| |  | | | GOOD NEWS The Illinois House voted Wednesday to "raise the state minimum wage by 27 percent over the next four years in a move hailed by advocates as a victory for the working poor."
STATE WATCH NEW HAMPSHIRE: "New Hampshire announced plans Wednesday to become the first state to offer the new cervical-cancer vaccine free to all girls."
CALIFORNIA: San Diego bans Wal-Mart Supercenters and other "big-box" stores.
KENTUCKY: "A change in how Kentucky helps poor parents pay for child care is forcing some parents to quit jobs, drop out of employment training or worry about losing their day-care providers."
BLOG WATCH THINK PROGRESS: Bush kneecaps Iraq Study Group: There will be no "graceful exit" from Iraq
WAKEUPWALMART: Watch the first ad in the "Hope for the Holidays" campaign, featuring Wal-Mart employees speaking out.
TAPPED: Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) hires top two economic advisers, both proponents of "the most politically radioactive ideas in economics."
DAILY GRILL "Oh, I know some fear the possibility that Iraq could break apart and fall into a civil war. I don't believe these fears are justified."
-- President Bush, 12/12/05
VERSUS
"I would call it a civil war. ... I have been using it (civil war) because I like to face the reality."
-- Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, 11/29/06 | |
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| by Judd Legum, Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney
Amanda Terkel and Payson Schwin IRAQ
An Uncivil War In June, President Bush met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and told him, "I'm impressed by the strength of your character and your desire to succeed. And I'm impressed by your strategy." In just five months, relations between Bush and Maliki have soured considerably. Maliki cancelled his originally scheduled meeting with Bush and Jordan's King Abdullah II yesterday in the face of protests from radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's supporters. The White House acknowledged that the meeting was "unlikely to produce any major announcement or development," but hoped it would "show that the President is focused intently on Iraq." Instead, the scheduled meeting highlighted how little has progressed in Iraq since the June meeting, other than an increased number of casualties, increased public disapproval, increased sectarian violence, and increased consensus that the situation in Iraq is a civil war. Sixty percent of Americans support withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq, yet there still seems to be no end in sight to the war. Bush on Tuesday vowed to not withdraw troops "until the mission is complete" and the Iraq Study Group -- which will release its findings on Dec. 6 -- is unlikely to recommend a specific timetable for redeployment. The Center for American Progress has a responsible Strategic Redeployment plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.
PUBLIC CONFIDENCE, PRIVATE DOUBTS: Publicly, the Bush administration has praised Maliki. At this morning's rescheduled meeting, Bush said Maliki is the "right guy" for Iraq and that "we're going to help him and it's in our interest to help him." National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley on Tuesday told reporters that Maliki "is doing a lot of pushing himself" and that the "unity government is doing pretty well in a very difficult situation." Privately, though, the White House is trying to shift public disapproval and criticism from Bush to the Iraqis. A classified Nov. 8 memo by Hadley said that despite "Maliki's reassuring words...the reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action." Bush is also putting pressure on Maliki to come up with a "strategy for dealing with the sectarian violence," even though Hadley admits that the White House is "not at the point where the President is going to be in a position to lay out a comprehensive plan at this point."
THE SADR FACTOR: The Bush administration tried to dismiss Maliki's cancellation of Wednesday's meeting as an inconsequential rescheduling. White House Press Secretary Tony Snow insisted it was "no snub," and White House counselor Dan Bartlett said that "it was going to be more of a social meeting anyways." But Maliki's postponement came as a group of Sadr's supporters -- 30 parliamentarians and six ministers -- boycotted their government duties to protest Maliki's meeting in Jordan with Bush. "We gave a promise last Friday that we will suspend our participation if the Prime Minister met with Bush and today [Wednesday] we are doing it as a Sadrist bloc," said Nasar al-Rubaie, the leader of Sadr's parliamentary bloc. As the U.S. occupation of Iraq has dragged on, Sadr's power and influence have increased. According to a senior U.S. intelligence official, "the militia of radical Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr has grown eightfold over the past year and now fields 40,000 to 60,000 men. That makes it more effective than the Iraqi government's army." While the Bush administration has called on Maliki to turn against Sadr, the prime minister has "found it impossible to betray his Shiite compatriot." Sadr controls the ministries of health, transportation, agriculture, tourism and antiquities, provincial affairs, and civil society, and his faction helped elect Maliki to his post.
