Important Stories Hidden By The Election

blatham, good piece! I am very shocked that any AG, except for Alberto, would so rule. The ruling goes against our democratic principles, and amounts to an exercise of brutal political power.

Goeglein gets standing ovation from conservative crowd
March 6, 1:28 AM

Tim Goeglein has had a tough week, but he still has friends in the "right" places. The former White House aide in charge of religious and conservative outreach resigned late last week after admitting he plagiarized pieces he wrote for the News-Sentinel of Fort Wayne, Ind. Goeglein took passages from Pope John Paul II and Dartmouth professor Jeffery Hart, among others.

But Goeglein is still embraced by the conservative community. At the weekly meeting of center-right leaders at American for Tax Reform [this is Grover Norquist's co-ordination meeting] on Wednesday morning, he received three rounds of applause from the packed room, including one standing ovation, as he asked for their forgiveness.

Via e-mail, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told us, "We strongly appreciate Tim's service and many contributions, and we have been saddened by the situation."

Ex-Defense Official Assails Colleagues Over Run-Up to War

By Thomas E. Ricks and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 9, 2008; A01

In the first insider account of Pentagon decision-making on Iraq, one of the key architects of the war blasts former secretary of state Colin Powell, the CIA, retired Gen. Tommy R. Franks and former Iraq occupation chief L. Paul Bremer for mishandling the run-up to the invasion and the subsequent occupation of the country.

Douglas J. Feith, in a massive score-settling work, portrays an intelligence community and a State Department that repeatedly undermined plans he developed as undersecretary of defense for policy and conspired to undercut President Bush's policies.

Among the disclosures made by Feith in "War and Decision," scheduled for release next month by HarperCollins, is Bush's declaration, at a Dec. 18, 2002, National Security Council meeting, that "war is inevitable." The statement came weeks before U.N. weapons inspectors reported their initial findings on Iraq and months before Bush delivered an ultimatum to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Feith, who says he took notes at the meeting, registered it as a "momentous comment."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030802724_pf.html

Signs of life from House Democratic leaders

Fully recognizing it may not last any longer than a couple of weeks, it's actually necessary to give some credit where it's due -- to the House Democratic leadership. Nobody expected that they would ever allow the Protect America Act to expire, yet they did. And nobody expected, especially after the meek and incoherent appearance of Silvestre Reyes on CNN last weekend, that they would ignore the barrage of Terrorist-Lover accusations from the President and unveil yet another bill that is actually decent and refuses to bestow lawbreaking telecoms with amnesty, but they now have.

Add to that the fact that they actually seem serious about pursuing a court battle to force Josh Bolton and Harriet Miers to comply with their Subpoenas, and one detects a possible change in their approach. There is perhaps a stirring of recognition among House Democrats that there is no political cost to standing against this President on vital matters -- even ones involving the magic Terrorism word -- and there might even be real political benefit...

Quote:

Signs of life from House Democratic leaders

Fully recognizing it may not last any longer than a couple of weeks, it's actually necessary to give some credit where it's due -- to the House Democratic leadership. Nobody expected that they would ever allow the Protect America Act to expire, yet they did. And nobody expected, especially after the meek and incoherent appearance of Silvestre Reyes on CNN last weekend, that they would ignore the barrage of Terrorist-Lover accusations from the President and unveil yet another bill that is actually decent and refuses to bestow lawbreaking telecoms with amnesty, but they now have.

Add to that the fact that they actually seem serious about pursuing a court battle to force Josh Bolton and Harriet Miers to comply with their Subpoenas, and one detects a possible change in their approach. There is perhaps a stirring of recognition among House Democrats that there is no political cost to standing against this President on vital matters -- even ones involving the magic Terrorism word -- and there might even be real political benefit...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2008/03/12/house_democrats/

Ozone Rules Weakened at Bush's Behest
EPA Scrambles To Justify Action

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 14, 2008; Page A01

The Environmental Protection Agency weakened one part of its new limits on smog-forming ozone after an unusual last-minute intervention by President Bush, according to documents released by the EPA.

EPA officials initially tried to set a lower seasonal limit on ozone to protect wildlife, parks and farmland, as required under the law. While their proposal was less restrictive than what the EPA's scientific advisers had proposed, Bush overruled EPA officials and on Tuesday ordered the agency to increase the limit, according to the documents.

"It is unprecedented and an unlawful act of political interference for the president personally to override a decision that the Clean Air Act leaves exclusively to EPA's expert scientific judgment," said John Walke, clean-air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The president's order prompted a scramble by administration officials to rewrite the regulations to avoid a conflict with past EPA statements on the harm caused by ozone.

Miliband admits US rendition flights stopped on UK soil

Britain acknowledged today for the first time that US planes on "extraordinary rendition" flights stopped on British soil twice.

