Liberal Repercussion

http://www.fcc.gov/eb/Orders/2004/FCC-04-17A1.html

Not for young eyes. The FCCs complaint against Clear Channel and Bubba the Love Sponge. Now THERE's some family values and decency. Lessee... doesn't Shrub's benefactor Tom Hicks run Clear Channel as the new monopoly/state propaganda organ?

Maybe this does make sense. HEH. I said "organ."

posted by Rei Toei @ 12:50 a.m.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/07/20030712-11.html

Press Gaggle with Ari Fleischer
The National Hospital
Abuja, Nigeria
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
July 12, 2003
9:20 A.M. (Local)

MR. FLEISCHER: The President this morning is receiving a briefing at the National Hospital. There is a representative of the press in there, we arranged for a print pooler to be in there. And then there will be a demonstration of the laboratory equipment that the President will see, focused on important health care issues here in Nigeria. Then the President will have his meeting with the President of Nigeria to talk about U.S.-Nigerian bilateral relations. I anticipate regional issues involving regional conflicts will arise, as well.

We will try to have a background briefer give you a readout after the meeting. I'm not sure of the logistics on that one yet, but we'll do our best to get that done. It may involve logistics -- dropping tape -- but we're going to move quickly and try to get that done.

Q You brief the pool, then, you're thinking?

MR. FLEISCHER: I think that's the only way to do it, because there won't be an opportunity to get the backgrounder to the filing center.

Then the President will make remarks in a speech at the Leon Sullivan Summit, and then return to the White House.

Q Does the President anticipate asking Nigeria to take even more of a role in solving the Liberian crisis, or does he anticipate making any sort of announcement about what the U.S. role in that might be?

MR. FLEISCHER: Nobody should be on the lookout for an announcement today. It will be a topic that is discussed. The United States has worked closely with Nigeria to resolve regional conflicts throughout Africa. Nigeria has received considerable training in its peacekeeping efforts, and its military has received considerable training from the United States. They have abilities, and we have worked with Nigeria to help them to put those abilities to good use.

Q Ari, what's the President's reaction to Mr. Tenet's statement -- a rather long one -- what was his reaction?

MR. FLEISCHER: The President is pleased that the Director of Central Intelligence acknowledged what needed to be acknowledged, which was the circumstances surrounding the State of the Union speech. The President said that line because it was based on information from the intelligence community and the speech was vetted.

Q Does the President still have confidence in Director Tenet?

MR. FLEISCHER: Yes. President Bush has confidence in Director Tenet and President Bush has confidence in the CIA.

Q Ari, the President often speaks of accountability. Does he feel accountability is achieved in this circumstance? Or how do you address that issue?

MR. FLEISCHER: Let me explain to you the President's thinking on this. A greater, more important truth is being lost in the flap over whether or not Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. The greater truth is that nobody, but nobody, denies that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons. He was pursuing numerous ways to obtain nuclear weapons. The United States never said that he had nuclear weapons. We have said that he was pursuing them. It should surprise nobody that Saddam Hussein was seeking to acquire the means to produce from a variety of sources and a variety of ways.

He had previously obtained yellow cake from Africa. In fact, in one of the least known parts of this story, which is now, for the first time, public -- and you find this in Director Tenet's statement last night -- the official that -- lower-level official sent from the CIA to Niger to look into whether or not Saddam Hussein had sought yellow cake from Niger, Wilson, he -- and Director Tenet's statement last night states the same former official, Wilson, also said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official, Wilson, meet an Iraqi delegation to discuss expanding commercial relations between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales.

This is in Wilson's report back to the CIA. Wilson's own report, the very man who was on television saying Niger denies it, who never said anything about forged documents, reports himself that officials in Niger said that Iraq was seeking to contact officials in Niger about sales.

What did the President say in the State of the Union? He said: according to British reports, Iraq is seeking uranium from Africa. And the intelligence cited two other countries, in addition to Niger.

So, again, the larger truth, was Saddam Hussein a threat, in part because he was seeking nuclear weapons, in addition to what we know and have said about chemical and biological.

Now, if you ask, how is the President approaching this, what's the President's approach, the President sees this as much ado, that it's beside the point of the central threat that Saddam Hussein presented.

Q But doesn't that make it all the more important that some accountability be achieved that this flap over one fact can obscure his larger message?

MR. FLEISCHER: The President's larger message has not been obscured. The American people continue to agree that Saddam Hussein was a threat and --

Q You just said it was being obscured. You said there's a larger truth here that's being missed.

MR. FLEISCHER: Yes, but the larger truth -- the larger truth being missed this week, but it's not been missed by the country on a longer-term basis.

Q So this is just another press problem? The President has often thought we go overboard. Is that the case here? Is the larger truth being obscured just by the media?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, I'm not saying that, because there was a vetting issue on the speech, and that's a governmental issue. But I'm saying that this governmental issue needs to be put into a larger perspective, now that everybody has had one week's worth of chance to analyze this.

So, no, I can't say this is about the press. But I can say there is an important bigger picture here. And that bigger picture remains just as valid for the American people today as it was the day the President gave the State of the Union address.

Q On February 5th, Colin Powell did not have enough confidence in that statement to include it in his presentation to the U.N. There was some vetting that was done between the President's speech and Mr. Powell's presentation to the U.N. Why then, if that -- if at that point we knew, you knew, or the administration knew that the information was not good, why then was that very scary accusation allowed to stand through the through the war? I mean, we didn't get this corrected until after the war.

