THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER
A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy
Written and Compiled by Black Max
July 2004
Week One
Due to size considerations, this page has been divided into subpages.
Use the menu below to navigate the week's contents.
SubMenu
"Who is responsible for this abomination? Torturing children in the name of freedom? Is this what we have become?" -- William Rivers Pitt, July 20
- July: The highly respected Columbia Journalism Review publishes a scathing indictment of the American media's failure to question either the Bush or Kerry campaigns' tactics to control their candidates' presentations to the public and to "spin" the facts. Author Bryan Keefer writes, "President Bush, Senator Kerry, and their operatives are deliberately using a cynical combination of calculated deception, speed, and volume to exploit the press's reluctance to call a lie a lie. Rather than sorting through the facts and pointing out what is true and what is not -- something good reporters are qualified to do -- we too often treat the truth as something the reader or viewer should be able to discern from competing bits of spin. In doing so, we encourage the candidates to mislead the public. And when the 'facts' are coming from every conceivable angle and around the clock, it makes it even more unlikely that the press will sort through it all and render a judgment. Bush has taken advantage of this like no other president before him (this is how he governs, not just how he campaigns) and Kerry is learning quickly how to play the game. The rules of engagement on the campaign trail have changed, and the press must change the way it covers the race or risk drowning -- along with the voters -- under a toxic tsunami."
- Keefer cites an instance of a journalist actively correcting a campaign misstatement as an example of what almost never happens any more: in a Washington Post article about a speech made by John Kerry, in which the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee attacked President Bush's Iraq policies in light of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, reporter Jim VandeHei included a response from Marc Racicot, the chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign. "Racicot told reporters Wednesday that Kerry is relentlessly 'playing politics' and exploiting tragedy for political gain," he wrote. "Racicot, for instance, told reporters that Kerry suggested that 150,000 or so U.S. troops are 'somehow universally responsible' for the misdeeds of a small number of American soldiers and contractors. Racicot made several variations of this charge. But Kerry never said this, or anything like it."
- VandeHei went on to explain exactly how the campaign chairman had tried to mislead reporters. The important part of the exceprt is VanderHai's factual rebuttal of Racicot's "spin." USA Today, for example, simply repeated Racicot's baseless charge without comment. The New York Times suggested that Kerry's comments, which it quoted in context, had "set off Mr. Racicot" -- eschewing journalism for sensationalism. VanderHai says of the article, "I cover Kerry, so I know what Kerry is saying. And I knew that Racicot was leaving out an important part of the quote that totally undercut what he was saying." But VandeHei also acknowledged the dilemma reporters face. "The question is how, as an objective journalist, can you call a lie a lie?" he asks. "I feel pretty passionate about this. If the facts show someone saying something that is a lie, we should say it's a lie." But reporters almost never do -- or perhaps editors and publishers don't allow reporters to do so. Instead, they usually quote one side's spin, report the other's counterspin, and leave the thinking to the reader. The New Republic's Ryan Lizza says, "Both sides exploit that sort of weakness of journalism -- journalists' instinct not to want to take sides, even when it's something they can judge for themselves."
- Keefer gives several powerful examples from the Bush campaign in particular, writing, "Deception doesn't always come through the front door. This campaign season reporters confront a brand of spin that tiptoes to the edge of out-and-out lying without making obviously false claims. Bush's presidency has been historic in this regard, borrowing some of the most sophisticated and insidious tactics from the world of corporate public relations and making them part of the day-to-day process of governing. Rather than simply lying, this White House uses carefully crafted language to create a misleading impression or make claims that are technically accurate but designed to produce inaccurate conclusions. The idea is to get the administration's version of reality into news reports and the minds of voters without contradiction.
- "Bush's standard stump speech, for example, is a masterpiece of misleading rhetoric. At a fundraiser in Denver on June 1 the president told the crowd, 'When we passed the child credit to help families, my opponent voted against it. When we increased the child credit to help families, he voted against it. When we reduced the marriage penalty, he voted against it. When we created a lower 10 percent rate for working families, he voted against it. When we reduced the tax rate on dividends that helps a lot of America's seniors, he voted "no." When we passed tax relief to help small businesses, he voted "no."' The casual listener would assume that the president was referring to six separate votes by Kerry against each of those programs individually. But all of the politically popular items the president cites were contained in his two major tax cuts, in 2001 and 2003, which Kerry opposed." Kerry's opposition to the tax bills was not based on his opposition to helping senior citizens or reducing the marriage penalty, he opposed the bills because of their drastic rollback of taxes on the rich and the shifting of the tax burden onto the middle-class and working poor. Keefer continues, "The president then rolled into another disingenuous attack. 'I think we see a pattern here,' he told the crowd. 'It's a lot easier to get a "yes" vote out of him as a United States senator when it comes to raising taxes. You make sure your friends and neighbors understand that as a United States senator, he voted over 350 times for higher taxes on the American people.' However, only a fraction of those 350 votes -- a number the Bush campaign has been citing since March -- are votes to increase taxes directly. Rather, the number is padded with votes on various tax matters spanning Kerry's twenty years in the Senate: votes against decreasing taxes, votes to trim proposed tax cuts, votes against repealing tax hikes that were already enacted, and votes in favor of tax cuts that were smaller than what Republicans had proposed. Confused? That's the idea. Piling such misleading numbers on top of deceptive rhetoric produces a knot of spin that is difficult to untangle -- but easy to quote for a punchy sound bite.
- "Bush's '350 votes' claim made its way into a couple of hundred print and television reports in March, April, and May. Not all of these reports simply repeated the spin, of course. But a poll by the National Annenberg Election Survey conducted in April and early May found that 56 percent of adults in battleground states thought it was 'probably' or 'definitely' true that Kerry had voted for higher taxes 350 times." Truth is sacrificed for political expediency.
- Another Bush tactic that is deliberately misleading is the use of statistics to mislead voters into thinking the statistics tell a quite different story than they actually do. Keefer writes, "since taking office, he has bombarded reporters with tendentious facts that purport to represent the average benefits of his tax cuts. For instance, the White House produced a fact sheet on April 15 (tax day) touting a series of such 'averages,' including one that claims that '109 million American taxpayers will see their taxes decline by an average of $1,544.' The number is apparently tabulated by dividing the total reduction in taxes by the number of filers who got a tax cut, but it exaggerates the benefits most Americans received because of the very large tax cuts for those at the very top of the income brackets. According to an Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center analysis, when the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are fully phased in, the majority of filers will get less than half of Bush's 'average.' Despite the fact that reporters have seen four years of such carefully cooked 'facts,' Bush's 'average' made it into a number of print and television reports that day. CBS MarketWatch ran with Bush's misleading claim, then added, for balance, that 'Democrats contend the first figure is skewed by big tax breaks at the top end.' The Democrats, in this case, are right -- but the he said/she said framing does nothing to clarify the issue for the public. Other coverage was even worse. The Associated Press put out an article quoting the fact sheet without any sort of contradiction. And Suzanne Malveaux informed viewers on CNN, 'Today administration officials are encouraging people and essentially telling them the message here is that 109 million Americans now get an average tax break of more than $1,500.'" So, is the issue the tax cut misinformation promulgated by the Bush campaign, the media's refusal to characterize them as lies, or both?
- Kerry does not escape Keefer's analytical wrath. His "middle-class misery index" cherry-picks statistics to "prove" that Bush's economy is the worst since 1976. Several newspapers ran with the deceptive indexing story. (Ironically, Kerry could easily use the entire raft of statistics to more accurately crucify Bush's economic job performance.)
