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NOLA Watch: Gulf Stream Fails the Smell Test
July 14, 2008
Last Wednesday, on Capitol Hill, at a hearing packed with reporters, photographers, constituents, and industry reps, Representative Peter Welch (D-VT) zeroed in on a key moment in April 2006 that contradicted the testimony of Jim Shea, CEO of Gulf Stream.
Shea's company was paid $500 million to supply the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with 50,000 trailers housing displaced persons in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Residents in some trailers would later complain of health problems including bloody noses, burning eyes, acute respiratory illnesses, and even miscarriages – as Amanda Spake reported in The Nation months before most in the mainstream media paid attention to this scandal. Shea testified that his company did nothing to hide any pertinent information about health issues associated with Gulf Stream trailers.
Yet in April 2006, as CNN prepared to air a story on elevated formaldehyde levels found in the trailers, Gulf Stream sent a statement to the network which Rep. Welch read aloud at the hearing: "We are not aware of any complaints of illness from our many customers of… travel trailers over the years, including travel trailers provided under our contracts with FEMA." Rep. Welch asked Shea, "Did your company make that statement?"
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Our Warrantless Wiretapping Lawsuit
July 10, 2008
This afternoon, President Bush signed the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, a piece of legislation that will needlessly expand the government's ability to spy on Americans and ensure that the country never learns the full extent of Bush's unlawful wiretapping. There were many good Senators who showed courage in standing up to the White House and for the Constitution, but not enough.
A few hours after Bush's signing, The Nation joined with the ACLU in a lawsuit filed in the US District Court (Southern District) of New York challenging the constitutionality of the Act. The Nation is suing on behalf of itself, our staff and two of our contributing writers--Chris Hedges and Naomi Klein. The defendants are the Attorney General of the United States, Michael Mukasey; John M. "Mike" McConnell, Director of National Intelligence; and Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, Director of the National Security Agency and Chief of the Security Service. We filed suit along with a coalition of other plaintiffs including Amnesty International USA, Human Rights Watch, Global Fund for Women, PEN American Center, Washington Office on Latin America, Service Employees International Union and several private attorneys.
Why are we joining this lawsuit?
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Iraq Reconstruction Corruption, Part 7
July 7, 2008
In January, Staff Sgt. Ryan Maseth, a Green Beret, was electrocuted when he stepped into a shower at his barracks in Baghdad. He wasn't the first. In all, 13 Americans have died from electrocution in Iraq, including 10 in the Army, a Marine, and two contractors. James Risen of the New York Times reports, "In addition to those killed, many more service members have received painful shocks," according to Army officials. The Pentagon has now ordered the inspection of all buildings maintained by KBR.
In the last few years, I've looked at what I call Iraq Reconstruction Corruption, and though this won't surprise, KBR – known until last year as Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root – emerged as one of the most egregious profiteers at the expense of taxpayers and the soldiers they were paid billions of dollars to serve.
I've reported on the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) questioning hundreds of millions of dollars in charges by the company; KBR's attempt to cover-up tainted water it provided troops that a Halliburton water expert called a "near miss" that could have "result[ed] in mass sickness or death"; KBR providing water used by soldiers to bathe and brush their teeth that contained coliform and E. coli bacteria and led to an outbreak of bacterial infections; and now, tragically, it seems shoddy electrical work – and a failure to make repairs despite complaints – has resulted in the death of at least one soldier due to electrocution.
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To Israel, via J Street
July 1, 2008
For too long now, when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other issues of war and peace in the Middle East, the mainstream media and too many politicians in the US have deferred to the most extreme right-wing positions represented by organizations such as The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Christian Zionist communities.
In fact, there is a far more open and dynamic debate about the peace process in Israel than in the US. (For example, over 64 percent of Israelis favor direct talks with Hamas.) But a new lobby organization and PAC – J Street – aims to end the right-wing monopoly and give voice to the substantial number of Jewish and non-Jewish Americans with more moderate views on these issues.
Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami told me last week, "The important thing is that there's a diversity of opinion in the American Jewish community. There's no monolithic view… there's an argument. And that's what J Street's about – it's about the fact that we deserve representation too in this debate. We understand that there are a substantial number of American Jews who hold very right-wing positions when it comes to Israel and they should have a voice in the public policy process. But there's also a very substantial number of American Jews who hold very moderate views on Israel and they also need a voice, and we should have that argument just like we do on any other public policy issue without resorting to name-calling, without labeling one side antisemitic or self-hating Jews and all of that. We should discuss the merits."