MR. FLEISCHER: It was corrected in March, when the part about yellow cake from Niger was looked into by the IAEA and that's when they reported it was based on forged documents.

But we still do not know whether or not Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. According to the intelligence, there were two other nations that were cited for where Iraq may have been seeking or was seeking uranium.

So what we have said is it should not have risen to the level of a presidential speech. People cannot conclude that the information was necessarily false. After all, why would it surprise anybody that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium. The more uranium you have, the fewer centrifuges you need to produce a nuclear weapon. So that, in and of itself, should not surprise anybody.

What is the issue here, in the President's judgment, is whether that information should have risen to his level and his giving the speech. And the administration, I think, to be fair to the administration, we did acknowledge that. We were the ones who were forthright and direct about it.

Q Well, after the IAEA brought up the forged documents. But on February -- if it wasn't substantiable enough to be presented in Mr. Powell's presentation, surely by then the White House realized that it wasn't substantiable enough to be put in the State of the Union. Why no public comment after February 5th? Why wait a month until the IAEA challenged the forged documents?

MR. FLEISCHER: Because this is the nature of intelligence information. This intelligence information was included in the NIE; it was part of the information that was being discussed widely in intelligence circles. There was a consensus agreement that supported the NIE with the footnoted objection from the State Department.

Q Does the President consider the matter closed now? With the President -- with Director Tenet's letter, does the President consider the matter closed?

MR. FLEISCHER: Yes, the President has moved on. And I think, frankly, much of the country has moved on, as well.

Q This is the last day of the President's historic trip to Africa. Has this overshadowed what he has hoped to accomplish?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, I think you have to ask the American people that. I think that if you look at America's newspapers and America's TV shows, there has been ample reporting on both. I am not in a position to gauge which report the American people pay the most attention to. I think people probably pay attention to both. But again, I think when people hear about the trip to Africa and the focus on AIDS, the impression people have is we are, indeed, a compassionate nation, our tax dollars are going to a good purpose.

When people hear about the flap over whether or not Iraq did, indeed, seek uranium from Africa, the American people say, we didn't go to war because Iraq may or may not have been seeking uranium from Africa; we went to war because Saddam Hussein was a threat because of chemical and biological weapons and also because he was pursuing nuclear weapons, whether he did or did not seek uranium from Africa. So I think the American people have it in pretty good perspective.

Q Ari, did Dr. Rice ask Director Tenet to put out the statement, or did anybody else from the White House ask him to put out the statement?

MR. FLEISCHER: Discussions with Director Tenet about the statement have been going on for days, have been worked out previously. It's appropriate for the CIA to speak out.

Q Did he bring up the notion of addressing a statement, or did the White House ask him to?

MR. FLEISCHER: It was mutual. The discussion was, the CIA needs to explain what its role was in this. And the best way for any entity in the government to explain its role is to issue a statement.

Q Why, if he was going to if it has been talked about for several days, did Dr. Rice come out and brief yesterday? Why not just wait for Tenet to put out his announcement? I mean, was there any reluctance on the CIA to put out a statement?

MR. FLEISCHER: Dr. Rice was always scheduled to brief yesterday, just as Secretary Powell was scheduled to brief at the filing center the night before. So we actually, literally the day before the trip or the week before the trip -- sit down. She was scheduled to brief on the flight to Nigeria. It was moved up to the morning flight. It was easier to do it that way, frankly, and to disseminate whatever she said.

Q Any postmortem briefing to expect on the plane back?

MR. FLEISCHER: No, there will be no briefings on the plane back.

END 9:31 A.M. (Local)

posted by Rei Toei @ 11:49 p.m.

http://theintelligencecommunity.typepad.com/tic/2004/02/rick_perrythe_f.html

posted by Rei Toei @ 9:28 p.m.

Revealing Picture of Hatch Surfaces On Internet:
Hatch Caught in Embarrassing Online Tryst
with Publisher of Stolen Democratic Documents



Twice in the days before right wing activist Kay Daly published stolen Democratic documents on her web site, Senator Orrin Hatch appeared on fringe internet radio shows with her. On October 29, 2003, he appeared on her Free Republic radio “Daly Show” and on November 11, 2003, he appeared on another Free Republic radio show with her. Manuel Miranda appeared on Ms. Daly’s radio show just two weeks earlier.



Kay Daly was the first person to publish complete versions of the stolen documents. Miranda still denies leaking the stolen documents. Orrin Hatch denies having any knowledge of the stolen documents. Their appearances on the internet-broadcast radio shows days before she obtained the documents calls into question their denials.



It is highly unusual that a sitting United States Senator, the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, would appear on two fringe internet radio broadcasts in two weeks. The same could be said for a top staffer in the Senate Leader’s office, especially in the busy days leading up to the Republicans’ faux filibuster.



For reasonable observers, it is hard to believe that the timing of these events is purly coincidental. This is one reason a criminal investigation is absolutely necessary.
Both Manuel Miranda and Sen. Orrin Hatch Appeared on a FreeRepublic.com Radio Show with Stolen Memo Publisher Just Weeks Before Memos Published.