- Both sides play an endless game of "prebutting" upcoming ads or speeches, rebutting those selfsame ads and speeches once they make their debut, then spinning the spin from the opposition. Lizza says, "It starts when you wake up; you have these e-mails about the latest ads that are coming out, or latest silly thing the other campaign said the night before, e-mails about conference calls to discuss these things. And it's just accusation, response, accusation, response all day long until you go to bed."
- The Bush campaign has proven particularly adept at cherry-picking and twisting journalistic reports for their own ends. For example, on April 20, Kerry told a crowd that he supported gas and oil drilling in "those locations where they're already permitting" exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. Kerry has a 20-year record of consistently opposing drilling any closer to the Florida coast than is already allowed. Of all the reporters who covered the speech, one, a collegiate reporter from the the University of Floridas Independent Florida Alligator mischaracterized Kerry's statement as indicating that "he would be in favor of drilling off the coast of Florida." The next day, Governor Jeb Bush of Florida touted the Alligator article to reporters, as did the Bush-Cheney campaign. Kerry and his aides quickly denied the report in interviews with journalists, a press release, and a post on his campaign Weblog, and the Alligator soon issued a correction, blaming Kerry's vague phrasing. Still, the Bush campaign did its best to keep the controversy alive, publishing a press release online stating flatly that "Kerry supports offshore drilling in Florida," which played on the ambiguity of the word "offshore" to suggest that Kerry might be changing his position. Kerry's campaign then attacked the false claim on one of its Weblogs, prompting the Bush campaign to deny that it was wrong on its own Weblog. The Bush campaign also continued to suggest that Kerry supported offshore drilling in interviews with reporters. Finally, Bush gave a speech in Florida on April 23 on the environment in which he said, "As you can see, there is no ambiguity in my position on drilling off the coast of Florida." By and large, the press gave the Bush campaign an assist in its efforts to smear Kerry's record. The AP, for example, first reported Jeb Bush's attack on Kerry, citing the Alligator article, then reported that the Kerry campaign said Jeb was wrong. Readers were left to find their own way out of the "he said/she said" thicket. The Washington Post provided a bit more context, quoting Kerry's original statement, but still treated the matter as a he said/she said affair. Keefer concludes, "Without an understanding of Kerry's history of opposing such drilling, voters could easily conclude that it was an open question as to whether Kerry would allow drilling closer to the coastline. Yet for all the sound and fury, this was nothing more than a phony controversy manufactured by political operatives and amplified by reporters caught up in the speed of the charges and counter-charges."
- Keefer writes of the media, "While candidates have changed the way they approach the media, the media have not changed the way in which they cover the candidates. The press is simply unprepared to deal effectively with the new speed, volume, and deceptiveness of this campaign. Individual journalists, faced with constant deadlines, rarely have the time or resources to check the truth of candidates' claims, particularly in their first reports. The pseudo-objectivity created by 'balancing' one half-truth against another does nothing to help voters make an informed choice. Instead, since candidates know they are much more likely to have their misleading spin repeated than to have it debunked, it is easier and more convenient to simply say whatever they think they can get away with and move on. One solution to this has been the occasional bigger-picture articles and television segments that provide context or assess the truth of candidate advertisements. While such stories are useful, the problem is that, too often, they are outside of the news cycle and thus detached from the spin they mean to set straight. The first reporting on a particular claim by a candidate (or an advertisement) sets the tone for coverage to follow. If news reporters allow candidates to make dishonest statements over and over, one-off correctives are ineffective."
- Keefer's recommendations? One, the media must slow down on its attempts to "scoop" the competition. All too often, media outlets compete to be first to report a particular claim or statement without analyzing its factual content or its place in the political paradigm. "If news organizations could take even a half-step back from the daily sprint, they could do a much better job not just of fact-checking, but of covering politics in general," he says. Two, media outlets must make it part of their daily business to counter the spin from political campaigns. "A small team of reporters back at headquarters could provide expertise and context to reporters in the field. Such a team could use the same information technology the candidates are exploiting to evaluate campaign claims in real time. They could also serve as experts on particular policy subjects, tracking a candidate's proposals and how his campaign (or members of the other campaign) are misrepresenting those proposals." He warns, "The profit demands of the news business make such ideas a tough sell to publishers and general managers, but if news outlets expect to provide meaningful coverage of the candidates, the old model of a lone reporter fighting the good fight simply will not work. Readers and viewers, lost in the storm of the information wars, will continue to tune out. ...Journalists should treat candidate dishonesty like a shooting gallery: every time a candidate says something misleading, the press corps should report it and debunk it -- within their stories, and in their own voices. No leaving it to 'news analysis' pieces; no quoting 'experts' telling viewers it's false. To make informed decisions about the candidates these days, under these conditions, the public needs honest reporting, not only about the facts, but about how the candidates are misrepresenting them." (Columbia Journalism Review)
Halliburton contractors making huge salaries in Iraq doing same jobs as underpaid US troops
- Early July: While US Army soldiers, engineers, communications specialists, and others work for tiny wages in Iraq, their counterparts in Halliburton are making huge salaries doing the same work. The average communications engineer employed by Halliburton makes $135 an hour, tax-free no less, and although they often work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, after six weeks, they are flown to Europe for a two-week, all-expense paid vacation. (my own sources)
More allegations of US rape and torture of Abu Ghraib prisoners
- July 1: The Senate members investigating the Abu Ghraib scandal are increasingly frustrated with the Pentagon's failure to cooperate with their probe. John Warner, the GOP chairman of the Senate armed services committee, has been unexpectedly aggressive in conducting the probe, to the point where some fellow Republicans, including Representative Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House armed services committee, who argues that the Senate and the media were exaggerating the significance of the abuses. Meanwhile, the Pentagon continues to refuse to release many of the documents and reports requested by the Senate committee. For example, it has not given Congress copies of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reports related to Iraq -- despite assurances from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld two months ago that it would do so. Last week the White House released a raft of internal policy documents about interrogation policies in the war on terror. The release came after leaked memos from justice and defense department lawyers included legal theories that appeared designed to sanction torture; the documents were intended to prove that Bush himself had not condoned torture. Instead, they raised new questions about how interrogation techniques once approved for use at Guantanamo Bay later emerged at Abu Ghraib. In December 2002, Rumsfeld approved interrogation methods -- including hooding and stripping prisoners, and using dogs in interrogations -- for use at Guantanamo while Major General Geoffrey Miller was in charge of the facility. Miller was later sent to Iraq to take over the prison system and make improvements in "intelligence flow" at the prison. (Financial Times/Surfing the Apocalypse)
