Meek To Inherit Another Republican Presidency
Here’s some articles where the press is telling us the most horrible of facts in the meekest and mildest possible voice; all to the point that America and her folks are being screwed on a daily basis in the worst of all possible ways.
Why are these reporters not screaming and ranting and raving? Are they afraid to be seen as reactionary, or are they just hedging their bets so that when the doo-doo hits the fan and the public demands to know why these same reporters didn’t report on events detrimental to liberty and justice and democracy these reporters can say: “We told you so”?
Are these reporters afraid to be blamed for the public apathy which supports the rape of democracy in America?
Who can blame them? It must be tough being a reporter these days, and trying to find a balance between democracy and fascism before one or the other of these ideologies wins out and Americans either stand up and fight back against the changes in our democratic system, or knuckle under to the overwhelming tide of facism that threatens America on a daily basis.
The press has always led the way in terms of public opinion. Perhaps if the press screamed louder about the injustices and dangers of these times, the public would be less apathetic.
C’mon, guys, help us out here...
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December 5, 2005
Editorial
Fixing the Game
The rules of American democracy say every president may install his own team of like-minded people in the government - even at a place like the Justice Department, which is at its root a law-enforcement agency and not a campaign branch office. But the Bush administration seems to be losing sight of the fact that the rules also say the majority party of the moment may not use its powers to strip citizens of their rights, politicize the judicial system or rig the election process to keep itself in office.
There are sections of the Justice Department that are supposed to be dedicated to enforcing the laws that protect the rights of all Americans, not just Republican officeholders and the people who give them money. The Civil Rights Division, for example, has enforced anti-discrimination laws, including the sacred Voting Rights Act, since the 1960's, under more Republican presidents than Democratic presidents.
But The Washington Post's Dan Eggen reported last week that the Justice Department has been suppressing for nearly two years a 73-page memo in which six lawyers and two analysts in the voting rights section, including the group's chief lawyer, unanimously concluded that the Texas redistricting plan of 2003 illegally diluted the votes of blacks and Hispanics in order to ensure a Republican majority in the state's Congressional delegation.
That plan was shoved through the Texas State Legislature by Representative Tom DeLay, who abused his federal position in doing so and is now facing criminal charges over how money was raised to support the redistricting.
The Post said the lawyers charged with analyzing voting rights violations were overruled by political appointees, and ordered not to discuss the case. The Justice Department then approved the Texas plan, which had been under review because the voting law requires states with a history of discriminatory election practices to get electoral map changes approved in advance.
This outrageous case is only one way in which the Justice Department under John Ashcroft and now Alberto Gonzales has abused its law-enforcement mandate in the service of the Republican majority. Last month, the Post reported that political appointees also overruled voting rights lawyers who rejected a Georgia law requiring that voters without a picture ID buy one for $20 - at offices that were set up in only 59 of the state's 159 counties.
The Justice Department falsely claimed that the decision to O.K. the law - which was little more than a modern-day version of a poll tax aimed at reducing turnout among poor minorities - was made with the concurrence of the career lawyers. A federal court later struck down the law, properly.
And this was well after the appointment of Mr. Gonzales, who promised to make civil rights enforcement one of his priorities when he moved to Justice from the White House.
Mr. Bush's attorneys general have systematically gutted the civil rights division, driving out the career lawyers and shifting the division's focus from civil rights enforcement to deportations, other immigration matters and human smuggling. The Post said the administration has filed only three lawsuits regarding discrimination in voting. All came this year, and the first accused a majority-black district in Mississippi of discriminating against white voters.
The administration's abuse of its narrow electoral majority extends to other areas. Mr. DeLay's requirement that lobbying firms contribute only to Republicans and hire his loyalists comes to mind.
Mr. Bush and his team don't understand that they merely hold the current majority in a system designed to bring periodic changes in the governing party and to protect the rights and values of the minority party. The idea that the winners should trash the system to make sure the democratic process ended with them was discredited back around the time of the Bolsheviks.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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In a Season of Scandals, Ethics Panels Are on Sidelines
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 5, 2005; A02
The House ethics committee, the panel responsible for upholding the chamber's ethics code, has been virtually moribund for the past year, handling only routine business despite a wave of federal investigations into close and potentially illegal relationships between lawmakers and lobbyists.
With a California congressman headed to prison for accepting bribes and several others under investigation for accepting lavish gifts and money from former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, one might expect the House committee to have a lot of work to do.