* Stolen Memos were leaked to Kay Daly’s Coalition for a Fair Judiciary. http://fairjudiciary.com/cfj_contents/press/collusionmemos.shtml



· Orrin Hatch appeared on Daly’s fringe radio show two weeks before the stolen memos were published. http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1010454/posts



· Orrin Hatch appeared on another extremist radio show with Daly less than a week before the stolen memos were published. http://www.mail-archive.com/newsandviews@chuckmuth.com/msg00411.html; http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1020447/posts



* Miranda appeared on Daly’s radio show just weeks before the stolen memos were published. http://www.southernappeal.blogspot.com/2003_10_12_southernappeal_archive.html#106619471496697787



* Daly leading the charge to defend Miranda. “If Miranda, who has admitted to reading the memos in media interviews but denied distributing them to reporters, faces more discipline or is fired, Daly promised an organized conservative backlash. ‘The reaction would be incendiary,’ she said.” [Paul Kane, Roll Call, 1/26/04]



“Manny [Miranda] is a real fighter,’ said Kay Daly, president of Coalition for a Fair Judiciary, a grouping of conservative activist organizations involved in judicial nominations. ‘He's got that 40-yard stare.’” [Charles Hurt, Washington Times, 3/4/04]

posted by Rei Toei @ 8:14 p.m.

From C-SPAN

Congressional News Conference
Leaked Staff Memos
U.S. Capitol, Senate Radio TV Gallery
Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
ID: 180840 - 03/04/2004 - 0:36 - $29.95

Leahy, Patrick J., U.S. Senator, D-VT
Hatch, Orrin, U.S. Senator, R-UT


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/05/politics/05LEAK.html

The 65-page report concluded that the two Republican staff aides, both of whom have since departed, improperly read, downloaded and printed as many as 4,670 files concerning the Democrats' tactics in opposing many of President Bush's judicial nominees. The report, the result of an investigation undertaken at the request of the Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested that many other Republican staff aides may have been involved in trafficking in the stolen documents.

"I am mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files occurred," Senator Orrin G. Hatch, the Utah Republican who is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, told reporters. "There is no excuse that can justify these improper actions."

Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the committee's ranking Democrat, said, "This report indisputably shows that this secret surveillance was calculated, systematic and sweeping in its scope. It is not difficult to conclude that this was criminal behavior."

The report was supposed to be released with the names of the individuals involved redacted. But a copy was mistakenly released with the names included. The report identified the two former Republican staff aides as Manuel C. Miranda, who had already been named as a central figure in the investigation, and Jason Lundell, whose name had not previously been known.

...

The report named four other Republican staff aides who might have read the documents but did not fully cooperate with investigators.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said he believed that an independent counsel with subpoena power should be named by the Justice Department to investigate whether any crimes were committed.

posted by Rei Toei @ 8:13 p.m.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usleak0305,0,2896503.story?coll=ny-top-span-headlines

The federal grand jury probing the leak of a covert CIA officer's identity has subpoenaed records of Air Force One telephone calls in the week before the officer's name was published in a column in July, according to documents obtained by Newsday.

Also sought in the wide-ranging document requests contained in three grand jury subpoenas to the Executive Office of President George W. Bush are records created in July by the White House Iraq Group, a little-known internal task force established in August 2002 to create a strategy to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

And the subpoenas asked for a transcript of a White House spokesman's press briefing in Nigeria, a list of those attending a birthday reception for a former president, and, casting a much wider net than previously reported, records of White House contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news media outlets.

The three subpoenas were issued to the White House on Jan. 22, three weeks after Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago, was appointed special counsel in the probe and during the first wave of appearances by White House staffers before the grand jury.

posted by Rei Toei @ 11:31 a.m.

Get Michael Malloy back on the air!

http://www.petitiononline.com/xc1968u/petition-sign.html?

posted by Rei Toei @ 1:49 p.m.

We have so many big problems, I rarely get to report on the little things this administration is doing that are just as telling. -- Molly Ivins

Four wars and a cloud of dust
Administration's big trick plays help conceal dozens of smaller ones

AUSTIN, Texas -- Anyone see any reason to think Haiti will be better off without Jean-Bertrand Aristide? Just another little gift from the Bush foreign policy team, straight out of the whacko-right playbook.

Jesse Helms always did think Aristide was another Fidel, not being able to distinguish between a Catholic and a communist. We know the main armed opposition group is a bunch of thugs and that they have been joined by old Duvalierists, including members of the Tonton Macoutes, the infamous torturers.

The Bush administration wanted this to happen -- it held up $500 million worth of humanitarian aid from the United States, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and International Monetary Fund. Without U.S. or multilateral help, the country spiraled downward.

So here we are, reduced to hoping for the best again.

David Corn of The Nation magazine developed a wonderful metaphor for this experience. It goes like this: Two kids are playing, and one says, "I'm gonna take this stick and whack that hornets' nest."

Second kid says, "Don't hit the hornets' nest."

"I will."

"Don't hit the hornets' nest."

"Will so."

"Don't hit the hornets' nest."

Kid hits the hornets' nest, all the hornets fly out and starting stinging, kid turns and says: "Now you have to help me deal with all these hornets. It would be irresponsible and disloyal if you didn't."

So here we are dealing with Iraq -- because it would irresponsible and unpatriotic not to "support our troops" and try to make this dubious if not unsound venture achieve some good. And now they've gone and whacked the hornets' nest in Haiti, and they're not even willing to deal with the hornets themselves. There are no plans for nation-building in Haiti -- even bad, inadequate planning, as there was in Iraq. Near as one can tell, the administration's only plan for a post-Aristide Haiti is to send the Coast Guard to prevent anyone from fleeing the place as it descends into anarchy. This will not improve our image around the world, and our image around the world does have something to do with the terrorism we are supposed to be fighting.

