United States News Digest
No Agreement on Intelligence Reform Bill
House Intelligence Committee chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich) told reporters, during a conference call briefing Oct. 29, that "progress has been slow," and "we've not reached agreement" on the intelligence reform bill currently in negotiation between the House and the Senate. While the main issue is the authority of the National Intelligence Director to be established by the bill, Hoekstra indicated that other issues, including the police-state provisions in the House bill, are also holding things up. Neither Hoekstra, nor anyone else participating, including Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif), Senate Governmental Affairs Committee chairman Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn), could guarantee that there would even be an agreement in time for the post-election lame-duck session, although they were all hopeful that it could be done by then.
Hoekstra reported that the House GOP negotiators were to present a proposal to the Senate that afternoon, which was to include proposals by House Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc) to drop some of the police-state provisions, including those on the expedited removal of aliens, a cap on grants of asylum, and the death penalty for terrorist acts that result in death.
Declassifying the intelligence budget is another area of disagreement. Harman said that the conference had reached an impasse on that issue some days ago. Collins said that her goal is to give the NID "true budget execution" over the entire intelligence budget and that there's "a lot of ways to get at that." Collins also said that she's pessimistic a bill can be done next year, if the conference can't reach an agreement this year.
Bush Nailed for Policies that Promote Abortion
Glen Harold Stassen, of the Fuller Theological Seminary, showed, in an Oct. 17 Houston Chronicle op-ed, that the Bush Administration's economic policies are responsible for the rise in abortion rates during his Presidency, from a 24-year low at the time that George W. Bush came into the White House.
Federal abortion statistics only go to 2000, and some states do not report, but Stassen and co-author Gary Krane got data for 16 states from Minnesota Citizens for Life, which uses the Guttmacher Institute's studies. Extrapolated for the nation, they project, for example (in an Internet exchange after publication of the op-ed), an increase in abortions for 2002, of 21,500, instead of a decrease of 28,000 expected from the steady downward trend of the preceding years.
But the core argument is not statistical: "Two-thirds of women who have abortions cite 'inability to afford a child' as their primary reason. Under the Bush Presidency, unemployment rates increased half again. Not since Herbert Hoover had there been a net loss of jobs during a Presidency.... Average real incomes decreased, and for seven years the minimum wage has not been raised to match inflation.... Half of all women who abort say they do not have a reliable mate. And men who are jobless usually do not marry.... As male unemployment increases, marriages fall and abortion rises.
"Economic policy and abortion ... form one moral imperative. Rhetoric is hollow, mere tinkling brass, without health care, insurance, jobs, child care, and a living wage.... [W]e need a president who will do something" on these fronts.
Stassen is an initiator of the theologians' attack on Bush's "theology of war." His dad, Republican Governor of Minnesota Harold Stassen, who several times sought the GOP nomination for President, joined Martin Luther King, Jr. in the 1963 March on Washington.
Ex-Clinton Official: Bush Revitalized al-Qaeda
The former director for counterterrorism on the National Security staff under President Clinton, Daniel Benjamin, in an article in the Oct. 27 New York Times, points out that under President Bush, terrorists have been reinvigorated. After surfing the websites run by various jihadi groups, Benjamin says that al-Qaeda was definitely demoralized following the invasion of Afghanistan by U.S. troops in the winter of 2001. But now, what comes across loud and clear, is that al-Qaeda is convinced that the United States is bogged down in two placesAfghanistan and Iraq. Al-Qaeda is of the view that the United States has left fighting in both these countries, and is now "merely trying to 'prove their presence.'"
The op-ed also points out a genuine shift among the Pakistani jihadis such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). LeT was set up by the Pakistani ISI (intelligence services) to intervene in the Indian part of Jammu and Kashmir. Their websites make that clear. But now, following the mess in Iraq, the LeT is urging jihadis to go to Iraq to take revenge of the Abu Ghraib torture and "rape of Iraqi women by the Americans." LeT is also reporting 8,000 jihadis organizing to get into Iraq.