But the committee's five Republican and five Democratic members have not opened a new case or launched an investigation in the past 12 months. It took months to hire a new chief of staff, and he still is not in place. Nor has the panel hired a full complement of investigators.
"I would say by the early part of January, we will be fully organized -- or should be really close to that," said Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (W.Va.), the committee's ranking Democrat. By then, he added, the panel "will be in a position to fulfill all of our responsibilities."
The committee's last formal action of note was its recommendation to admonish former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) for the second and third times in 2004. Since then, the committee has been crippled.
Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) was ousted as the ethics chairman early this year by House GOP leaders. His successor, Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), has been slow to take up the reins because of disputes between Republicans and Democrats over the panel's rules. Hastings and Mollohan also feuded for months about the makeup of the professional staff.
To critics, the long delay is unforgivable. Government watchdog groups say they are appalled that ethics overseers in both the House and Senate have done nothing in the face of a growing number of ethics inquiries against members of Congress. The vacuum, they say, has tacitly encouraged lawmakers to behave improperly and has helped produce the long slide in public trust of Congress.
"There is no ethics enforcement in Congress today, and it's inexcusable," sad Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative monitor of government ethics.
"No matter what level of corruption the members of Congress engage in, the ethics committees do nothing," agreed Melanie Sloan, executive director of the liberal-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "It's a national embarrassment."
So far this year, at least seven lawmakers have been indicted, have pleaded guilty or are under investigation for improper conduct such as conspiracy, securities fraud and improper campaign donations. In the past two weeks alone, Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) resigned from Congress and pleaded guilty to tax evasion and conspiracy, and public relations executive Michael Scanlon admitted his role in a conspiracy to try to bribe a congressman.
In addition, The Washington Post and other publications have reported that a host of lawmakers -- Republicans and Democrats, senators and members of the House -- are being examined by the Justice Department for their connections to Abramoff, a lobbyist who, with his former partner Scanlon, billed Indian tribes $82 million in fees that may have been put to improper uses.
And that's not all. The spouses of lawmakers and their aides-turned-lobbyists -- including those of DeLay -- are also under scrutiny as part of the Abramoff scandal.
In inquiries unrelated to Abramoff, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has been subpoenaed in connection with probes by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department into his sale of stock in HCA Inc., the chain founded by his father and brother.
In another case, Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) is under investigation by the Justice Department for possible violations connected with a telecommunications deal he was trying to arrange in Nigeria. Both lawmakers have denied wrongdoing.
Despite all this activity, the ethics committees in Congress, which are charged with self-regulation in the House and Senate, have been mum all year.
"I don't think the ethics committees are working very well," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said yesterday on "Meet the Press." "The latest Cunningham scandal was uncovered by the San Diego newspaper, not by" the ethics committee.
The House ethics panel, formally known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, was shut down for the first part of the year as the House worked through a variety of partisan disagreements over what rules would govern the committee's decisions. It then remained inert for a few more months while it considered more than 80 applicants for its top staff job, which was vacant.
It was not until last month that the panel chose William V. O'Reilly, a partner in the Washington office of the Jones Day law firm, as its chief of staff. But in a telephone message, O'Reilly said that he has not yet begun work at the committee and declined to comment further. He is expected to start early next year.
O'Reilly's start date will not be enough on its own to get things moving, however. Mollohan said the ethics committee still must hire three or four investigative counsels before it is fully up and running. In the meantime, the panel has handled only routine matters such as issuing advice and perusing lawmakers' disclosures; no investigations have been undertaken in 2005.
In contrast, the ethics committee has been extremely active in the past. It has upbraided or warned two former House speakers -- Jim Wright (D-Tex.) and Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) -- for alleged ethical lapses.
It has also criticized House colleagues for matters such as financial improprieties and sexual misconduct. The Senate's ethics panel, officially called the Select Committee on Ethics, has been completely staffed and organized all year but has been silent. Neither Chairman George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) nor the panel's senior Democrat, Sen. Tim Johnson (S.D.), returned phone calls last week about its activities. The panel's staff also declined to comment.
In the past, however, the committee has made it a practice not to pursue inquiries when other law enforcement agencies were involved in their own investigations. The panel has worried that its questions might interfere with the agencies' efforts.
The watchdog groups see such explanations as hollow. "This is really an important time for Congress to step up and say this is going way too far and something needs to be done about it," said Chellie Pingree, president of Common Cause.
The ethics panels, she said, need to act like police watching a busy street. "If the cop's on the corner, you're going to slow down."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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Climate Official's Work Is Questioned
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 5, 2005; A19
Environmentalists are unhappy with the job the lead U.S. climate negotiator, Harlan Watson, has been doing in the ongoing Montreal talks on how to combat global warming.