If we were to try being constructive in Haiti -- perhaps even "nation-building" -- I have a suggestion based on our experience so far in Iraq. Let's not outsource nation-building to private contractors. And if we do, let's not parcel it out in no-bid contracts.

As the Halliburton whistle-blowers told Rep. Henry Waxman, whenever concerns were raised within Halliburton about consistent overcharges, people were told, "Don't worry ... it's cost-plus." As the Center for Corporate Policy points out, the top executives of the contracting firms make 30 to 175 times as much as a U.S. Army general with 20 years experience, and nearly 2,000 times the pay of entry-level soldiers.

Some of the outrageous overcharges in Iraq are being investigated. And of course the investigations are paid for by the taxpayers, as well. KBR overcharged $16 million for meals served to troops at one base in Kuwait in one month alone. It had claimed 42,000 meals a day were served, when only 14,000 were served. KBR imported fuel for Iraq from Kuwait for $2.64 a gallon when it was available for 96 cents, according to the Congressional Research Service. The record on Halliburton/KBR government contracts is so bad, "Halliburton" is becoming a synonym on the Internet for ripping off the government.

Those familiar with reconstruction efforts in Iraq agree part of the problem is that the Department of Defense called the shots, rather than going to civilian agencies with experience in reconstruction. Further, the DOD is given to both secretive decision-making and changing its mind. Good thing we have that CEO administration in place, isn't it?

In one of the mind-boggling deceptions wrought by said CEOs, the cost of the war isn't in Bush's budget, even though Bush is blaming his budget deficit on the cost of the war. Honest: War cost is not in there. Bush will ask for another supplemental budget after the election to cover it. And at this rate, it won't be the estimated $40 billion to $45 billion, it'll be another $87 billion.

It is a source of continuing frustration to me that we have so many big problems, I rarely get to report on the little things this administration is doing that are just as telling. Here's an example: Last week, Bush dismissed two members of his own handpicked Council on Bioethics. One is a scientist, and the other a moral philosopher -- and both are advocates of stem-cell research.

According to The Washington Post, "In their place he appointed three new members, including a doctor who has called for more religion in public life, a political scientist who has spoken out precisely against the research that the dismissed members supported and another who has written about the immorality of abortion and the 'threats of biotechnology.'" Read more in the Molly Ivins archive.

Molly Ivins is the former editor of the liberal monthly The Texas Observer. She is the bestselling author of several books including Molly Ivins Can't Say That Can She?



(c) 2004 Creators Syndicate

posted by Rei Toei @ 12:40 p.m.

Ten Minutes that rocked...
Howard Stern joins the real world. This may be a good thing.

http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/04/03/far04006.html


On Feb. 26 (the day Stern's program was suspended in half a dozen Clear Channel markets), he not only said that the Bush administration doesn't know what it is doing in Iraq, but within a ten minute span pointed out that:

*

Al Gore won the election.
*

Bush did not fulfill his duty in the National Guard.
*

George W. will never admit that Poppy Bush pulled strings to get him into the Guard and keep him out of Vietnam.
*

There are several questions about Bush's character.

While callers to the show repeatedly expressed dismay that Stern was taken off the air in certain cities, one fan expressed the overall mood by saying that the new FCC/Clear Channel tactics are reminiscent of Nazi book burnings. Never mind that the canaries in the proverbial coal mine were chirping a similar tune last year, back when radio stations were organizing Dixie Chick CD demolitions, the distant rumbling of goose-stepping is now being heard by former Bush supporters, too. Dubbing Clear Channel "fear channel," Stern warned that the "fascist right-wing" is "getting so much power."

The following day, Stern was even more forceful. "Get rid of George W. Bush," he said, adding that Bush is "dangerous" and has a "religious agenda." By Monday, March 1, Stern was circumspect. "There's a real good argument to be made that I stopped backing Bush and that's when I got kicked off Clear Channel," he said.

After Stern was pulled from six cities, including Orlando, Miami and Pittsburgh (which, coincidentally, are important markets in important swing states), John Hogan, president of 1,200-station Clear Channel, appeared before members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and apologized for letting Stern say the things he's been saying for years. "I accept responsibility for our mistake, and my company will live with the consequences of its actions," Hogan said.

"I don't think what [Stern] said this week was different from things he's said before," Rep. Fred Upton said. "Why didn't you do this earlier? Has he actually changed his tune?"

"I don't think he's changed his tune, but we've changed ours. We're going in a different direction at Clear Channel Radio," Hogan responded.



By now, ties between the Texas-based Clear Channel and the President of the United States are legendary. Clear Channel's vice chairman Tom Hicks "made Bush a millionaire," while Clear Channel stations were a staple at "'pro-troop rallies,' which, by many accounts, "were virtually indistinguishable from pro-Bush rallies." [AmConMag.com]

So, was Stern taken off the air because of the shock waves emanating from Janet Jackson's breast? Or is there, as Stern and others suggest, more to this story?