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Iran, Fearmongering & Election '08
June 30, 2008
The essential and not surprising reality of 2008: The Republicans are desperate for a national security threat to rally their base. How else to explain McCain's uber-adviser/ lobbyist/ Charlie Black's "slip" about how a terrorist attack will help his candidate's failing fortunes.
Now we have Sy Hersh, the reporter who has done more, singlehandedly, to expose the Administration's drive to war--with Iran--than any congressional committee.
Last December, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) found that Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Barack Obama claimed that the NIE's findings vindicated his calls for greater engagement with Iran. "By reporting that Iran halted its nuclear weapon development program four years ago because of international pressure, the new National Intelligence Estimate makes a compelling case for less saber-rattling and more direct diplomacy." Then Presidential candidate John Edwards used the strongest language: "The new National Intelligence Estimate shows that George Bush and Dick Cheney's rush to war with Iran is, in fact, a rush to war."
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A New Solidarity
June 24, 2008
On June 22, international opposition to a US-proposed missile defense system based in the Czech Republic and Poland ratcheted up as thousands of people around the world participated in a 24-hour hunger strike.
This action comes on the heels of a three-week hunger strike by two Czech peace activists, Jan Tamas and Jan Bednar, followed by a "chain hunger strike" that began on June 2 and continues today with Czech politicians, journalists, actors, dissidents of the former regime, athletes, intellectuals, and singers fasting for 24 to 48 hours. The people want a national referendum on the issue and an end to negotiations that subverts the will of the people.
I've written in the past of the folly and popular opposition to the missile defense scam. The Bush Administration – as Ploughshares Fund President Joseph Cirincione described to me – is "rushing to deploy a technology that does not work against a threat that does not exist."
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Jim Webb Tackles Our Tangled Drug Policy
June 20, 2008
Yesterday Senator Jim Webb--who seems to be on many people's shortlist as a possible running mate for Senator Barack Obama--chaired the Joint Economic Committee's hearing on "Illegal Drugs: Economic Impact, Societal Costs, Policy Reponses". It was the second hearing on drug policy that Senator Webb has convened, the first focused on the steep increase in the US prison population.
In his two years in Congress, Senator Webb has established himself as a leader in fighting for economic populism, an end to the War in Iraq and a new GI Bill. Yesterday we saw that his interest in revamping our approach to drug policy is strong as well.
In his opening statement Senator Webb noted that we have 5 percent of the world's population and 20 percent of the world's prison population--"either we have the most evil people in the world or we are doing something wrong with the way we handle our criminal justice system, and I choose the latter. The central role of drug policy in filling our nation's prisons makes clear that our approach to curbing illegal drug use is broken."
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Progressive Book Lovers of the World, Unite!
June 16, 2008
Interested in joining the Progressive Book Club? Find out more here.
"Books have always played a pivotal role in our nation's history, changing America in remarkable ways. Imagine the American Revolution without Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Where would the abolitionist movement have been without Uncle Tom's Cabin? How would the social reforms of the Progressive Era ever have been enacted without Upton Sinclair's The Jungle? What would be the condition of the natural environment today if Rachel Carson's Silent Spring had never been published?"
This strong articulation of the power of books--and the ideas they bring to our politics and culture--comes from the mission statement for the newest organization in the progressive firmament, the Progressive Book Club (PBC). At this defining moment in our nation's history--a time which demands we examine complex issues from new perspectives, ask tough questions and press for real change--it's very good news that a venture like PBC, dedicated, like The Nation, to enriching our political and cultural conversation and debate, launches today.
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One Simple Question
June 13, 2008
It started with one simple question posed by Senator Bernie Sanders to his constituents in an invitation to a town meeting: what does the decline of the middle class mean to you personally?
Over 700 people replied.
A second question was asked in his e-newsletter, The Bernie Buzz: do you have a story to tell about how gas prices are affecting you?
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Taking On Inequality
June 6, 2008
In December, I wrote about Robert Greenwald's attempt to mobilize outrage against Gilded Age-like inequality and the hedge-funders with his War on Greed series of short films. Now, another creative effort is being led by the Service Employees International Union, with July 17 protests scheduled in 100 cities in twenty-five countries.
Stephen Lerner, the director of the SEIU's private equity project, told the New York Times, "We think the buyout industry and the way it operates are systematic of what's wrong in this economy. We want to make them responsible corporate citizens."
The SEIU is focused on the Carlyle Group and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and how they game the system to take over companies with little of their own money, lay off workers, reap the profits when they resell, and pay a lower tax rate than their own secretaries do.
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Editor's Cut
Thoughts on politics, reporting on events, riffs and reflections on what’s in the news and what’s not--but should be.