Watson has spent the past week in Montreal touting the administration's record on climate change. He said there is no reason the United States and other countries that oppose mandatory carbon dioxide limits should have to talk about what should be done once the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to cut global greenhouse gases by 7 percent by 2012, expires.
Watson's position and the environmentalists' reaction should hardly be surprising -- considering his apparent popularity with the oil industry.
A Feb. 6, 2001, fax sent to the White House by oil giant Exxon Mobil proposed involving Watson more closely in international climate negotiations.
The document -- which Exxon Mobil spokesman Russ Roberts said was sent by the company but not written by any of its employees -- suggested asking House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to make Watson, who at the time worked for the House Science Committee -- "available to work with the team" of Americans attending international climate change meetings.
Exxon Mobil has consistently opposed mandatory curbs on greenhouse gases linked to climate change.
The memo noted that Watson "has been recommended for the Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans position." Bush ultimately picked Watson in 2001 for the lead negotiator's job.
The memo, which was provided last week to The Washington Post by the advocacy group Environmental Defense, also urged the Bush administration to appoint to prominent international posts several Americans who have questioned dire global warming scenarios. The proposal to appoint Watson was first reported by the London Telegraph in 2002.
The company's senior environmental adviser at the time, Arthur G. Randol III, sent the fax to the Council on Environmental Quality in 2001. But Randol has retired and Roberts declined to say Friday who might have written the document.
"Even if we knew the names of the authors of that material, it would be inappropriate for us to provide you that without their permission," Roberts wrote in an e-mail. "ExxonMobil, as the largest energy company in the US, is frequently asked by government officials to comment on substantive issues. We take that responsibility seriously and we provide our perspective on critical issues on energy, environment, etc."
State Department spokeswoman Susan Povenmire declined to comment on the memo Friday.
Activists such as Annie Petsonk, international counsel for Environmental Defense, say they are concerned that the memo means Watson is too closely allied to oil companies to conduct good-faith climate negotiations with foreign countries.
"One has to wonder who he's representing -- the U.S. or some of those oil executives who did not testify under oath last month before Congress," Petsonk said.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
___________________________________________________________________________________
Why are these reporters not screaming and ranting and raving? Are they afraid to be seen as reactionary, or are they just hedging their bets so that when the doo-doo hits the fan and the public demands to know why these same reporters didn’t report on events detrimental to liberty and justice and democracy these reporters can say: “We told you so”?
Are these reporters afraid to be blamed for the public apathy which supports the rape of democracy in America?
Who can blame them? It must be tough being a reporter these days, and trying to find a balance between democracy and fascism before one or the other of these ideologies wins out and Americans either stand up and fight back against the changes in our democratic system, or knuckle under to the overwhelming tide of facism that threatens America on a daily basis.
The press has always led the way in terms of public opinion. Perhaps if the press screamed louder about the injustices and dangers of these times, the public would be less apathetic.
C’mon, guys, help us out here...
__________________________________________________________________________________
December 5, 2005
Editorial
Fixing the Game
The rules of American democracy say every president may install his own team of like-minded people in the government - even at a place like the Justice Department, which is at its root a law-enforcement agency and not a campaign branch office. But the Bush administration seems to be losing sight of the fact that the rules also say the majority party of the moment may not use its powers to strip citizens of their rights, politicize the judicial system or rig the election process to keep itself in office.
There are sections of the Justice Department that are supposed to be dedicated to enforcing the laws that protect the rights of all Americans, not just Republican officeholders and the people who give them money. The Civil Rights Division, for example, has enforced anti-discrimination laws, including the sacred Voting Rights Act, since the 1960's, under more Republican presidents than Democratic presidents.
But The Washington Post's Dan Eggen reported last week that the Justice Department has been suppressing for nearly two years a 73-page memo in which six lawyers and two analysts in the voting rights section, including the group's chief lawyer, unanimously concluded that the Texas redistricting plan of 2003 illegally diluted the votes of blacks and Hispanics in order to ensure a Republican majority in the state's Congressional delegation.
That plan was shoved through the Texas State Legislature by Representative Tom DeLay, who abused his federal position in doing so and is now facing criminal charges over how money was raised to support the redistricting.
The Post said the lawyers charged with analyzing voting rights violations were overruled by political appointees, and ordered not to discuss the case. The Justice Department then approved the Texas plan, which had been under review because the voting law requires states with a history of discriminatory election practices to get electoral map changes approved in advance.