Oddly enough, Rush Limbaugh's twisted defense of Stern provides a clue. Though Limbaugh was somewhat brave and honorable to speak out, the spin Limbaugh placed on the incident speaks volumes. This was Limbaugh's take, courtesy of Matt Drudge:

"Smut on TV gets praised. Smut on TV wins Emmys. On radio, there seems to be different standards. I've never heard Howard Stern. But when the federal government gets involved in this, I get a little frightened. If we are going to sit by and let the federal government get involved in this, if the government is going to 'censor' what they think is right and wrong... What happens if a whole bunch of John Kerrys, or Terry McAuliffes start running this country? And decide conservative views are leading to violence? I am in the free speech business. It's one thing for a company to determine if they are going to be party to it. It's another thing for the government to do it." [DrudgeReport.com]

John Kerry? Terry McAuliffe? Why not mention that the FCC is headed by Colin Powell's son, Michael? And what about Clear Channel's ample ties to Bush? This bit of spin ventures so deeply into the Land of Intellectual Dishonesty, it's easy to see why, given the value of propaganda, Limbaugh is said to have received a $35 million signing bonus when he signed his reported $250 million contract back in 2001.

And, given the evidence (particularly since Howard Stern himself is now openly asking if his censorship woes didn't begin with his criticism of Bush) one wonders if Stern's political change of heart didn't have something to do with Clear Channel's preemptive strike. "Maybe they did it as a favor to Bush?" Stern asked.

posted by Rei Toei @ 10:33 p.m.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2002-08-02/pols_capitol.html


'...New York Times columnist Paul Krugman took a few hard shots at President George W. Bush, and more specifically, at the record of the University of Texas Investment Management Co., or UTIMCO.

In the course of recounting Bush's often questionable "Steps to Wealth," Krugman treated the former governor's role in UTIMCO with a heavy hand. Bush "changed the rules governing [UT's] endowment," wrote Krugman, "eliminating the requirements to disclose 'all details concerning the investments made and income realized,' and to have 'a well-recognized performance measurement service' assess investment results." (That is, it became more difficult for the public to know or understand what was being done with public money.)

Moreover, by privatizing the management of UT's financial assets, Krugman charged, "In effect, the money was put under the control of UTIMCO's chairman, Tom Hicks. Under his direction, at least $450 million was invested in private funds managed by Mr. Hicks' business associates and major Republican Party donors." (Hicks' term as chair expired in 1999.)


There was a bit more, but those were the harshest charges -- and they've been made before, much closer to home, most notably by Houston Chronicle reporter R.G. Ratcliffe in articles published in March 1999. "Almost a third of the $1.7 billion directed by UTIMCO, $252 million," reported Ratcliffe, "has been committed to funds run by Hicks' business associates or friends. Another $205 million has gone to five funds run by major Republican political donors."

The Chronicle and other state papers added that because most of UTIMCO's meetings were private, it was difficult to determine the details of such investments, including possible conflicts of interest.

Here Comes the Cavalry

It didn't take long for the Emperor's tailors -- in the persons of former UT Chancellor William Cunningham and former UT Regent Bernard Rapoport -- to ride to the rescue. First in a letter to the Times, and then in a longer op-ed (published in the American-Statesman July 24), Cunningham and Rapoport pointed out -- accurately -- that all Bush did as governor was sign legislation authorizing UTIMCO.

Only the investment management was privatized and not the assets themselves, they said, and Hicks, while then both a regent and chairman of UTIMCO, "made no effort to dominate investment decisions, nor did he ever vote to approve an investment decision that was not recommended by the UTIMCO staff." They also pointed out that UTIMCO board meetings "are open to the public in accordance with the state open meetings law."

These defenses are all true enough, but they also coyly dodge central questions raised by Krugman -- questions grudgingly acknowledged in a July 17 Statesman editorial ("UTIMCO's problems aren't Bush's fault") published opposite Krugman's syndicated Times column.

UTIMCO "has been accused of questionable investments, conflicts of interest, operating in secret and keeping information about its investments from the public," intoned the editors. "But UTIMCO's stormy history has been of its own making, and George W. Bush, as president, governor, candidate and businessman, had very little to do with it."

While not exactly a ringing defense of the UT investment company, the Statesman editorial did its deferential best to put distance between the former governor and the "stormy history" of UTIMCO.

However, since Bush currently reigns as the Crown Prince of Privatization, it's a trifle disingenuous for his defenders to imply that as governor he had little to do with the era's continuing mad rush to divest the public of public resources and public oversight, of which UTIMCO is only one small example.

More importantly, neither ed. nor op-ed even sniffs the curious coincidence that -- despite Hicks' and the other regents' declared deference to staff recommendations -- "Almost a third of the $1.7 billion directed by UTIMCO, $252 million, [had been] committed to funds run by Hicks' business associates or friends [and] another $205 million [had] gone to five funds run by major Republican political donors," as Ratcliffe detailed in 1999.


The Usual Suspects

Paul Krugman probably does not realize that you can't swing a dead cat in Texas -- at least a dead cat stuffed with public money -- without walloping a dozen or more major Republican political donors, most of whom (ô la Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon) will have some connection to Tom Hicks or George "Son of the Pioneers" Bush.

But both the Statesman and the UT Twins know damn well that the only reason UTIMCO now acts "in accordance with the state open meetings law" (although still not legally bound to do so), and that Hicks has returned to Dallas, is that the Texas papers eventually raised such a fuss about UTIMCO's monkey business that both outcomes became inevitable.

In response to public pressure, the company's first president, Thomas Ricks, told a 1999 Freedom of Information conference that despite the annoying constrictions public meetings would impose on UTIMCO's discussions, the company would "voluntarily comply" with the open meetings law.