IRAQ'S CIVIL WAR: The backdrop to Iraq's political turmoil is sectarian fighting that is now widely acknowledged as a civil war. The White House is increasingly isolated in its insistence that there is no civil war. The Los Angeles Times has been calling the situation in Iraq a "civil war" since October; NBC and the New York Times changed their policies to acknowledge the violent reality this week. While the Washington Post is refusing to call the situation a "civil war," some of its writers -- including reporter Dana Priest and columnist David Ignatius -- have said it's time to "stop the semantic games. This is a a civil war." Yesterday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said the war in Iraq "could be considered a civil war" and that if he were heading the State Department right now, he would recommend that the Bush administration adopt that language "in order to come to terms with the reality on the ground." According to a new Harris poll, 68 percent of Americans say they believe there is a civil war in Iraq, compared with just 14 percent who disagree.
NO END IN SIGHT: The White House still refuses to set a timetable for redeployment out of Iraq, despite public support for such a plan. Today, the New York Times is reporting that the Iraq Study Group's final recommendations to be released next Wednesday "will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal." Pentagon officials are developing plans to send four more battalions -- including units who have already done tours of duty in Iraq -- to Baghdad next year, where U.S. efforts to quash the rising violence have failed. Parliament voted unanimously Tuesday to keep Iraq under a state of emergency for 30 more days and U.S. military spokesman, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell told reporters Tuesday that he expects to see "'elevated levels of violence' as a result of the car bombings that killed more than 200 people in Sadr City." The Pentagon is also putting together an emergency war spending request totaling $127 billion to $150 billion, a "proposal that could be larger and broader than any since the Sept. 11 attacks." The new request -- on top of the $70 billion already appropriated for next year -- "would easily exceed the annual cost of the Vietnam War at its height." An Oct. 25 memo from Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon R. England encouraged the military services to exploit the budget process and "include a greater number of expenses more loosely tied to the actual wars, such as new military weapons systems and training exercises." Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project, noted, "The England memo basically said, 'Let her rip.' Anything goes, as long as you can put it under the pretext of not only Iraq or Afghanistan but the global war on terror." Under the Radar GLOBAL WARMING -- OVER 10,000 EPA EMPLOYEES DEMANDS CONGRESSIONAL ACTION ON GLOBAL WARMING: The coalition of labor unions representing over 10,000 engineers, scientists, and specialists at the Environmental Protection Agency has released a letter protesting "the lack of progress at addressing global warming," specifically citing the inadequacy of voluntary and incentives based programs at reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Bucking current Bush administration policies, the coalition called on Congress to "support a vigorous program of regulating carbon and other GHG emissions in line with the principles of the Kyoto Protocol." Increasingly frustrated with the Bush administration's shameless politicization and suppression of global warming science, the letter urges Congress to "provide oversight of U.S. EPA’s GHG emissions programs in order to allow Agency scientists and engineers to speak frankly and directly with lawmakers and the public regarding climate change without fear of reprisal." In another challenge to Bush's lackluster global warming record, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency yesterday, which will determine whether the Bush EPA neglected its responsibilities when it decided not to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.
MEDIA -- ANTI-MUSLIM HYSTERIA SPIKES IN THE MEDIA: Anti-Muslim hysteria has flared up in the media recently. On Tuesday, ABC's Diane Sawyer "hosted Glenn Beck on Good Morning America for a discussion of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Turkey and the pope's recent comments on Islam." Media Matters notes, "Sawyer identified Beck only as a 'television and talk-radio host...who has said it's time for the world to stop buckling to the pressure of radical Islam.' She did not note that Beck is a self-identified conservative who has a history of making derogatory statements about Islam and Muslims." Most recently, Beck asked Rep.-elect Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, "Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies." Also on Tuesday, Fox News anchor Steve Doocy claimed that Islam has "turned violent" and "essentially proved" the controversial comments made by Pope Benedict XVI, for which the Pope later apologized. Doocy's comment echoes evangelist Pat Robertson's assertion following the Pope's attempt to address tensions over his remarks in September: "Muslims deal with history and the truth with violence. They don't understand what reasoned dialogue is." Also this week, Rush Limbaugh said his response to current instability in the Middle East was, "Fine, just blow the place up. ... Let's just have the civil wars and let the crumbs crumble and the cookie crumble where -- because I'm fed up with this." Meanwhile, radio host Michael Savage called for lawmakers to institute "an outright ban on Muslim immigration" and on "the construction of mosques." Savage has previously referred to Arabs as "non-humans" and "racist, fascist bigots," and he has claimed that there's no difference between "radical Islam and the rest of Islam over there."