This outrageous case is only one way in which the Justice Department under John Ashcroft and now Alberto Gonzales has abused its law-enforcement mandate in the service of the Republican majority. Last month, the Post reported that political appointees also overruled voting rights lawyers who rejected a Georgia law requiring that voters without a picture ID buy one for $20 - at offices that were set up in only 59 of the state's 159 counties.
The Justice Department falsely claimed that the decision to O.K. the law - which was little more than a modern-day version of a poll tax aimed at reducing turnout among poor minorities - was made with the concurrence of the career lawyers. A federal court later struck down the law, properly.
And this was well after the appointment of Mr. Gonzales, who promised to make civil rights enforcement one of his priorities when he moved to Justice from the White House.
Mr. Bush's attorneys general have systematically gutted the civil rights division, driving out the career lawyers and shifting the division's focus from civil rights enforcement to deportations, other immigration matters and human smuggling. The Post said the administration has filed only three lawsuits regarding discrimination in voting. All came this year, and the first accused a majority-black district in Mississippi of discriminating against white voters.
The administration's abuse of its narrow electoral majority extends to other areas. Mr. DeLay's requirement that lobbying firms contribute only to Republicans and hire his loyalists comes to mind.
Mr. Bush and his team don't understand that they merely hold the current majority in a system designed to bring periodic changes in the governing party and to protect the rights and values of the minority party. The idea that the winners should trash the system to make sure the democratic process ended with them was discredited back around the time of the Bolsheviks.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
____________________________________________________________________________________
In a Season of Scandals, Ethics Panels Are on Sidelines
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 5, 2005; A02
The House ethics committee, the panel responsible for upholding the chamber's ethics code, has been virtually moribund for the past year, handling only routine business despite a wave of federal investigations into close and potentially illegal relationships between lawmakers and lobbyists.
With a California congressman headed to prison for accepting bribes and several others under investigation for accepting lavish gifts and money from former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, one might expect the House committee to have a lot of work to do.
But the committee's five Republican and five Democratic members have not opened a new case or launched an investigation in the past 12 months. It took months to hire a new chief of staff, and he still is not in place. Nor has the panel hired a full complement of investigators.
"I would say by the early part of January, we will be fully organized -- or should be really close to that," said Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (W.Va.), the committee's ranking Democrat. By then, he added, the panel "will be in a position to fulfill all of our responsibilities."
The committee's last formal action of note was its recommendation to admonish former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) for the second and third times in 2004. Since then, the committee has been crippled.
Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) was ousted as the ethics chairman early this year by House GOP leaders. His successor, Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), has been slow to take up the reins because of disputes between Republicans and Democrats over the panel's rules. Hastings and Mollohan also feuded for months about the makeup of the professional staff.
To critics, the long delay is unforgivable. Government watchdog groups say they are appalled that ethics overseers in both the House and Senate have done nothing in the face of a growing number of ethics inquiries against members of Congress. The vacuum, they say, has tacitly encouraged lawmakers to behave improperly and has helped produce the long slide in public trust of Congress.
"There is no ethics enforcement in Congress today, and it's inexcusable," sad Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative monitor of government ethics.
"No matter what level of corruption the members of Congress engage in, the ethics committees do nothing," agreed Melanie Sloan, executive director of the liberal-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "It's a national embarrassment."
So far this year, at least seven lawmakers have been indicted, have pleaded guilty or are under investigation for improper conduct such as conspiracy, securities fraud and improper campaign donations. In the past two weeks alone, Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.) resigned from Congress and pleaded guilty to tax evasion and conspiracy, and public relations executive Michael Scanlon admitted his role in a conspiracy to try to bribe a congressman.
In addition, The Washington Post and other publications have reported that a host of lawmakers -- Republicans and Democrats, senators and members of the House -- are being examined by the Justice Department for their connections to Abramoff, a lobbyist who, with his former partner Scanlon, billed Indian tribes $82 million in fees that may have been put to improper uses.
And that's not all. The spouses of lawmakers and their aides-turned-lobbyists -- including those of DeLay -- are also under scrutiny as part of the Abramoff scandal.
In inquiries unrelated to Abramoff, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has been subpoenaed in connection with probes by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department into his sale of stock in HCA Inc., the chain founded by his father and brother.
In another case, Rep. William J. Jefferson (D-La.) is under investigation by the Justice Department for possible violations connected with a telecommunications deal he was trying to arrange in Nigeria. Both lawmakers have denied wrongdoing.