That was big of him: as was his $475,000 salary for 2000, more than three times the amount paid that year to the director of the Texas Employee Retirement System, who was managing a much larger fund than UTIMCO's. "We had an outstanding year," said Ricks.

Ricks has since moved on, and this year hasn't been quite as outstanding. The Permanent University Fund (the largest managed by UTIMCO) lost 2.3% in the year ending May 31. Better, we are reassured, than some other folks.

posted by Rei Toei @ 10:27 p.m.

I understand Howard Stern JUST figured out that Republicans are crooks and Clear Channel is anathema to the First Amendment. About damn time. But welcome to the party, Howard.

He googled and figured out that Clear Channels Tom Hicks has been in bed with the Shrub for years. Oh, in case you were wondering where the large portion of the Texas Permanent School Fund went...
http://www.utwatch.org/utimco/

http://www.utwatch.org/utimco/hicks.html

Thomas O. Hicks

Tom Hicks is a Dallas billionaire and investment banker who began raiding the University's public funds after the University refused to invest in his dental company in the early 90's. Hicks first appeared on the public scene when he donated $17,500 to Ann Richards, Texas governor at the time. He was subsequently appointed to the Board of Regents by Governor Richards in 1994.

After Ann Richards was defeated in 1994 by George W. Bush, Hicks shifted his heavy donations to Bush. Hicks gave $146,000 to Bush in both of his gubernatorial campaigns. In return for the gratitude, Bush approved legislation to form UTIMCO in 1995. Hicks had used a full-court press strategy, spending between $50,000 to $110,0001 in lobbying and using with the powerful lobbying team Vinson and Elkins, who represents several Texas business interests, to achieve this dream.

Conveniently for both men, Bush appointed Hicks as the first chair to UTIMCO, which began the tradition of tit-for-tat management and good-ol' boy favoritism that has defined the relationship between UTIMCO and Texas politics since. In 1998, Hicks would make Bush a multi-millionaire by purchasing the Texas Rangers. In addition, Hicks' company, Hicks, Muse, Tate, & Furst, Inc., is now Bush's number 4 career patron. The company is still donating to the GOP; Rick Perry has received $283,481 from Hicks Muse, with another $176,500 coming from Charles Tate [Hicks, Muse, Tate, & Furst, Inc.]. Hicks's brother Steven has also thrown in $138,516.

For several years, UTIMCO acted in secrecy under the protection of the Texas Attorney General, which facilitated the process of questionable investments in return for political favors. UTIMCO invested some $525 million in assets run by Hicks associates and other major GOP donors. After the Houston Chronicle exposed such insider dealings in a 1999 article, Tom Hicks resigned from the board.

Investments made by UTIMCO under the watch of Tom Hicks include the following, as reported by the Multinational Monitor, Texas for Public Justice, and Bushwatch.net:

* The Carlyle Group: the Group's partners include Bush Sr. and ex-Secretary of State James Baker III.
* Maverick Capital Fund: Major project of the Wyly brothers.
* Bass Brothers Enterprises: The Bass family donated $210,000 to Bush's campaign through PAC's, with $273,000 from themselves, and they invested $25 million in Bush's Harken Oil venture.
* Kohlberg Kravis Roberts: This corporate buyout firm would soon join Hicks Muse in a $1.5 billion takeover of Regal Cinemas.
* Evercore Partners: Evercore and Hicks joined forces for a $900 million television buyout.
* American Security Partners: Landed a contract with UTIMCO months after selling several radio stations to Tom Hicks.
* Wand Partners and Inverness Management: Firms run by friends of Tom Hicks, such as former frat brother Bruce Schnitzer.

Another notable company not covered by the Multinational Monitor was an investment in Capstar Broadcasting, run by R. Steven Hicks- Tom's brother. The brothers have had strong interests in national communications companies, and some deals that have been proposed (some sought after by trustbusters) have reached the billions.

Clear Channel Communications/AMFM (owned by Hicks Muse with Tom Hicks as the vice-chair) is the largest chain of radio stations in the U.S. Hicks Muse also owns the second largest chain in the U.S., Chancellor Media.

Hicks is also known as the power behind the revitalization of Dr. Pepper and he gained 1,477 percent when he sold to Cadbury Schweppes in 1995.2

posted by Rei Toei @ 10:14 p.m.

This book sounds fascinating. There is a dearth of information regarding the precipitating events of 9-11.

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
by Steve Coll

I found this the most helpful review of this book on Amazon.

Complexity is the word, March 1, 2004
Reviewer: Adron Edward Gardner (see more about me) from USA
Ghost wars is an excellent reporting job by Steve Coll. More direct quotes would have been welcomed, but overall, the research and the reporting is enough to project an elightening view on the massively complex Afghan situation America got into after the Russian invasion up to this very day.

A number of things come to light not easily communicated to the American public by our media.

1. A policy to trail and kill bin Laden and his associates was undertaken by the Clinton administration. The "wag the dog" BS of the republican zealots after the missile strike of 1998 did not encourage the administration to push using troops of any kind.

2. Pakistan's position today is extrememly delicate. They did a massive amount to aid the Taliban over the Russian invasion and up to 9/11. There should be no surprise in the difficulty that remains in getting to get "full" support on destroying the jihadis crossing the Afghan/Pakistan border. Their intelligence service is about as troubled as our own.

3. Reagan policy of arming Afgans to the teeth then abandoning them completely is one of the biggest mistakes in American foreign policy in history.

4. Clinton policy on bin Laden was scattered and non productive. The C.I.A. did little to earn the full trust of the administration with spotty intel.

