Month: October 2005

Note: This is a story republished from the current issue of Random Lengths News.  None of the details should come as news to avid readers here, but the big picture may be illuminating for someone you know, particularly in response to the “criminalizing politics” meme.  Feel free to pass on.

Recent indictments and investigations of GOP lawmakers, lobbyists and associates are only the tip of the iceberg, according to longtime observers, including current and former true believers in the GOP cause.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist pulled a Martha Stewart this June. He sold all the stock in his family’s hospital chain just before the stock plummeted. He’s now under investigation for insider trading by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission.  The latest wrinkle–the “blind trust” he used to supposedly insulate himself from conflicts of interest wasn’t so blind, after all.

Fortunately for Frist, he’s not the most high-profile Republican in hot water these days.

Is this the WH Miers strategy: Soften opposition from ALL fronts by confusing everyone? “But she said … no, but she voted … yes, but she gave money to” … and (my favorite from last night’s Specter story — with emphatic intonation) “SHE DID NOT say what she said!”

Via MSNBC, a “potential bombshell”: “Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers pledged support in 1989 for a constitutional amendment banning abortions except when necessary to save the life of the mother, according to material given to the Senate on Tuesday.” Precise quotes below the fold.

Last night, Senate Judiciary chair Arlen Specter told reporters that, when he interviewed her yesterday, Miers said she supports “two privacy-related rulings [incl. Griswold], regarding contraceptives …” After Miers said Specter got it wrong, the office for the constitutional expert issued a non-denial denial. A CNN reporter said on air that he’s sure that the meticulous Specter got it right.

ED HENRY, CNN REPORTER: It was stunning that she would talk about a specific case, as you suggest. Now, of course, the White House is insisting she did not talk about a specific case. But I can tell you, I was standing there with Arlen Specter. He — this is his ninth or 10th Supreme Court battle. Unequivocally, twice, he said that she believes that Griswold was rightly decided. He said it twice. … More excerpts below fold:

From USA Today:    Tax proposal for less paper, but fewer deductions

So Bush’s tax commission has decided to “simplify” tax forms — by eliminating many popular deductions in favor of a “family credit”, which would include raising the per-child deduction to $1,500.   Also (and here’s the kicker that’s going to cost all of us), the tax commission, concerned about all the people being caught by the Alternative Minimum Tax, proposes to repeal the AMT.  

This is probably great news if you’re affected by AMT (see below for percentages of people affected — and note the income ranges).  Note that the numbers used to calculate AMT have never been adjusted for inflation.  

However, here’s what will be eliminated or reduced to pay for AMT repeal:

1.  State and Local propery tax deductions
2.  Student Loan interest deductions
3.  Mortage interest and health insurance deductions

this diary is dedicated to all who suffer because of war and other disasters

cross-posted at DailyKos, Booman Tribune, European Tribune, and My Left Wing.

image and poem below the fold

by Patrick Lang

I had many levels of security clearance during my long government life as well as access to many “compartments” of information involving projects and intelligence “products” so dear to the state that access to them was limited to those on special “bigot lists.”

Col. Patrick W. Lang (Ret.), a highly decorated retired senior officer of U.S. Military Intelligence and U.S. Army Special Forces, served as “Defense Intelligence Officer for the Middle East, South Asia and Terrorism” for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and was later the first Director of the Defense Humint Service. Col. Lang was the first Professor of the Arabic Language at the United States Military Academy at West Point. For his service in the DIA, he was awarded the “Presidential Rank of Distinguished Executive.” He is a frequent commentator on television and radio, including PBS’s Newshour, and most recently on MSNBC’s Hardball and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” His CV and blog are linked below the fold.

I understood that with that access came an obligation to the state to protect the secrets of the American government. This obligation was entered into freely as a member of “the team.” At times a written undertaking of confidentiality was required before access was granted. I accepted that because I was a public servant.

It could be argued that as historic events recede in time this obligation becomes problematic when confronted with the need to complete the public record, but at the time when access is granted there was not and is not any doubt that someone who accepts secret information from the government, any government, has accepted the government as his/her master,

What then are we to make of the news that Judith Miller was granted some sort of security clearance by the Defense Department so that she could participate in the hunt for Iraqi WMD and presumably “write up” the successful result of that search when it occurred. She had previously written in breathless anticipation that such weapons would be found in Iraq after an American invasion, and now we know that the government provided her with access to classified information to facilitate a continuation of her attempt to validate the causes for which we fought. This continued validation was to be conducted in the pages of the New York Times (“All The News That Is Fit To Print”). This knowledge of her status as a “trusted person” in the eyes of the Bush Administration and her continued “stonewalling” of her colleagues at the Times with regard to the details of her relationship with Administration personalities leads me to the OPINION that her loyalties were divided in at least two directions.

Was she alone in this bifurcated allegiance (government and the news)? It hardly seems likely. There were other nationally know journalists who were treated in a very special way by the Bush Administration. They were welcome guests of the various people of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, were briefed there regularly, given access to serving military officers to make their “research” more authoritative. No. we should not believe that it was only Miller who in my OPINION owed the “right” story to the government.

In Kubrick’s brilliant film, “Full Metal Jacket,” “Joker” the enlisted “Stars and Stripes” reporter is told by the Saigon bureau chief, a marine lieutenant, that he is to go out and find good news because the “troops need it.” “Stars and Stripes” is a “house” newspaper for the armed forces.

Are the New York Times and other media who have gone out to find “good news because the troops need it? house media of the government?

How many more “Millers” are there?

Pat Lang

LIST of articles continued BELOW: