Day: June 8, 2005

Voice of San Diego:

In case you thought the No Child Left Behind Act was all about education, beware of tiny clauses embedded in the layers of testing and accountability legalese.

A group called Military Free Zone wants to alert the public to a little-known provision in George W. Bush’s NCLB Act that allows military recruiters to gather private contact information on all public high school students. Organizers offer tips on how to resist recruiters and how to take action against what they call an invasion of privacy.

Although slightly over the top with sinister, conspiratorial messages, the group’s Web site includes an “opt-out” form that students can fill out and turn in to their high schools. This form lets students retain their privacy rights when the military comes to call at the school.

I happened to see an old clip the other day of President Clinton facing reporters at a White House press conference during the height of the Lewinsky scandal. It was interesting to see – and to remember – the undisguised disdain that radiated from the press corps toward the president throughout the course of that scandal.

By contrast, President Bush and British Prime Minister faced a much different press corps at the news conference they held yesterday. What emanated from the men and women of the press is hard to describe. Is it fear, or a sort of Stockholm Syndrome?

But credit must be given to the reporter from Reuters who dared asked Bush a question about the Downing Street Memo. Not that he got an answer – or that there was any follow-up from him or his colleagues challenging the non-responses, which are, after all, another form of lies.

Here is what Bush and Blair said, in toto, taken from the White House transcript:

Q Thank you, sir. On Iraq, the so-called Downing Street memo from July 2002 says intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy of removing Saddam through military action. Is this an accurate reflection of what happened? Could both of you respond?

PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: Well, I can respond to that very easily. No, the facts were not being fixed in any shape or form at all. And let me remind you that that memorandum was written before we then went to the United Nations. Now, no one knows more intimately the discussions that we were conducting as two countries at the time than me. And the fact is we decided to go to the United Nations and went through that process, which resulted in the November 2002 United Nations resolution, to give a final chance to Saddam Hussein to comply with international law. He didn’t do so. And that was the reason why we had to take military action.

But all the way through that period of time, we were trying to look for a way of managing to resolve this without conflict. As it happened, we weren’t able to do that because — as I think was very clear — there was no way that Saddam Hussein was ever going to change the way that he worked, or the way that he acted.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I — you know, I read kind of the characterizations of the memo, particularly when they dropped it out in the middle of his race. I’m not sure who “they dropped it out” is, but — I’m not suggesting that you all dropped it out there. (Laughter.) And somebody said, well, you know, we had made up our mind to go to use military force to deal with Saddam. There’s nothing farther from the truth.

My conversation with the Prime Minister was, how could we do this peacefully, what could we do. And this meeting, evidently, that took place in London happened before we even went to the United Nations — or I went to the United Nations. And so it’s — look, both us of didn’t want to use our military. Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It’s the last option. The consequences of committing the military are — are very difficult. The hardest things I do as the President is to try to comfort families who’ve lost a loved one in combat. It’s the last option that the President must have — and it’s the last option I know my friend had, as well.

And so we worked hard to see if we could figure out how to do this peacefully, take a — put a united front up to Saddam Hussein, and say, the world speaks, and he ignored the world. Remember, 1441 passed the Security Council unanimously. He made the decision. And the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power.

These have to the limpest nonresponses on record. Yet Dana Bash on CNN today seemed bemused that the liberal blogs weren’t satisfied. Nobody should be satisfied with these answers, particularly those who are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to report the truth about important issues like war and terrorism.

Have you signed the Conyers letter? This is not a letter that advocates impeaching the president – that’s a bromide from the Right. It’s simply a letter that demands that President Bush explain the discrepancies between what was said in the minutes of the Blair meeting and what Bush, Cheney and the others were telling Americans about their plans to go to war.

Sign the letter: www.johnconyers.com

Public Citizen has broken a story based on a close reading of the 700-plus-page energy bill currently being debated by the Senate and other public documents. Apparently, under the bill, a consortium formed by four former Enron executives qualifies for hundreds of millions of dollars in federal loan guarantees for a $2.8 billion coal gassification facility in Wyoming.