5. "Does America Need the C.I.A. ?" Good question, if anybody has a good answer, tell Bush - he is still looking for Iraq's weapons.

By the very nature of our country, the intelligence services are bureaucracies. Yet the trouble with trusing the C.I.A. goes way back. Kennedy doubted them, Nixon doubted them, Ford chaired the committee to question their existence.
Real reform of the C.I.A. doesn't look rosy. If we spent $87 billion on trying to build friends in the arab world instead of bombing their back yard, maybe we'd get somewhere and wouldn't have to ask the impossible from the C.I.A. and blame them when it all goes wrong.

posted by Rei Toei @ 6:44 p.m.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

The site is watchdogging the integrity of our elections. Go read up on the fragility of your right to vote.

posted by Rei Toei @ 5:49 p.m.

if they change the GA flag, I swear I'll burn one in front of a TV camera

Comment
The hacks in the machine

The electronic voting being used in today's Super Tuesday Democratic primaries offers unprecedented opportunities for electoral fraud, write Albert Scardino and John Scardino

Tuesday March 2, 2004

Stealing an election used to take some doing. Sometimes the dead had to vote. At other times it took the intervention of the supreme court, as in Florida three years ago. Maybe not a theft in that case, but certainly a spirited getaway.

With new voting equipment in use today in California, Georgia and Maryland for the Super Tuesday primaries, it now may be possible to hijack the results with nothing more than a phone call into a computer modem.

Electronic theft may not be necessary. Last time around, election officials in at least two swing states launched a coordinated campaign to inhibit many residents of inner city areas from voting. Tens of thousands were wrongly denied a say in the Gore-Bush race in Missouri and Florida. They were disproportionately Democrats.

If intimidation, bureaucratic roadblocks and arbitrary enforcement based on antiquated records don't work this time, there may be an electronic backup.

The new hardware has been rushed into service as a preventative for the kind of chaos that prevailed in Miami, Palm Beach and other areas of Florida after the Gore-Bush election. Tens of thousands of polling places now have colour screens in place of paper ballots or old mechanical voting machines. Yet, in spite of passwords and press releases insisting on the integrity of vendors and designers, the election process has become more vulnerable to systemic fraud than at any time in US history.

State boundaries and competing political bosses often stood as firewalls against wholesale, national election fraud. The new standardised systems with poor security arrangements allow theft to be automated and instantaneous from coast to coast.

More worryingly, with public opinion so evenly divided, a president can be elected on the basis of 537 votes in one state. The new systems appear so easy to crack that a hacker armed with a telephone and the right numbers can dial into numerous access points, change a few votes for each precinct or hundreds of votes in several - leaving no trail.

There is nothing fanciful about the possibility of things going wrong. In one election last year in Indiana, the new electronic equipment recorded more than 100,000 votes in an election with only 19,000 registered voters.

Another example comes from Georgia, one of the Super Tuesday primary states. In 2002, voters there used new electronic systems to throw out a popular incumbent governor and a serving US senator, both Democrats, in favour of little-known Republican opponents. Though polls right up to the election indicated that both Democrats would be re-elected comfortably, the tally on election night showed massive swings against them.

Oddly, the swings occurred in only a part of the state, indistinguishable from areas that conformed very closely to the pre-election polls. Based on the number of votes counted, commentators reported turnout of more than 70% of the voters in some areas. These same districts mustered no more than 45% in the presidential election two years earlier.

The explanation, according to the winners, was that rural voters came out in force to voice outrage at the governor's alteration of the state flag to remove the Confederate battle emblem, the familiar crossed stars on a red background. Later analysis indicated that no more voters than normal came to the polls that day.

No one has found any proof that the results were tampered with, though a number of investigators have looked. On the other hand, no one has been able to audit the results, because the voting machines provide no paper receipts. A hanging chad on a paper ballot may be difficult to interpret, as election officials learned in Florida three years ago, but at least there was something to look at.

The flag has a place in today's voting, too. The new Georgia governor managed to convince the legislature to change the flag once more, reverting to an older design with the words "In God we trust" emblazoned across the centre.

To settle things flag-wise once and for all, the choice of banners has been put to the voters. When Georgia voters show up at the polls today to choose presidential candidates, they will also have a chance to pick a flag - on electronic voting machines.

The polls show the Democratic governor's design is heavily favoured to win, but voter interest is low, so turnout may not be very good - unless the same counter mysteriously reappears after the polls close, as happened two years ago.

The new voting systems have an incestuous parenthood. The Republican candidate in 2000 became president with help from local cronies who purged Democrats from the rolls. As president, he cut taxes on the wealthy while proposing to spend $3.7bn to help states to modernise their voting systems.

The biggest beneficiary so far has been Diebold Electronic Voting Systems, part of a company that makes bank vaults and automatic teller machines and has now become a leading supplier to the newly created voting systems market.

Since entering the business in 2002, Diebold has won contracts to supply more than 50,000 voting machines, for California, Georgia, Maryland and Ohio. Independent software experts concerned about the security of the systems found that Diebold had posted the source code for the software on the company's web site.

In short order, they found ways to manipulate the code to produce fraudulent results and then hacked their way into a list of phone numbers for the modems being installed on Diebold servers. For more information see blackboxvoting.org.

Diebold employees turned whistleblowers last year to reveal that the company had produced fixes for some flaws, then altered the software without consulting election officials. Whether the fixes worked or not, the fact that a vendor could alter a voting machine's operating system without the approval of the authorities has itself caused alarm.