Feinstein Blasts Bunker-Buster Bombs
Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif) slammed the Bush Administration over its policy to develop new "bunker buster" nuclear bombs, as "leading the U.S. down a dangerous path," in an Oct. 26 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. The Bush Administration, she wrote, would "make our nation, and our allies less secure, not more, if the U.S. opens the door to the development, testing, and deployment of new tactical nuclear weapons."
Unprecedented Voter Registration Increases in 2004
The Moving America Forward Foundation (MAFF), founded by Gov. Bill Richardson (D) of New Mexico, has registered about 150,000 new Native Indian and Hispanic voters in the battleground states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and New Mexico, the Washington Times reported on Oct. 26. MAFF got about $20,000 from the Howard Heinz Endowment, chaired by Teresa Heinz Kerry. According to Richardson, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada are key to a Kerry win.
An even more dramatic increase is seen in the registration of immigrants to the U.S., who have become citizens since 2000. An SEIU (Service Employees International Union) spokesman reported at an Oct. 20 National Press Club press conference, that 2 million people have become citizens and registered to vote since the 2000 electionnew "immigrant voters," who are never polled but who, he says, could be "a wildcard in this election."
Many live in closely contested states like Florida, Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada.
The Washington Times story on this adds: "Using U.S. Census data from the 1996 and 2000 election years, Rob Paral, a research fellow at the American Immigration Law Foundation, found that 10.7 million adults became U.S. citizens during the past 10 years. Of that figure, 6.2 million registered to voteaccounting for more than half of the net growth in persons registered to vote between 1996 and 2000. The data also showed that 5.4 million of those registered actually voted." Thus, "although a smaller percentage of new citizens register to vote, those who have done so are actually more likely to vote on election day than their native counterparts." This is not just Hispanics; mention is made of the Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote) 2004.
USA Today, in an Oct. 25 cover story, showed that there is a increase in registrations in every age group, as well. The most noticeable growth, however, is in the age group 18-29, where 79% are registered. In 2000, some 62% were registered. Also, in the 30-49 age group, the percentage of registration went up from 78 to 90%.
The survey concluded by saying that, among people who have some college education, but are not degree holders, 62% of those who did not vote in 2000 said they would vote this year. Among the African-Americans, a group targetted by the Democrats, 61% of those who did not vote in 2000 are highly motivated to vote this year. Among the veterans, 59% of those who did not vote last time, indicate they would vote this time.
Bush To Seek More Iraq War Funding
President Bush will seek $70 billion more to fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the Washington Post reported Oct. 26. According to a number of Congressional, Pentagon, and White House officials interviewed by the Post, by early next year, Bush will seek $70 billion in additional war funding from Congress, if he is reelected. Already, Pentagon officials are scrambling to come up with the supplemental request, which is to be finalized shortly after the Nov. 2 election. This $70-billion supplement to the $25 billion and $87 billion that Congress approved in the past year, brings the "official" cost of the Iraq and Afghan military operations to date to $225 billion.
U.S. Tries To Provoke Europe/China Political Conflict
Determined to provoke (at least) one more international diplomatic incident before exiting the White House, the Bush Administration's Undersecretary of the Air Force Peter Teets wrote in a report last August, just leaked to Britain's The Business weekly, that the U.S. could attack Europe's planned Galileo navigational satellite constellation, if some nation, such as China, were to use its access to the data from Galileo for hostile action against the United States. In addition to China, Russia and Israel are contributing to, and will have access to, the Galileo data. The 30-satellite constellation is scheduled to be operational in 2008. It is in direct competition with America's Global Positioning System, and has been under political attack by the U.S. from its inception.
But unlike GPS, which was developed by the U.S. military, and can be preemptively shut off to civilian users should "national security" warrant it, the Europeans replied that Galileo, which will also undoubtedly be used for military intelligence, will not be turned off, or its signals jammed, even if used in a war with the United States. Two days after the article appeared, China described as "absurd" the idea that its satellite cooperation with Europe would be used for military purposes.
More to the point, it is precisely because the U.S. has refused to share, even with is "allies," navigational and other satellite-based information, that France, Europe, and Japan are launching their own satellite systems for reconnaissance and intelligence. Reportedly, the Europeans took "calmly," the threat to blow up their satellites.
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