- July 1: More than 100 children are being held in Abu Ghraib prison, according to the International Red Cross and UNICEF. Many of these children have been abused by their American captors. German reporter Florian Westphal says he knows of 107 children in Abu Ghraib, and says that others could be held in the prison as well as other US-run detention facilities. Samuel Provance, a staff sergeant stationed in Abu Ghraib, said that interrogating officers had pressured a 15- or 16-year old girl. Military police had only intervened when the girl was already half undressed. On another occasion, a 16-year old was soaked with water, driven through the cold, and then smeared with mud. "Children who were detained in the cities of Kerbala and Basra because of alleged activities against the occupying forces were reportedly routinely sent to a detention camp at Umm Kasr," says a UNICEF report. "The classification of these children as detainees is worrisome because it includes unspecified length of detention without contact to their families pending further proceedings or legal actions." Amnesty International is demanding more information. (Der Spiegel/Buzzflash)
- July 1: An Iraqi-born Swede joins a lawsuit against two US defense contractors, claiming that he saw US defense contractor employees -- mercenaries -- rape, torture, and kill Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. He testifies that he saw contractors fire into a crowd of prisoners, killing five, and also saw two young males raped by their captors. The two firms are CAIC and Titan, Inc. The lawsuit accuses US civilian contractors at Abu Ghraib of conspiring to execute, rape and torture prisoners to boost corporate profits from military payments. Both companies deny the charges. The witness, only identified by his last name of Saleh, says he left Iraq in the 1980s for Sweden after being tortured in the prison by Iraqi officials under the Hussein regime; he remained in Sweden until last year after the US occupation, when he returned to invest in a car dealership or mechanic's shop. Instead, he was arrested in September 2003, almost upon arrival, and detained for three months without charge. He says he saw defense contractors fire randomly into a crowd of prisoners, killing three immediately and leaving two to die of their wounds without treatment. The rapes were committed by an unidentified US man in a T-shirt and military fatigues, who bound his victims' hands and raped them in front of 30 other prisoners; the others were warned that they, too, would be raped if they spoke of the incident. Saleh says he himself was dragged 70 feet by a belt tied around his neck, urinated upon and sodomized, shot in the chest with plastic bullets when he tried to pray, roped by the genitals to 12 other prisoners, and was beaten in the genitals. He says he often heard the screams of female prisoners who he believes were raped as well. (AP/Truthout)
- July 1: Former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, author of the book Imperial Hubris, says that during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, CIA analysts were ordered repeatedly by the White House to redo intelligence assessments concluded that al-Qaeda had no operational ties to Iraq. Scheuer says that most analysts resisted the pressure, but saw the pressure to revisit their work as a clear indication that Bush administration officials were seeking a different answer regarding Iraq and al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. "We on the bin Laden side [of the agency's analytic ranks] were required repeatedly to check, double-check and triple-check our files about a connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq," says Scheuer. Asked whether he attributed the demands to an eagerness among officials at the White House or the Pentagon to find evidence of a link, he says: "You could not help but assume that was the case. They knew the answer [they wanted] before they asked the question." Scheuer also says the recent transfer of authority to Iraq was likely to do little to curtail insurgent attacks. "Iraq, with or without a transfer of power, will be a mujahedin magnet as long as whatever government is there is dependent on America's sword," he says, adding that he believes his view is widely shared among counter-terrorism officials at the CIA and other intelligence agencies.
- Scheuer also writes that the government is sending out "mixed messages" regarding the so-called "war on terrorism." On one hand, we get almost daily "news" that the war is succeeding, that the terrorists are being "rolled up," and that senior al-Qaeda leaders are being captured or killed by the handfuls. On the other hand, government officials warn that terrorist groups like al-Qaeda are becoming more, not less dangerous, Scheueur writes, "To say the least, Americans are getting mixed and confusing messages from their leaders. Are we headed toward a victory parade, Cold War bomb shelters or simply straight to the graveyard? Do repeated warnings of an al-Qaeda-produced disaster mark a genuine threat, or have federal bureaucrats learned to cover their butts so they will not have another 'failed-to-warn' a la 9/11? Are Bin Laden-related dangers downplayed to nurse the on-again, off-again economic recovery and the presidential prospects of both U.S. political parties? Are we to reach for champagne or a rosary?" Scheueur says that both rank-and-file Americans and their leaders can begin to accurately answer these questions once they learn to expand their viewpoints out of the straitjacket of provincial "Americanist" thinking. "When confronted by a culturally exotic enemy," Scheueur quotes Lee Harris from the August/September 2002 issue of Policy Review, "our first instinct is to understand such conduct in terms that are familiar to us."
- Scheuer follows up: "Thus, for example, bin Laden is a criminal whose activities are fueled by money -- as opposed to a devout Muslim soldier fueled by faith -- because Americans know how to beat well-heeled gangsters. We assume, moreover, that bin Laden and the Islamists hate us for our liberty, freedoms and democracy, not because they and many millions of Muslims believe US foreign policy is an attack on Islam or because the US military now has a more-than-10-year record of smashing people and things in the Islamic world. Our political leaders contend that America's astoundingly low approval ratings in polls taken in major Islamic countries do not reflect our unquestioning support of Israel and, as such, its 'targeted killings' and other lethal high jinks. Nor, they say, are the ratings due to our relentless support for tyrannical and corrupt Islamic regimes that are systematically dissipating the Islamic world's energy resources for family fun and profit, while imprisoning, torturing and executing domestic dissenters. The low approval ratings, we are confident, have nothing to do with our refusal to apply nuclear nonproliferation rules with anything close to an even hand; a situation that makes Israeli and Indian nuclear weapons acceptable -- each is a democracy, after all -- while Pakistan's weapons are intolerable, perhaps because they are held by Muslims. And surely, if we can just drive and manage an Islamic Reformation that makes Muslims secular like us, all this unfortunate talk about religious war will end. Thus, because of the pervasive imperial hubris that dominates the minds of our political, academic, social, media and military elites, America is able and content to believe that the Islamic world fails to understand the benign intent of US foreign policy. This mind-set holds that America does not need to reevaluate its policies, let alone change them; it merely needs to better explain the wholesomeness of its views and the purity of its purposes to the uncomprehending Islamic world. What could be more American in the early 21st century, after all, then to re-identify a casus belli as a communication problem, and then call on Madison Avenue to package and hawk a remedy called 'Democracy-Secularism-and-Capitalism-are-good-for-Muslims' to an Islamic world that has, to date, violently refused to purchase?"