The admission came from the foreign secretary, David Miliband, who apologised to MPs for wrong information given by his predecessor Jack Straw and former prime minister Tony Blair.

The U.S. Military Index

Page 1 of 9
March/April 2008
In an exclusive new index, Foreign Policy and the Center for a New American Security surveyed more than 3,400 active and retired officers at the highest levels of command about the state of the U.S. military. They see a force stretched dangerously thin and a country ill-prepared for the next fight.

Lawmakers Probe EPA Conflicts

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 17, 2008
Filed at 8:08 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A House committee opened an investigation Monday into potential conflicts of interest in scientific panels that advise the Environmental Protection Agency.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee cited the case of eight scientists who were consultants or members of EPA science advisory panels assessing the human health effects of toxic chemicals while getting research support from the chemical industry on the same chemicals they were examining.

In two cases, EPA advisers were employed by companies that made or worked with manufacturers of the chemicals being evaluated. the committee said.

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., the committee's chairman, said such conflicts appear to be in stark contrast to EPA's decision last summer to remove a public health scientist and expert in toxicology, from a panel examining the health impacts of a flame retardant because of critical comments she made about the chemical.

The American Chemistry Council, the industry trade group, had called for the removal of Deborah Rice, a toxicologist from Maine, as chairman of an independent EPA panel assessing the health risks from ''deca'', a flame retardant in electronic equipment, after she urged the Maine state legislature to ban the chemical.

Official Says HUD Chief Leaving

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 31, 2008
Filed at 8:49 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson is resigning Monday, according to a government official.

Jackson is under criminal investigation at the same time the housing industry is in a crisis so serious that it has imperiled the nation's credit markets, placing the country on the brink of what some economists predict will be a major recession.

FCC opens inquiry into Siegelman report blackout
Remember the curious glitch that prevented a CBS affliliate in northern Alabama from airing the recent 60 Minutes' report -- and that report only -- on the politics behind the controversial prosecution of former Gov. Don Siegelman? Well, the Federal Communications Commission has launched an inquiry into the incident, Reuters reports:
The FCC issued a "notice of inquiry" to WHNT, a CBS affiliate in Huntsville, Alabama, in connection with an outage that cut off a segment of the February 24 broadcast of "60 Minutes," an FCC spokeswoman said.

WHNT, which has blamed the black-out on equipment failure, has 30 days to respond with an explanation of what happened in the incident.
The inquiry came at the request of Commissioner Michael Copps, one of two Democratic appointees on the five-member body. The agency's chairman, Kevin Martin, is a Republican.

WHNT is owned by an investment firm whose founder's family has close ties to the Bushes, and it's managed by Local TV, a company headed by a former Clear Channel Communications executive and major Bush contributor. After initially blaming the blackout on a CBS transmission problem, the station management has since maintained that the problem was caused at the receiving end by an equipment failure that cut off the feed. The station later re-aired the segment twice.

The Federal Communications Commission has launched an official inquiry into the blackout. But legal experts say that, even if WHNT acted purposefully, and for the most naked political reasons, the station could at worst walk away with a slap on the wrist. In fact, they say, years of deregulation have left broadcasters with broad freedoms over the content they air, and their reasons for doing so.

"If they say, 'Look, we're owned by conservative Republicans and we don't want to show something that makes the party look bad,' they can do it," said Michael Botein, director of the Media Law Center at New York Law School. "There are almost no rules today."

Andrew Jay Schwartzman, president and CEO of the Media Access Project, a nonprofit First Amendment watchdog group, said that Reagan-era deregulation could, indeed, allow broadcasters to black out programs of their choosing. Even if WHNT is found to have acted "for the most nefarious reasons," Schwartzman said, "it's not at all clear that any violation of any FCC regulation was involved."

Gordon Brown's desire to see cannabis reclassified as a Class B drug has received a setback after it emerged that the Government's drug advisory body has decided to recommend it stays in the less serious Class C category.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) decided at a private meeting yesterday that it will not recommend reclassifying the drug, after 20 of its 23 experts voted there was not sufficient new scientific evidence to justify a change, The Times has learned.

World Bank Chief Calls for Immediate Action on Deepening Global Food Crisis

By Harry Dunphy
Associated Press
Monday, April 14, 2008; Page A08

The president of the World Bank yesterday urged immediate action to deal with sharply rising food prices, which have caused hunger and violence in several countries.

Robert B. Zoellick said the international community has to "put our money where our mouth is" now to help hungry people. Zoellick spoke as the bank and its sister institution, the International Monetary Fund, ended two days of meetings in Washington.

He called on governments to rapidly carry out commitments to provide the U.N. World Food Program with $500 million in emergency aid by May 1. Prices have only risen further since the program issued that appeal, so it is urgent that governments step up, he said.

Zoellick said that the fall of the government in Haiti over the weekend after a wave of deadly rioting and looting over food prices underscores the importance of quick international action.