Public Citizen’s investigation to find out who this loan would benefit narrowed the answer to just one company: Houston-based DKRW Energy. This company, named after the four Enron executives that founded it – Jon C. Doyle, Robert C. Kelly, H. David Ramm and White – formed a subsidiary, Medicine Bow Fuel & Power, to develop a $2.8 billion coal gasification project in Medicine Bow, Wyo. The DKRW facility meets all the criteria required in the legislation: The coal will be supplied from Arch Coal mines neighboring the power facility; it will stuff carbon dioxide emissions into oil wells; and the facility will be located in a western state (Wyoming) at an altitude above 4,000 feet.

Following the release of the story, Senate Energy Committee representatives contacted Public Citizen with an explanation that several other companies also qualify for funds under the bill’s provision. But since neither the names of the companies nor their projects are publicly available, Public Citizen has not been able to confirm the assertion.

The organization did note that the former Enron execs likely finagled the loan provisions because, given their track records, they were finding it difficult to secure private funding for their pork-barrel project.

It’s official. A federal court enacted a temporary restraining order to allow gay pride pride flags to fly downtown in the nation’s oldest city. (See above.)

St. Augustine Record:

Local gay pride groups have the right to fly their flags on the Bridge of Lions starting today, a district court judge ruled Tuesday. The 49 rainbow gay pride flags will fly today through June 13th on the Bridge of Lions for St. Augustine Pride’s annual event this weekend.

After three years of the City Commission denying Gays the right to fly the rainbow gay pride flag on the bridge, St. Augustine Pride Committee and others filed a suit Monday against the city, the mayor and other administrators…

U.S. District Judge Henry Lee Adams of Jacksonville, granted the temporary restraining order on Tuesday afternoon…

The City Commission had denied the flying of the pride flag on the bridge because the majority of its members voted that it did not represent a “historical landmark or event in the city,” the criteria for approval.

In his ruling, the judge said the City Commission’s argument did not apply because the city has given permits in the past for groups to fly flags on the bridge that did not have “historical significance associated with the city.” He specifically cited Flagler College, which was founded in the 1960s.

He also said the Gay Pride group would “suffer irreparable harm and loss” if they were prohibited from flying its (sic) flag during the week of the annual gay pride celebration.

City Commissioner Errol Jones said he is concerned that the judge’s ruling will open a “Pandora’s Box.”

“Tomorrow, we could get an anti-gay group wanting to fly their flag,” Jones said. “I don’t want to be expressing everyone’s personal opinion” with flags flying on the bridge. “We could end up flying flags every week. That’s not appropriate for the city or the bridge.”

I am a little conflicted on this. I do not believe the mayor and fellow commissioners are acting from homophobia. I campaigned for the mayor, one of the last Democrats in public office in these parts. He is also my neighbor and our dogs play together at the dog park. That said, I’m glad the flags are flying.

On the other hand, Randall Terry, anti-abortion terrorist and possible candidate for state senate, lives in nearby Ponte Vedra. I would prefer not to have right-to-life or similar flags flying (especially for an obnoxious publicity stunt) but, as we used to say before Bush took office, I guess it’s a free country.

I doubt this will be the end of the story locally. I have a feeling before the day is out, some marriage-is-only-for-straight-people clam diggers will be holding a protest. Expect more coverage soon.

Recruitment into the all volunteer U.S. Army has gotten so bad that even though the service revised its recruitment goals downward for May, it missed the lowered goal by 25 percent.

The New York Times is reporting that on Friday, the Army will announce that only about 5,000 new troops were recruited last month. Their original goal was 8,050 for May, but the Pentagon quietly lowered the goal to 6,000 earlier this year.

The issue hits home even to Americans who don’t read a newspaper or watch the news. Anyone with a teenaged boy in the family or among their friends knows that registering for the draft is still a requirement for every young man in the United States on his 18th birthday.

In fact, last year, the Selective Service registered 15.6 million young men between 18 and 25 years old.

As crises heat up in and around Iraq, in North Korea, Africa and around the world, the Administration faces an increasingly skeptical public when it issues its denials that a draft is in the works. When asked about the issue at a recent , Secretary of Defense gave this typical response:

“Some people are running around saying we ought to go back to the draft. …. I’ll tell you, that is one of the worst ideas I can imagine. We don’t need to draft people. We’ve got plenty of people,” he said during the April trip. “We sure as the dickens don’t need a draft.”

Shorter: Who are you going to believe, America – me or your lying eyes?