- In reality, poll after poll shows that Middle Eastern Muslims hold the same bedrock values as Americans -- a love of freedom, a respect for God and worship, even a love of democracy. But as long as Americans simplify the issues, and demonize all Muslims as potential terrorists, Scheuer believes Americans will ultimately fail in combating Islamist terror. "I have long experience analyzing and attacking bin Laden and Islamists," he writes. "I believe they are a growing threat to the United States -- there is no greater threat -- and that we are being defeated not because the evidence of the threat is unavailable but because we refuse to accept it at face value and without Americanizing the data. This must change, or our way of life will be unrecognizably altered." (Los Angeles Times/Truthout, Los Angeles Times/CommonDreams)
- July 1: A new report from the nonpartisan General Accounting Office, or GAO, proves that Homeland Security director Tom Ridge lied two weeks ago when he claimed that US ports and ships are in "full compliance" with international security requirements that go into effect today. 7% of US ports and a full 50% of US ships have not even been reviewed by the federal government. The Bush administration has allowed industry groups to "self-certify to the Coast Guard that they were using appropriate standards;" however, every security plan the Coast Guard did review "had deficiencies." A GAO spokesman said he believed the plans that weren't reviewed by the Coast Guard were also flawed. The failure to secure US ports puts America at risk; yet, despite the Coast Guard's estimate that it will take $7.5 billion over 10 years to secure ports from terrorist attacks, Bush has requested just $46 million in funding for that purpose in 2005. (CNN/GAO/Boston Globe/Daily Misleader)
- July 1: Thailand begins pulling its troops out of Iraq, sooner than originally agreed. When the Thai government agreed to send 450 engineers and medics on a one-year deployment last September, the US touted Thailand as one of the "coalition of the willing." Thai officials have insisted that the troops will see out their mission, despite calls for their withdrawal after two Thai soldiers were killed in a car bombing last December. However, the government has now announced that a phased withdrawal of military hardware and some troops will start today. A Defense Ministry official says the decision did not reverse Thailand's one-year commitment but he refused to specify how many troops would remain in Iraq until September. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra says Thai troops will be brought home sooner if attacks on foreigners worsen. (Australian Broadcasting Company)
- July 1: Florida Circuit Court Judge Nikki Clark rules that Florida's list of 47,000 "potential felon matches," voters whom Florida wishes to purged from the voter rolls, must be made available to the media and the public. This counters Florida's efforts to repeat its infamous "voter purge" of 2000, when at least 10,000 eligible voters, mostly African-Americans, were wrongfully denied their right to vote. "This is great news for democracy and for the state of Florida," says Ralph Neas, president of People For the American Way Foundation. "We encourage the state to accept Judge Clark's order, forgo an appeal, and make the list public immediately. An appeal will only delay justice for voters who have been wrongly placed on the list." Neas adds that the process of determining the legal status of individuals on the list is a long and difficult process, and the sooner the list is made public, the sooner the county election officials and civil rights groups will be able to act: "The counties should independently verify the list so that voters wrongly placed on the list are not be purged at all, and those who have recently received clemency should be informed of the need to register again to vote." (CNN/Truthout, People for the American Way)
- July 1: Republican governor John Rowland resigns his office after being threatened with impeachment. Rowland is involved in a complex scheme of illegal financial transactions involving gifts for his cottage and deals with a New Haven businessman to overpay rent and eventually purchase a Washington, DC condo owned by Rowland. Lieutenant Governor Jodi Rell takes over as governor. According to Republican state senate minority leader Bill Aniskovich, "The combination of the Supreme Court decision and the increasing detail of the Matthews transaction made it increasingly likely that he would not survive an impeachment inquiry and so, the governor, who has always been good at reading the handwriting on the wall, made a decision that was the right way to go rather than being forced out." (WTNH-TV)
- July 1: The Bush-Cheney reelection campaign is sending detailed plans of action to religious volunteers across the country asking them to turn over church directories to the campaign, distribute issue guides in their churches and persuade their pastors to hold voter registration drives. Campaign officials say the instructions are part of an accelerating effort to mobilize Bush's base of religious supporters. They said the suggested activities are intended to help churchgoers rally support for Bush without violating tax rules that prohibit churches from engaging in partisan activity. "We strongly believe that our religious outreach program is well within the framework of the law," says Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt. Tax experts disagree, saying the campaign is crossing the line separating permitted activity by individuals and illegal actions by church congregations. Religious leaders, civil libertarians, and John Kerry supporters all warn that the Bush-Cheney campaign is luring churches into risking their tax status. "I think it is sinful of them to encourage pastors and churches to engage in partisan political activity and run the risk of losing their tax-exempt status," says Steve Rosenthal, chief executive officer of America Coming Together, a group working to defeat Bush. The Reverend Richard Land, who deals with ethics and religious liberty issues for the Southern Baptist Convention, a key Bush constituency, says he is "appalled:" "First of all, I would not want my church directories being used that way," he says. The conservative Protestant denomination, whose 16 million members strongly backed Bush in 2000, held regular drives that encouraged church-goers to "vote their values," Land notes. "But it's one thing for us to do that. It's a totally different thing for a partisan campaign to come in and try to organize a church. A lot of pastors are going to say: 'Wait a minute, bub,'" he says. And a spokesman for Americans United for Separation of Church and State says, "Any coordination between the Bush campaign and church leaders would clearly be illegal."
- The instruction sheet circulated by the Bush-Cheney campaign to religious volunteers lists 22 "duties" to be performed by specific dates. By July 31, for example, volunteers are to "send your Church Directory to your State Bush-Cheney '04 Headquarters or give [it] to a BC04 Field Rep" and "Talk to your Pastor about holding a Citizenship Sunday and Voter Registration Drive." By August 15, they are to "talk to your Church's seniors or 20-30 something group about Bush/Cheney '04" and "recruit 5 more people in your church to volunteer for the Bush Cheney campaign." By September 17, they are to host at least two campaign-related potluck dinners with church members, and in October they are to "finish calling all Pro-Bush members of your church," "finish distributing Voter Guides in your church" and place notices on church bulletin boards or in Sunday programs "about all Christian citizens needing to vote." So far, the IRS has refused to comment on the document, except to say that on June 10 both parties were reminded that tax-exempt charitable groups "are prohibited from directly or indirectly participating or intervening in any political campaign on behalf of, or in opposition to, any candidate for public office." That warning came on the heels of a Bush-Cheney e-mail that sought to identify 1,600 "friendly congregations" in Pennsylvania where Bush supporters "might gather on a regular basis." The IRS letter noted that religious organizations are allowed to sponsor debates, distribute voter guides and conduct voter registration drives. But if those efforts show "a preference for or against a certain candidate or party...it becomes a prohibited activity," the letter said. Rosemary Fei, a tax specialist at the San Francisco law firm of Silk, Adler & Colvin, says the campaign checklist "feels dangerous to me" not just because of what is in it, but because of what is not. "There's no mention whatsoever that churches should be careful to remain nonpartisan," she says. Holt counters that such warnings are unnecessary: "Why would we warn one citizen about the boundaries of their political discussion with another citizen?" he says.
- The Southern Baptist Convention, a strong supporter of the Bush campaign, says it is offended by the use of church rosters by the campaign. "I'm appalled that the Bush-Cheney campaign would intrude on a local congregation in this way," says Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. "The bottom line is, when a church does it, it's nonpartisan and appropriate. When a campaign does it, it's partisan and inappropriate," he says. "I suspect that this will rub a lot of pastors' fur the wrong way." The Reverend Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, says the effort "is a shameless attempt to misuse and abuse churches for partisan political ends." Lynn says his organization will be "watching closely to see how this plays out in the pews." The Reverend Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, a Washington advocacy group that has been critical of the Christian right, says the document is "totally inappropriate. We are alarmed that this initiative by the Bush-Cheney campaign could lure religious organizations and religious leaders into dangerous territory where they risk losing their tax-exempt status and could be violating the law," Gaddy says. Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, says "efforts aimed at transforming houses of worship into political campaign offices stink to high heaven." The SBC's Land adds, "It's one thing for a church member motivated by exhortations to exercise his Christian citizenship to go out and decide to work on the Bush campaign or the Kerry campaign. It's another and totally inappropriate thing for a political campaign to ask workers who may be church members to provide church member information through the use of directories to solicit partisan support." (Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today)
- July 1: The Republican National Committee releases the names of its 62 "Super Pioneers," donors who have raised more than $300,000 for the party in contributions of $25,000 or less. Bundlers, or collectors, of multiple individual contributions have supplanted big corporate, union and individual donors as the key players since the 2002 McCain-Feingold law banned unlimited "soft money" contributions, some of which exceeded $1 million. Both major political parties and the candidates have come up with a plethora of new names for successful fundraisers, using the designations as incentives to reach ever-higher goals. The Democratic National Committee two weeks ago named 17 "Trustees" who had raised at least $250,000 each, and 171 "Patriots" who raised at least $100,000 apiece. The Bush-Cheney '04 campaign has "Rangers" who have raised at least $200,000 each and "Pioneers" who have raised at least $100,000 apiece. Democrat John Kerry has "vice chairs" who have raised $100,000 each and "co-chairs" who have raised at least $50,000 apiece.