Despite all this activity, the ethics committees in Congress, which are charged with self-regulation in the House and Senate, have been mum all year.
"I don't think the ethics committees are working very well," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said yesterday on "Meet the Press." "The latest Cunningham scandal was uncovered by the San Diego newspaper, not by" the ethics committee.
The House ethics panel, formally known as the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, was shut down for the first part of the year as the House worked through a variety of partisan disagreements over what rules would govern the committee's decisions. It then remained inert for a few more months while it considered more than 80 applicants for its top staff job, which was vacant.
It was not until last month that the panel chose William V. O'Reilly, a partner in the Washington office of the Jones Day law firm, as its chief of staff. But in a telephone message, O'Reilly said that he has not yet begun work at the committee and declined to comment further. He is expected to start early next year.
O'Reilly's start date will not be enough on its own to get things moving, however. Mollohan said the ethics committee still must hire three or four investigative counsels before it is fully up and running. In the meantime, the panel has handled only routine matters such as issuing advice and perusing lawmakers' disclosures; no investigations have been undertaken in 2005.
In contrast, the ethics committee has been extremely active in the past. It has upbraided or warned two former House speakers -- Jim Wright (D-Tex.) and Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) -- for alleged ethical lapses.
It has also criticized House colleagues for matters such as financial improprieties and sexual misconduct. The Senate's ethics panel, officially called the Select Committee on Ethics, has been completely staffed and organized all year but has been silent. Neither Chairman George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio) nor the panel's senior Democrat, Sen. Tim Johnson (S.D.), returned phone calls last week about its activities. The panel's staff also declined to comment.
In the past, however, the committee has made it a practice not to pursue inquiries when other law enforcement agencies were involved in their own investigations. The panel has worried that its questions might interfere with the agencies' efforts.
The watchdog groups see such explanations as hollow. "This is really an important time for Congress to step up and say this is going way too far and something needs to be done about it," said Chellie Pingree, president of Common Cause.
The ethics panels, she said, need to act like police watching a busy street. "If the cop's on the corner, you're going to slow down."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
_________________________________________________________________________________
Climate Official's Work Is Questioned
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 5, 2005; A19
Environmentalists are unhappy with the job the lead U.S. climate negotiator, Harlan Watson, has been doing in the ongoing Montreal talks on how to combat global warming.
Watson has spent the past week in Montreal touting the administration's record on climate change. He said there is no reason the United States and other countries that oppose mandatory carbon dioxide limits should have to talk about what should be done once the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to cut global greenhouse gases by 7 percent by 2012, expires.
Watson's position and the environmentalists' reaction should hardly be surprising -- considering his apparent popularity with the oil industry.
A Feb. 6, 2001, fax sent to the White House by oil giant Exxon Mobil proposed involving Watson more closely in international climate negotiations.
The document -- which Exxon Mobil spokesman Russ Roberts said was sent by the company but not written by any of its employees -- suggested asking House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to make Watson, who at the time worked for the House Science Committee -- "available to work with the team" of Americans attending international climate change meetings.
Exxon Mobil has consistently opposed mandatory curbs on greenhouse gases linked to climate change.
The memo noted that Watson "has been recommended for the Assistant Secretary of State for Oceans position." Bush ultimately picked Watson in 2001 for the lead negotiator's job.
The memo, which was provided last week to The Washington Post by the advocacy group Environmental Defense, also urged the Bush administration to appoint to prominent international posts several Americans who have questioned dire global warming scenarios. The proposal to appoint Watson was first reported by the London Telegraph in 2002.
The company's senior environmental adviser at the time, Arthur G. Randol III, sent the fax to the Council on Environmental Quality in 2001. But Randol has retired and Roberts declined to say Friday who might have written the document.
"Even if we knew the names of the authors of that material, it would be inappropriate for us to provide you that without their permission," Roberts wrote in an e-mail. "ExxonMobil, as the largest energy company in the US, is frequently asked by government officials to comment on substantive issues. We take that responsibility seriously and we provide our perspective on critical issues on energy, environment, etc."
State Department spokeswoman Susan Povenmire declined to comment on the memo Friday.
Activists such as Annie Petsonk, international counsel for Environmental Defense, say they are concerned that the memo means Watson is too closely allied to oil companies to conduct good-faith climate negotiations with foreign countries.
"One has to wonder who he's representing -- the U.S. or some of those oil executives who did not testify under oath last month before Congress," Petsonk said.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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