Iran: Time for Talks Now

Under the Radar

MIDDLE EAST — REP. BACHMANN RETRACTS CLAIM THAT SHE KNOWS OF SECRET IRAQ PARTITION PLAN: In an interview earlier this month, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) claimed that she knew of a secret plan by Iran to partition Iraq and turn half of the country into a “terrorist safe haven zone” called the “Iraq State of Islam.” Bachmann, who famously clung on to President Bush at the State of the Union, claimed there was “already an agreement made,” but she “did not say how she knew about this plan, nor with whom Iran has made this deal.” (Listen to Bachmann’s comments.) After a local paper picked up on her remarks, Bachmann said in a statement that coverage of her Iran comments had been “misconstrued.” Bachmann claimed she was actually talking about widely-discussed plans to partition Iraq among the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds, and her fear that Iran would overtake the Shiite region. On Feb. 9, Bachmann had said: “There’s already an agreement made” by Iran and some other unspecified party to create an Iranian-controlled zone in which terrorism would flourish. The new statement replaced that with: “It is difficult to ascertain Iran’s intentions towards Iraq.” Bachmann is no stranger to conspiracy theories. She continues to insist that there is a link between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Iraq, despite the 9/11 Commission’s conclusion that there was “no credible evidence” of any connection.

HEALTH CARE — GOVERNORS PROTEST BUSH’S CUTS IN CHILDREN’S HEALTH CARE: Governors in Washington, D.C. for the National Governors Association winter conference “appealed yesterday for the Bush administration and Congress to provide more money for a health-care program that insures millions of children,” the Washington Post reports today. The program is responsible for providing health coverage to those families who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid, but are unable to afford insurance. “Coverage for 6 million people, overwhelmingly children,” is at risk unless the federal government appropriates an estimated $745 million dollars to “keep the program afloat through October.” Governors also requested changes to the President’s proposed budget. As the Center for American Progress notes, “Since 2000, 6.8 million people have lost health coverage, but SCHIP and Medicaid ensured that the proportion of low-income children without health insurance actually declined during this period, from 20 percent in 2000 to 14 percent in 2005.” Bush’s 2008 budget would reverse this positive trend. He has proposed slashing the programs by at least $77 billion over the next five years, and $280 billion over the next ten. While the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) would receive $5 billion more in funding over five years, in reality, its funding is being cut. The Congressional Research Service estimates that “$15 billion would be needed to cover everyone who now receives benefits.”

SCIENCE — ADULT STEM CELL STUDY CITED BY CONSERVATIVES CONTAINED FLAWED METHODS AND RESULTS: A panel of scientists from the University of Minnesota has found that “a 2002 study that suggested adult stem cells might be as useful as embryonic ones was flawed and its conclusions may be wrong.” The original paper, by Catherine Verfaillie of the University of Minnesota and published in the journal Nature, concluded that adult stem cells taken from mice bone marrow could regenerate into a variety of tissue, including heart, brain, lung, and liver tissue. According to the panel, the process used by Verfaillie was “significantly flawed, and…the interpretations based on these data, expressed in the manuscript, are potentially incorrect.” Additionally, other researchers have been unable to duplicate Verfaillie’s results, a scientific litmus test for any study. The scientific establishment has long known that adult stem cells are inferior to their embryonic counterparts, but Bush administration officials have often falsely claimed otherwise to justify their opposition to embryonic stem cell research. Last year, senior Bush aide Karl Rove claimed that “recent studies” show that researchers”have far more promise from adult stem cells than from embryonic stem cells.” Subsequently, the White House “could not provide the name of a stem cell researcher who shares Rove’s views on the superior promise of adult stem cells.”

Think Fast

President Bush has sent “an unusually tough message to one of his most important allies,” Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. But the “tough message” is about what others will do: Bush has warned “that the newly Democratic Congress could cut aid to his country unless his forces become far more aggressive in hunting down operatives with Al Qaeda.”

200,000: Number of U.S. veterans who are homeless, including approximately 500-1,000 who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Senate will begin debate today on a binding resolution to rescind the 2002 Iraq resolution granting Bush war authority. Bob Novak reports that Sens. Norm Coleman (R-MN) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) will oppose the resolution, while Gordon Smith (R-OR) indicated he might favor it.

“Exotic animals,” such as “spindly orange sea stars” and “roving sea cucumbers,” have been “spied off the Antarctic coast in an area formerly covered by ice,” which has disappeared from global warming. “Since 1974, 5,213 square miles of ice shelves have disintegrated in the Antarctic Peninsula.”

Escalation update: “U.S. troops, Iraqi soldiers and officials, and Baghdad residents say the plan is hampered because security forces cannot identify, let alone apprehend, the elusive perpetrators of the violence. … ‘I don’t know who I’m fighting most of the time,’ said Staff Sgt. Joseph Lopez.'”

Lawmakers have continued to take trips paid for by outside groups since the House voted last month to restrict who can pay for such travel. “House travel records show that 19 members since Jan. 5 have accepted airfare, meals and lodging from special interests, including groups that employ lobbyists.”

Governors in Washington at the National Governors Association meeting warned that President Bush’s escalation in Iraq will put an unbearable burden on an already overstretched Guard and Reserve. “Currently, we don’t have the manpower or the equipment to perform that dual role” of responding to both state and federal needs, said Gov. Michael F. Easley (D-NC).

“The Rev. Al Sharpton, the prominent civil rights activist, is descended from a slave owned by relatives of the late senator and one-time segregationist Strom Thurmond, a genealogical study released Sunday reported.” Sharpton said the news was “probably the most shocking thing of my life.”

TXU Corp., Texas’s largest electricity producer, has agreed to be sold to a group of private-equity firms in what could be the largest private buyout in U.S. corporate history. Environmentalists are hailing the buyout, since the prospective new owners say they will cancel eight of 11 proposed coal plants and back national legislation for mandatory reduction in global warming pollution.

And finally: Nuts over “truck nutz.” A Maryland lawmaker has proposed legislation to ban the “outsized plastic testicles that truckers dangle from the trailer hitches of their pickups.” Said delegate LeRoy E. Myers, “I think it’s a pretty serious problem. You have body parts hanging from the hitches of cars. We’ve crossed a line.” His bill would prohibit motorists from displaying anything resembling or depicting “anatomically correct” or “less than completely and opaquely covered” human or animal genitals. The offense would carry a penalty.