- Almost all, 54 out of 62, of the Super Rangers had already qualified as Rangers or as Pioneers, in the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, according to calculations by Public Citizen, a consumer organization. This means that those who are Rangers and Super Rangers have raised a minimum of $500,000 apiece during the current election cycle, and those ranked as Super Rangers and Pioneers have raised $400,000 each. Almost all the Super Rangers are well-known figures in political circles, although less well known in general. They include Washington and Texas lobbyist Thomas Loeffler, whose clients last year included Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Southwest Airlines Co.; Richard Farmer, chairman of Cintas Corp., the industrial laundry firm; Betsy DeVos, whose husband was president of Amway Corp.; Republican senator Norm Coleman; lobbyist Aubrey Rothrock III, whose clients last year included the Mars Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.; and Carl Linder, majority owner of the Cincinnati Reds and former chief executive of Chiquita Brands International Inc.
- A number of the Super Rangers have been favorably treated by the Bush administration. The Federal Communications Commission has allowed Jerrold Perenchio, chairman and chief executive of Univision, to significantly expand his holdings in Hispanic media outlets, by approving the merger last year of Univision Communications Inc. and Hispanic Broadcasting Corp. Bush appointed William DeWitt Jr. to the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Public Citizen yesterday released analyses of the Super Rangers and of Kerry's 335 bundlers. The dominant industry among the Super Rangers, according to Public Citizen, was finance, insurance and real estate, which produced more than a third of the mega-bundlers. Lawyers were second, followed by energy and natural resources company executives, construction company executives, and communications and electronics company executives. The 335 Kerry bundlers raised at least $25 million. Public Citizen found that lawyers dominated the Kerry fundraisers, producing at least $6.3 million, of which $2.6 million was raised by trial lawyers. Bundlers working in the finance industry were second, producing at least $4.75 million, followed by real estate, $1.95 million; media and entertainment, $1.75 million; and lobbyists, $1.65 million. More than a third of Kerry's bundlers, 114, are from California, followed by New York, 71, and Massachusetts, 35. Raising money for a federal candidate requires far more work than raising money for the political parties. The limit on individual contributions to a candidate is $2,000 so that those seeking to be a Bush Ranger, for example, must collect a minimum of 100 $2,000 checks to reach the $200,000 goal. Someone seeking to be an RNC Super Ranger could collect just 12 checks of $25,000 each to qualify. (Washington Post)
- July 1: An article in Counterpunch reminds us of just how egregrious the selection of John Negroponte as the most powerful governing official in Iraq is. Negroponte, whose Jewish extraction is offensive to many Iraqis, is the former ambassador to Honduras during the worst of that country's experience with right-wing "death squads" roaming the country, murdering, raping, and pillaging while Negroponte helped cover up their crimes. Article author Ghali Hassan writes, "At the time Mr. Negroponte was in Honduras, Honduras was a military dictatorship. Kidnapping, rape, torture and executions of dissidents was rampant. The military top and middle ranks were US-trained at the School of the Americas (SOA), the Harvard version of the CIA, based in Fort Benning, Georgia. According to Human Rights Watch, graduates of the SOA are responsible for the worst human rights abuses and torture of dissidents in Latin America. ...In 1995 Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson of The Baltimore Sun unearthed massive and substantiated evidence from various sources pointing the finger at Mr. Negroponte's knowledge of the crimes. The reporters also found that hundreds of Hondurans 'were kidnapped, tortured and killed in the 1980s by a secret army unit trained and supported by the CIA.' Reliable evidence from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Honduras alleged that Negroponte oversaw the expansion of US training camp and military base on Honduran territory, where US-trained Contras terrorists, and where the military secretly detained, tortured and executed Honduran suspected dissidents. During his years in Honduras, Negroponte acquired a reputation, justified, as an old-fashioned imperialist, and devoted to Realpolitik. Mr. Negroponte will bring to Iraq his version of 'democracy' a la Latin America, where the people vote for one of two candidates every half decade, in which civilian leaders have to obey US-controlled militaries or face dismissal by military force. Mr. Negroponte will find the Iraqi soil fertile for his version of democracy and human rights. The US administration turn blind eye to violations of human rights by their own troops and mercenaries. Nazi's methods of torture, sexual abuses and murder of Iraqi prisoners by the racist soldiers of the occupying forces are in use immediately after the invasion and occupation of Iraq." More recently, Negroponte served a brief stint as the US's ambassador to the UN, where he spent most of his time trying to shield Israel from charges of crimes against its Palestinian populace and browbeating smaller countries into supporting US objectives in the Middle East. Before that, Negroponte was Executive Vice President for Global Markets of The McGraw-Hill Companies, which stands to make a fortune in the rebuilding of Iraq. (Counterpunch)
- July 1: In interviews, FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds gives more details about her experience translating Middle East documents and audio captures for the FBI after the 9/11 bombing. The translation department, according to Edmonds, was not so much plagued by deliberate sabotage and thwarting of basic goals as it was by infighting, incompetence, and rivalries between members of various ethnic groups. One Arabic language supervisor had "seven or eight" family members working in the department, even though most them spoke little or no English and therefore were virtually worthless as translators. One of the poorest English speakers, Kevin Taskasen, is eventually transferred to Guantanamo Bay to "translate" potentially critical statements and documents made by suspected terrorists; he originally took the job because he couldn't survive on a busboy's salary. Currently Taskasen is serving as the head of the Turkish translation department in the FBI's Washington offices.
- Edmonds says that much of her problem with the Department stemmed from her translation of material submitted by a Phoenix, Arizona field agent for retranslation on the suspicion that it had not been thoroughly examined before 9/11. Edmonds says, "After I retranslated it verbatim, I went to my supervisor to say, 'I need to talk to this agent over a secure line because what we came across in this retranslating is gigantic, it has specific information about certain specific activity related to 9/11.' The supervisor blocked this retranslation from being sent to the same agent. The reasoning this [supervisor] gave me was, 'How would you like it if another translator did this same thing to you? The original translator is going to be held responsible.'" In the end, Edmonds says, the field agent who requested a reinterpretation of the intelligence material "knew there were things that were missing, and yet he was reassured by the Washington field office that the original translation was fine." Edmonds says the intercept jumped out at her because it contained references to skyscrapers and the US visa application process. Such references might have triggered suspicions at Immigration and Naturalization Services before Sept. 11 if they had been correctly translated, she says, but they seemed unrelated before the attacks, in part because they were gathered during the course of a criminal investigation. A Phoenix FBI agent was the source of a memo before the attacks warning about Middle Easterners taking flying lessons. Edmonds does not know whether the same agent is related to her case.
- Of further interest is Edmonds' belief that a "convergence" of organized crime, terrorist leaders, government officials, and corporate honchos are making a mockery of the US's attempts to curb terrorism. Although a gag order issued by Attorney General John Ashcroft restrains much of what Edmonds has to say, she notes, "[A]s for the politicians, what I can say is that when you start talking about huge amounts of money, certain elected officials become automatically involved. And there are different kinds of campaign contributions -- legal and illegal, declared and undeclared." She adds, "I'm no expert, but from what I have personally seen I can say that our national security is being compromised every day, because important investigations are being stopped, and potentially important clues are being overlooked. It's absolutely incredible that even after 9/11, certain individuals, foreign businessmen and others, among others, are still escaping scrutiny. Okay, perhaps talking about the pre-9/11 world they could get away with saying 'we didn't know,' but to continue doing so -- I mean, what if we are attacked by nuclear or chemical weapons, what will be their next excuse? That 'we didn't know' it could happen? Come on! I can prove they are lying, because they know."