Government officials responsible for the integrity of voting systems in their states and counties then demanded a formal investigation of Diebold's vulnerabilities. In an interview last week on Britain's Channel 4, the investigators said that the systems could be easily hacked, totals altered and results overturned in a matter of minutes.

Diebold's chief executive and other company officers have contributed more than $600,000 to the Bush re-election campaign and pledged to fellow Republicans that he would do everything in his power to ensure Bush's re-election (a statement he now regrets, according to a spokesman).

Diebold is now lobbying state officials to require each county to use its machines, to be paid for, at least in part, with the money appropriated by congress to modernise the system. By November, millions of voters will go to the polls to cast ballots on Diebold machines that can be easily tampered with to produce a desired result.

Things used to be so much more straightforward than this. In an election in the 1980s, the incumbent mayor of Jersey City, an old industrial centre in northern New Jersey, feared that he had lost the support of his most elderly constituents. Many of them lived in city-owned apartment towers. On election morning workers removed the control panels of the lifts "for routine maintenance".

His opponent rounded up weight lifters from nearby gyms to carry voters down the stairs to vote and then haul them back up. The challenger won.

The electronic voting story may be nothing more than a case of engineering incompetence blended with corporate greed living alongside political expediency. On the other hand, it may be more sinister. "Those who cast the votes decide nothing," said Josef Stalin. "Those who count the votes decide everything."

posted by Rei Toei @ 5:48 p.m.

Why they had to crush Aristide

Haiti's elected leader was regarded as a threat by France and the US

Peter Hallward
Tuesday March 2, 2004
The Guardian

Jean-Bertrand Aristide was re-elected president of Haiti in November 2000 with more than 90% of the vote. He was elected by people who approved his courageous dissolution, in 1995, of the armed forces that had long terrorised Haiti and had overthrown his first administration. He was elected by people who supported his tentative efforts, made with virtually no resources or revenue, to invest in education and health. He was elected by people who shared his determination, in the face of crippling US opposition, to improve the conditions of the most poorly paid workers in the western hemisphere.

Aristide was forced from office on Sunday by people who have little in common except their opposition to his progressive policies and their refusal of the democratic process. With the enthusiastic backing of Haiti's former colonial master, a leader elected with overwhelming popular support has been driven from office by a loose association of convicted human rights abusers, seditious former army officers and pro-American business leaders.

It's obvious that Aristide's expulsion offered Jacques Chirac a long-awaited chance to restore relations with an American administration he dared to oppose over the attack on Iraq. It's even more obvious that the characterisation of Aristide as yet another crazed idealist corrupted by absolute power sits perfectly with the political vision championed by George Bush, and that the Haitian leader's downfall should open the door to a yet more ruthless exploitation of Latin American labour.

If you've been reading the mainstream press over the past few weeks, you'll know that this peculiar version of events has been carefully prepared by repeated accusations that Aristide rigged fraudulent elections in 2000; unleashed violent militias against his political opponents; and brought Haiti's economy to the point of collapse and its people to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe.

But look a little harder at those elections. An exhaustive and convincing report by the International Coalition of Independent Observers concluded that "fair and peaceful elections were held" in 2000, and by the standard of the presidential elections held in the US that same year they were positively exemplary.

Why then were they characterised as "flawed" by the Organisation of American States (OAS)? It was because, after Aristide's Lavalas party had won 16 out of 17 senate seats, the OAS contested the methodology used to calculate the voting percentages. Curiously, neither the US nor the OAS judged this methodology problematic in the run-up to the elections.

However, in the wake of the Lavalas victories, it was suddenly important enough to justify driving the country towards economic collapse. Bill Clinton invoked the OAS accusation to justify the crippling economic embargo against Haiti that persists to this day, and which effectively blocks the payment of about $500m in international aid.

But what about the gangs of Aristide supporters running riot in Port-au-Prince? No doubt Aristide bears some responsibility for the dozen reported deaths over the last 48 hours. But given that his supporters have no army to protect them, and given that the police force serving the entire country is just a tenth of the force that patrols New York city, it's worth remembering that this figure is a small fraction of the number killed by the rebels in recent weeks.

One of the reasons why Aristide has been consistently vilified in the press is that the Reuters and AP wire services, on which most coverage depends, rely on local media, which are all owned by Aristide's opponents. Another, more important, reason for the vilification is that Aristide never learned to pander unreservedly to foreign commercial interests. He reluctantly accepted a series of severe IMF structural adjustment plans, to the dismay of the working poor, but he refused to acquiesce in the indiscriminate privatisation of state resources, and stuck to his guns over wages, education and health.

What happened in Haiti is not that a leader who was once reasonable went mad with power; the truth is that a broadly consistent Aristide was never quite prepared to abandon all his principles.

Worst of all, he remained indelibly associated with what's left of a genuine popular movement for political and economic empowerment. For this reason alone, it was essential that he not only be forced from office but utterly discredited in the eyes of his people and the world. As Noam Chomsky has said, the "threat of a good example" solicits measures of retaliation that bear no relation to the strategic or economic importance of the country in question. This is why the leaders of the world have joined together to crush a democracy in the name of democracy.

· Peter Hallward teaches French at King's College London and is the author of Absolutely Postcolonial

peter.hallward@kcl.ac.uk

posted by Rei Toei @ 2:19 p.m.