CONSUMER DEBT -- OVERSIGHT OF CREDIT CARD INDUSTRY REMAINS DANGEROUSLY LAX: One and a half billion credit cards are in circulation in the U.S. today, five for every man, woman, and child. As of 2004, the average credit card balance in America was $8,000 and the median balance was $2,200. Thirty-five million people can only afford to make the minimum payment every month, which means it could take years for them to pay off their debt, and the total amount in fees and interest Americans pay each year is about $90 billion. Yet it is "difficult to think of a product as commonplace in terms of use, yet so lightly regulated, as the credit card," according to Center for American Progress senior analyst Derek Douglas. The Government Accountability Office recently found that while credit card issuers "must disclose information intended to help consumers compare card costs, disclosures by the largest issuers have various weaknesses that reduced consumers’ ability to use and understand them." To "more effectively influence the behavior of credit card companies," Douglas recommends that "an incentive-based system of disclosure - one that relies on the profit-seeking interest of companies to change their behavior - be added to the current credit card disclosure regime." "A system for credit cards could be modeled" on the federal government's New Car Assessment Program, perhaps using a less detailed red-yellow-green formulation instead of the five-star crash rating system."
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Think Fast The Iraq Study Group “reached a consensus on Wednesday on a final report that will call for a gradual pullback of the 15 American combat brigades now in Iraq but stop short of setting a firm timetable for their withdrawal.” The “implicit message” of the report is that the pullback process “should begin sometime next year.” “Troposphere, whatever. I told you before I’m not a scientist,” Justice Antonin Scalia said yesterday after a lawyer corrected a misstatement. “That’s why I don’t want to have to deal with global warming, to tell you the truth.” Senior State Department analyst Kendall Myers called Tony Blair’s relationship with President Bush “totally one-sided.” Myers said that “we typically ignore them and take no notice -- it’s a sad business,” and he admitted feeling “a little ashamed” of the way Bush has treated Blair. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) has decided to divest “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in his own mutual funds from “companies that do business with Sudan.” “With so many lives at stake, we should do all we can to stop this genocide, both as individuals and as a community,” Brownback said. Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), whose tenure as chairman of Senate intelligence since 2002 led his panel to be nicknamed the Senate Cover-Up Committee, “may be looking for an exit” from the committee. 7 million: The number of people -- one in every 32 American adults -- that were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, a new record. A federal judge ruled yesterday that “FEMA has to restore housing assistance and pay back rent to thousands of Hurricane Katrina evacuees who had been deemed ineligible for long-term housing assistance.” FEMA also must “improve an appeals process that evacuees had long said was confusing, contradictory and amounted to an arbitrary denial of help.” Former insurance mogul Maurice Greenberg, who is making a long-shot bid to buy the New York Times, is a “friend of Henry Kissinger, once mentioned as a Reagan appointee to help run the CIA,” and a major donor to conservative causes. A Halliburton subsidiary agreed to pay the federal government $8 million to resolve accusations of overbilling related to the firm’s work for the Army in the Balkans, the Justice Department said yesterday. The company said in a written statement that it “was ‘pleased’ with the resolution.” And finally: Global warming gets even hotter. During an appearance last night on the Tonight Show, Al Gore discussed the special features that the DVD of his global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth will contain. “Gore joked that it included an uncensored version called ‘Global Warming Gone Wild,’ including ‘hot glacier on glacier action.’”
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