- In December 2001, Edmonds and her husband were unsuccessfully recruited by her colleague Melek Can (Jan) Dickerson and Dickerson's husband Douglas, a major in the Air Force, to join a "semi-legal" group participating in any number of criminal activities throughout the US, Europe, and the Middle East. Edmonds reported the contact to her supervisor, but although an FBI investigation of this group was already underway, nothing was done. The lackadaisical pace of the investigation allowed the Dickersons to help a number of terrorism suspects and other wanted criminals to escape the country even as late as February 2002: "As a result of their penetration, certain people who had been detained were released -- people who had valuable information. And other targets of this investigation, key people, were allowed to flee the country, right up through January and February of 2002. ...I reported some of the suspects' names higher up as I came across them in our investigation. And you know what? Within two weeks, they had all left the country. Just vanished." Jan Dickerson is also responsible for stamping hundreds of intercepts "not pertinent" and therefore ensuring that they remain untranslated; on further examination, some of the intercepts were quite informative. "We came across 17 pieces of extremely specific and important information that was blocked, and at that point, this agent and I went to the FBI security department in the Washington field office, and found out my supervisor had not reported my original complaints," she says. The Dickersons left the US on September 9, 2002, to relocate to Belgium under the auspices of a USAF transfer even though a judge subpoenaed the Dickersons as part of the investigation. It later came to light that Jan Dickerson was hired without filling out her application properly (she even failed to list former employments), and was granted Top Security Clearance without having to go through a background check. In light of the Robert Hanssen spy fiasco, the FBI has done its level best to keep the Dickerson information out of the press.
- Aside from participating in this criminal organization, Dickerson will later be proven to have blocked or purposefully mistranslated hundreds of points of pertinent, sometimes critical, information in her work. Edmonds writes that from November 2001 through February 2002, Dickerson "managed to mark every file that mentioned this, these targets, [the Turkish suspect] as 'not pertinent.' Hundreds of files. Finally, this special agent working on the case got suspicious, and he tasked me with re-translating all of these documents. ...There was content that directly linked the suspects with the group under investigation."
- Edmonds only managed to translate 17 of the hundreds of mistranslated documents before she was suddenly fired. Edmonds says that this is probably one of those investigations that will never be terminated, and will result in no one being prosecuted, "[b]ecause it would hurt certain foreign relations abroad, of course...and they don't want that. So even after 3,000 people lost their lives on 9/11, those behind these very lucrative illegal activities get a free pass. And they refuse to continue important investigations because of certain diplomatic relations that 99.9 percent of Americans gain no benefits from." Of the current lawsuit Edmonds is pursuing, she says, "My case originally began in June of 2002, when I filed a First Amendment and Privacy lawsuit against the Department of Justice. In two unclassified meetings in June and July, eight people from two senators met with three FBI officials, including Margaret Gullota, who is still in charge of the FBI languages department. At these meetings, the FBI admitted that all of my charges were accurate. The memos taken down by Senators Grassley and Leahy, two very senior senators, confirmed this. That's very damning for [the FBI]."
- Four hearing dates have been cancelled without explanation; the law firm of Motley, Rice has subpoenaed Edmonds in connection with its lawsuit on behalf of family members of 9/11 victims. Of that, Edmonds says, "Motley Rice wanted copies of all the memos those senators had written during that unclassified meetings in 2002. But as soon as they even listed some of the questions they were planning to ask me, it was suddenly 'state secrets' time. John Ashcroft -- you can expect anything from that man -- has now broken the law in trying to silence me. I have been speaking out for over two years, but only now is he saying 'everything about Sibel Edmonds is classified.' It's ridiculous." Ashcroft's gag order on Edmonds may be removed soon, as the Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) has declared that Attorney General Ashcroft violated their regulations when he issued put the gag order and ordered the information she had already revealed to be re-classified. Edmonds says, "There are three criteria that need to be met for a gag order to take effect: one, that the order must come from the head of the Department of Justice; two, that the information in question must be reasonably recoverable; and three, that the head of the DOJ first obtain the official approval of the ISOO. However, only the first of these criteria was met -- Ashcroft did indeed give the order. But the second criterion was obviously impossible -- so many websites, newspapers and TV had long ago published all of the material relating to my case. It was and is everywhere. There is nothing 'reasonably recoverable' about it. And as for the third criteria, let alone not get permission, Ashcroft didn't even bother to notify the ISOO that he was re-classifying the information related to me. He showed contempt for the regulations by going around them. ...These people like John Ashcroft are actually endangering our national security by destroying civil liberties with such things as the Patriot Act. They are just cowards. They lack guts." Edmonds concludes with a series of musings on what will happen if the world is allowed to find out everything she knows: "If they were to allow the whole picture to emerge," she says, "it would just boil down to a whole lot of money and illegal activities. ...Certain elected officials will stand trial and go to prison." (Antiwar.com, Boston Globe/Truthout)
- July 1: Latin America expert Saul Landau warns that US attempts to destabilize the Venezuelan government, headed by leftist Hugo Chavez, is an attempt to overturn a legitimate democracy and replace it with a hand-picked oligarchy friendly to the US. Landau writes, "In Venezuela democracy, as Chavez's enemies and the media use the word, means return to oligarchy. Human rights mean US-style elections: an acceptable candidate wins and lauds the right of billionaires to own media and print lies. In Venezuela and the United States the media routinely claim that Chavez undermined the constitution, compromised freedom and destroyed Venezuela's economy. Right wing Latin American media and Miami's El Nuevo Herald treat such charges as axioms; they don't substantiate the claims. In Venezuela, the newspapers and TV stations that charge Chavez with censorship continue to attack him. The assault appears almost in daily papers like El Universal and El Nacional, on TV channels, and radio stations. In fact, Chavez has not shut down or censored media controlled by extremely powerful and very hostile tycoons. Gustavo Cisneros, known as the Rupert Murdoch of Latin America, owns Venevision TV and Venezuela's Playboy Channel and is a partner in Coca-Cola and other multinational ventures. He and Marcel Granier, owner of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), own over 60% of Venezuela's TV market. These 'beleaguered heroes,' intent on saving the republic from Chavez' dictatorship, laugh in their penthouses."
