well as a meeting with generals on the ground in Iraq. We discussed the needs of our military personnel, the status of current operations in Iraq, and the progress of that nation towards security and sovereignty.
Translation: Rumsfeld says everything is fine. Dick says everything is fine.
…
Our priorities, however, remain the same: the protection of our country, the security of our troops, and the spread of freedom throughout the world. Like other generations of Americans, we have accepted a difficult and historic task.
Translation: We are just like the WWII generation. Heroic fighters of evil. Spreaders of freedom. Tom Brokaw is going to write a book about me.
…
We have made clear commitments before the world, and America will keep those commitments. First, we will take every necessary measure to assure the safety of American and coalition personnel, and the security of Iraqi citizens.
Translation: Liberation is a messy, messy business. Not quite as straightforward as I thought.
...
Our second great commitment in Iraq is to transfer sovereignty to an Iraqi government as quickly as possible.
Translation: We need to get the hell out of there before my poll numbers drop any further.
...
Third, because America is committed to the equality and dignity of all people, there will be a full accounting for the cruel and disgraceful abuse of Iraqi detainees. The conduct that has come to light is an insult to the Iraqi people, and an affront to the most basic standards of morality and decency. One basic difference between democracies and dictatorships is that free countries confront such abuses openly and directly.
Translation: Oh yes, there’s something been going around about abuse. I’ve waited until the sixteenth paragraph of my speech to mention this because it just doesn’t reflect all the good we’ve been doing in Iraq. Such a small, small piece in comparison to the big, big amount of good.
...
In January, shortly after reports of abuse became known to our military, an investigation was launched. Today, several formal investigations led by senior military officials are underway. Secretary Rumsfeld has appointed several former senior officials to review the investigations of these abuses. Some soldiers have already been charged, and those involved will answer for their conduct in an orderly and transparent process. We will honor rule of law. All prison operations in Iraq will be thoroughly reviewed to make certain that such offenses are not repeated.
Translation: I'm still mad that I didn't know, but Dick said to forget about it. He tells me things when the time is right. Can we outlaw cameras in the prisons?
Those responsible for these abuses have caused harm that goes well beyond the walls of a prison. It has given some an excuse to question our cause and to cast doubt on our motives. Yet, who can doubt that Iraq is better for being free from one of the most bloodiest tyrants the world has ever known? Millions of Iraqis are grateful for the chance they have been given to live in freedom -- a chance made possible by the courage and sacrifice of the United States military.
Translation: Iraqis no longer suffer at the hands of a brutal dictator. Suffering at the hands of good and decent American heroes is darn near cushy in comparison.
We have great respect for the people of Iraq and for all Arab peoples -- respect for their culture and for their history and for the contribution they can make to the world. We believe that democracy will allow these gifts to flourish. But freedom is the answer to hopelessness and terror; that a free Iraq will lead the way to a new and better Middle East; and that a free Iraq will make our country more secure.
Translation: America: spreader of democracy and freedom, heroic, good. Middle East, oil, terror, haters of democracy and freedom, oil, tyranny, oil. (Not you, Bandar - I love you man!)
I understand the difficulty of the mission of our men and women in uniform. They're facing an enemy in sand and heat and blasting winds, often unable to tell friend from foe. I know how painful it is to see a small number dishonor the honorable cause in which so many are sacrificing. What took place in the Iraqi prison does not reflect the character of the more than 200,000 military personnel who have served in Iraq since the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Translation: I myself served in the National Guard. As an experienced military officer, I can tell you that 99 percent of our 200,000 troops in Iraq are good and decent American heroes. We’re going to scapegoat the hell out of that other one percent.
All Americans know the goodness and the character of the United States Armed Forces. No military in the history of the world has fought so hard and so often for the freedom of others. Today, our soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines are keeping terrorists across the world on the run. They're helping the people of Afghanistan and Iraq build democratic societies. They're defending America with unselfish courage. And these achievements have brought pride and credit to this nation.
Translation: All those other nations are just jealous because America was chosen by God to be the spreader of good in the world.
I want our men and women in uniform to know that America is proud of you, and that I'm honored to be your Commander-in-Chief.
Translation: I just found out I’m Commander-in-Chief!