- Opposition to Chavez has failed to coalesce, though in May a referendum to challenge Chavez gained enough signatures to be brought to the public. Landau reminds us that many of Chavez's current opponents supported the US-backed coup attempt of April 2002, when oil executive Pedro Carmona unilaterally claimed the presidency and called Chavez, who was legitimately elected to office, an "enemy of democracy." Former president and mass murderer Carlos Andres Perez has recently joined the chorus of anti-Chavez mavens; Perez's own unsavory history of having his soldiers massacre poor Venezuelans apparently means little to his supporters. Landau writes, "For the white elite Chavez represents ugliness. The man with Indian and African features has committed the unpardonable sin: redistributing wealth. He increased the percentage of the budget that goes toward public health (8%) and education, although still not up to the level of developed countries. He also stopped subsidizing private schools where the wealthy send their kids. Chavez received 59% of the vote in the 2000 presidential election by campaigning against the IMF model that has devastated the third world. He shares this anti neo-liberal view with President Nelson Kirchner of Argentina, Lula of Brazil and Bolivian peasant leader Evo Morales. Chavez stopped the privatization steamroller that would have delivered Venezuela's social security funds to private brokers and the state's universities to education entrepreneurs. Instead of continuing the 'reward the rich and punish the poor' system, Chavez extended credit to small rural and urban holders. Rather than perpetuating the thievery and privilege that prevailed in the state controlled oil sector, he fired the overpaid bureaucrats and converted the revenues for the poor. Chavez, in his first four years (1998-2002), actually lowered the inflation rate from over a 53% average between 1989-1998 to less than 23%. Venezuela's oil industry, devastated by a two and a half month strike that began in 2002, has recuperated and has begun to pour profits into state coffers." Chavez's strong economy has caused some rifts among his opponents, and Chavez is expected to win handily in the August referendum, frustrating his opposition and strengthening the efforts of the Bush administration to replace him with someone of its own choice. (Progreso Weekly/Truthout)
- July 1: A strange assortment of alliances have gathered to help Ralph Nader get on presidential ballots around the country. Nader, a consumer advocate who ran as the Green Party candidate in 2000, and whose candidacy arguably cost Al Gore enough votes in swing states to cost Gore the presidency, has apparently been spurned this time around by the Greens, who are advocating that their voters cast their ballots for Kerry in swing states and for their own candidate, David Cobb, in other states. As a result, Nader has accepted the backing of the Reform Party, the odd amalgamation of libertarians and independents that supported Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996. Nader is the focus of the attention of both parties; Democrats in Arizona and Illinois are suing to keep him off the ballot, and are considering filing a similar suit in Texas; Republicans around the country, believing that a strong Nader candidacy can work against Kerry as it did Gore, are working feverishly to get Nader on as many ballots as possible, though most Republicans personally loathe Nader's politics. Nader says that "there's no quid pro quo" with the Reform Party or any other that would require him to alter his views. But political analysts say that by turning to parties that may not be consistent with his ideology and reaping benefits from Republican operatives, Nader risks tarnishing his longtime reputation as a champion for consumer causes. "He's grasping at straws," Ross Baker, a professor of political science at Rutgers University, says of Nader's alliance with the Reform Party, which drew most of its votes in the last three presidential elections from disaffected Republicans. "It suggests that this is somebody acting with a degree of desperation. He has a drive to run that propels him, irrespective of the consequences. He risks appearing to be a figure of ridicule."
- So far, Nader is on the ballot in six states -- Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, Colorado, Kansas and Montana -- because of his affiliation with the Reform Party, while Cobb, the Green Party nominee this year, will be on at least 23. Nader may also be able to get on the Oregon ballot. He has been spurned in his efforts to secure the support of several smaller state parties, such as West Virginia's Mountain Party. Conservative groups have already mobilized for Mr. Nader in Oregon as well as in Arizona, where 46 percent of the registered voters who signed petitions last month to get Nader on the ballot were Republicans, almost double the percentage of Democrats or Independents, according to a state Democratic Party lawyer. In Wisconsin, a conservative group said it was preparing to follow Oregon's example, by urging Republicans to sign petitions when Nader's signature drive begins next month. "We'll definitely be spreading the word that we'd like to see Nader on the ballot," says Cameron Sholty, the Wisconsin state director for Citizens for a Sound Economy, a conservative antitax group. "We'll do phone trees and friends-of-friends, and those Nader events will be a great way to drive our membership to get out to sign petitions for Nader." Nader says he had not seen any evidence that Republicans had acted inappropriately and instead accused Democrats of "dirty tricks" to keep him off ballots.
- In an effort to blunt Nader's support, Howard Dean, the former Democratic presidential candidate, said Wednesday that he would debate Nader on July 9 on a program on National Public Radio. The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, saying the two Oregon conservative groups -- Citizens for a Sound Economy and the Oregon Family Council -- along with the Nader and Bush campaigns are violating federal campaign laws with their actions on behalf of Mr. Nader, which amounted to illegal campaign donations. Officials with the Bush campaign insist they have nothing to do with the efforts by conservatives to get Nader on state ballots, although they acknowledge that some campaign volunteers might have been lobbying voters to support the effort to get Nader on the ballot. "No Bush-Cheney paid campaign staffers were making calls to encourage Republicans to help Ralph Nader," says Tracey Schmitt, spokeswoman for the Bush campaign. "But the campaign certainly understands that when Republican volunteers see that there are Democratic volunteers trying to restrict the choice and keep Nader off the ballot, that they should work to expand the choice." Russ Walker, Northwest director of Citizens for a Sound Economy, denies any wrongdoing. "We think it's a frivolous complaint," he said. "It's typical of what those types of organizations do. They're set up to keep people from engaging in the process. They're trying to intimidate us and it isn't going to work." (New York Times)
- July 1: Liberal activist group MoveOn.org announces that it will release a new documentary, Outfoxed, on July 18. The documentary will document how relentlessly Fox News "spins" its content, both opinion and "straight" news reporting, to concur with White House and Republican agendas. The film includes interviews with seven ex-Fox News employees "who describe how, every day, highly partisan talking points are drawn up to influence newscasts." Partners in the venture include Fairness and Accurancy in Reporting, Media Matters for America, and the Center for American Progress. The rebuttal for the movie's content is quick to come from Fox News, which attacks the New York Times for running a piece about the movie in its Sunday magazine. Fox accuses the Times of "taking orders from" a George Soros-funded Web site (CAP), and describes Soros as "a left-wing billionaire currency speculator who funds many liberal efforts." Author Eric Alterman exposes the accusations as, of course, lies: "First off, while the Center for American Progress did give Robert Greenwald $85,000 to support Outfoxed, which is the same level of support as from MoveOn.org, it had no say whatever over its editorial content and did not see a single frame until it was completed. It obviously had nothing whatever to do with the Times Magazine story. So Fox is just lying right there. Second, the 'Web site' -- which is of course, a think-tank -- does receive funding from George Soros, but he is far from its most significant funder. So why is Fox picking on Soros? I don't know for sure, but we do know that Sean Hannity, Tony Blankley and Bill O'Reilly have proven part of a nasty disinformation campaign to slander Soros with anti-Semitic codewords and images and attack his religious beliefs on Fox and elsewhere. Hence the loaded term, 'left-wing billionaire currency speculator,' which would have fit perfectly into any Nazi propaganda pamphlet about Jews. (Blankley has actually criticized Soros for being both Jewish and surviving the holocaust, and has passed along poisonous, unsubstantiated accusations that Soros' family cooperated with Hungary's Nazi occupiers.)" Alterman says sagaciously, "If the media mavens were to wake up and take seriously their charges as the eyes and ears of a democratic society -- then films like Outfoxed (and Fahrenheit 911) would not be necessary." (Editor and Publisher, Center for American Progress)
- July 1: Political commentator and former California gubernatorial candidate Arianna Huffington advises John Kerry to ignore the advice given to him by Bill Clinton. Clinton reputedly recently told Kerry to "campaign as though Iraq was stable, the economy was going great guns, and bin Laden was dead...concentrating on selling himself." Huffington observes that the advice is bad because "Kerry's not Clinton (which is not to say that's a bad thing) and 2004 bears no resemblance to 1992. Trying to get Kerry to be more like Clinton is like trying to get Ian McKellen to be more like The Rock -- it just ain't in the genes. The problem with Clintonism as a political strategy is that its namesake's political gifts are not transferable -- so Clintonism shrivels like a pricked balloon without the outsized persona of the Man From Hope. 'How many Democrats,' a Kerry staffer worried, 'are going to look at Bill during the convention and think, he's still the best candidate we have?' But while Clinton was, is, and will always be a better candidate than Kerry, Kerry has the potential to be a better president than Clinton -- and a far greater leader. ...The post-9/11 age calls for a candidate who can turn the focus onto the people he wants to lead -- on their struggles and their dreams and their desire for unity and a better life for their children. It's...his transformational vision for America...that will sell him to the country. ...The Democratic Party actually has a candidate with the biography, the intellect, the heart, the chutzpah and the courage to offer voters a stirring view of where we should be headed as a country." (Arianna Online/Working for Change)
- July 1: US Senate candidate Larry Klayman, a Florida Republican best known for heading the conservative activist group Judicial Watch, has signed alleged former Clinton mistress Gennifer Flowers to help him in his campaign. "Gennifer Flowers is a public figure and she's a former client of Larry's," says David Johnson, Klayman's spokesman. "People are aware of who she is. She's been one of the harshest critics of the Clintons." So is Klayman, who fires up partisan Republican crowds by calling Bill and Hillary Clinton "the Bonnie and Clyde of American politics." Flowers is best remembered for doctoring taped phone conversations between herself and Clinton and marketing them as "proof" that she and Clinton had a long-term affair. Flowers currently owns a nightclub in New Orleans. (St. Petersburg Times)
- July 2: Al-Qaeda has apparently warned European members of the "coalition of the willing" that they should withdraw their troops and personnel from Iraq within the next two weeks or face stepped-up assaults on their people. The Asharq al-Awsat newspaper says it has received the statement from the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade, the group that claimed responsibility for the March 11 Madrid train bombings in which 190 people were killed and a further 1,900 injured. The statement referred to a ceasefire for attacks in Europe that was purportedly declared by Osama bin Laden on April 15. "To the European people -- only few days remain for you to accept the truce offered by bin Laden. Otherwise you will have nobody but yourself to blame," the paper quotes the statement as saying. On the April 15 audiotape, a voice purported to be that of bin Laden gave Europeans three months in which to withdraw their troops from what the voice called "the countries of the Muslim nation." It warned against any "aggression" against countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. US officials and some terrorism experts believe the group lacks credibility and has only tenuous ties to al-Qaeda. Apart from the Madrid train bombings, it has also claimed responsibility for events to which it was not connected, including major power cuts in both the US and Britain. (Guardian)
- July 2: Three US soldiers have been charged in the drowning death of an Iraqi man who was forced to jump off a bridge into the Tigris River north of Baghdad in January. A fourth soldier faces charges for allegedly ordering a second Iraqi to jump. That man survived. Two of the soldiers are charged with manslaughter, assault, conspiracy, false statements and obstruction. A third is charged with manslaughter and making a false statement, and the fourth is charged with assault and making a false statement. A new report by the Army's inspector general says military prison training and policy contributed to the abuses seen at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, but does not report systemic abuse or name top officials. Two other US soldiers were reprimanded and forbidden from conducting interrogations after their actions caused the death of Iraqi Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush. Mowhoush died from asphyxiation due to smothering and chest compression, according to the Pentagon. The military plans to charge the two officers. And another US soldier suspected of killing an Iraqi in his custody appears before a military court for a pretrial hearing. Yet another soldier faces charges of beating an Afghani prisoner to death, but the victim's father blames the Afghan militia, not US forces. The Army has reopened investigations into two other prisoner deaths in Iraq that had previously been attributed to natural causes, according to a military official. There have been four confirmed fatalities of detainees in US custody in Afghanistan since the invasion in late 2001 to topple the Taliban. A former CIA contractor now working for a private security firm has been charged with assaulting one of the detainees, who died in June 2003 in eastern Afghanistan. (AP/CBS)
- July 2: Allen Raymond, former president of the Virginia-based GOP Marketplace, pleads guilty to jamming Democratic organizers' phone lines on Election Day 2002. Raymond's efforts to stop Democrats from using their phones to get out last-minute votes may have cost Democrat Jeanne Shaheen the Senate; she lost to the GOP's John Sununu by less than 20,000 votes. Naturally, other state and local races were also impacted. The lines that were jammed were set up so voters could call for rides to the polls. Democrats say the jamming was an organizaed, statewide effort that may have affected the outcome of some local races as well as the Senate race. "There is, short of murder, not much that is more horrific in America than purposely trying to stop people from voting," says Raymond Buckley, vice chairman of the state Democratic Party. "I do not believe this investigation should stop until every single person who had knowledge of this and paid for this is prosecuted." Raymond pleads guilty to conspiracy to make harassing phone calls, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison. The New Hampshire GOP says it knows nothing of Raymond's illegal activities. Sununu's election guaranteed the Republicans a razor-thin majority in the US Senate. (AP/Free New Mexican)
- July 2: A group of Democratic lawmakers has petitioned the United Nations to monitor the upcoming November elections for fraud. "We are deeply concerned that the right of US citizens to vote in free and fair elections is again in jeopardy," the lawmakers wrote to Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The request will not be granted: "Generally, the United Nations does not intervene in electoral affairs unless the request comes from a national government or an electoral authority -– not the legislative branch," says UN spokeswoman Marie Okabe. Either the US State Department or the Federal Election commission would have to request observers, and monitoring would have to be approved by the UN's Security Council or the General Assembly. The letter to the UN points to "widespread allegations of voter disenfranchisement" in Florida and other states in 2000, and cites an April report from the US Commission on Civil Rights that found potential for "significant problems." There is ample evidence that problems laid bare in 2000 persist. Only $650 million of $3 billion Congress authorized for election reform since 2000 has reached states. And it was recently reported that more than 2,100 eligible voters still appear on the state's list of purged felons. Many are black Democrats. Republicans offer no immediate opinion on the request. "The UN? Monitoring elections where?" says party spokeswoman Heather Layman. (Dallas Morning News)
- July 2: At least 2,100 eligible Florida voters, most of them African-Americans and presumably Democrats, may not be able to vote in November because state officials wrongly included their names on a list of felons who are ineligible to vote. 1,600 more felons who have legally registered with the state may not be able to vote until they re-register. Many of this second group have voted legally for decades, but may not be able to vote this time unless they re-register. "It's a throwback to a very ugly period in American history -- a time when state officials in the deep South threw up irrelevant stumbling blocks to keep black people from voting," says Randall Marshall, legal director of Florida's ACLU. By far, the biggest number of possibly prohibited voters are black Democrats. Congressman Kendrick Meek, a Miami Democrat, says he is outraged: "What they are doing here is illegal, and it goes beyond a simple voting rights issue," he says. "It shows a complete lack of respect for individual rights. They're making people do this, hoping they won't have time. This reminds me of the Jim Crow laws of the 1950s and 1960s in Mississippi. It just sickens me." A Florida Division of Elections database lists over 47,000 felons who will not be allowed to vote; at least 2,119 of those voters are felons who have had their voting rights restored through the state's clemency process. Florida is only one of six states that does not allow felons to vote. Local officials are skeptical at best about the list, and many do not intend to block their voters from casting their votes, list or not. "I have never seen such an incompetent program implemented by the DOE," says Leon County elections chief Ion Sancho. Miami-Dade County Elections Supervisor Constance Kaplan says she intends to err on the side of voters: "This concerns me," she says. "That's why I'm not having my staff jump to start any process until we can make 100 percent sure that it is the correct person." Norman Carter of Fort Lauderdale is angry about being on the list; he keeps his May 20, 2003, clemency papers folded in his Bible. "I don't appreciate it, I don't like it and I wish I knew what I could do about it," he says. "I know how critical these elections have been lately." Of the 2,119 people who obtained clemency, 62 percent are registered Democrats, and almost half are black. Less than 20 percent are Republican. Those ratios are very close to the same in the list of 47,000 voters who the local elections officers are supposed to review and possibly purge from the registration rolls. "It's just not right," says state representative Chris Smith, who represents and lives in a Fort Lauderdale neighborhood hit hardest by the list, the city's historic black neighborhood. "Those who have been disenfranchised before seem to be continually disenfranchised by our archaic laws," he says. (Miami Herald, Truthout/Miami Herald)
