Health Care: California Takes a Positive Step

Under the Radar

ADMINISTRATION — SNOW FALSELY CLAIMS BUSH SAID ‘JUST THE OPPOSITE’ OF ‘MISSION ACCOMPLISHED’: In yesterday’s press briefing, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow tried to distance President Bush from his infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech, claiming that Bush said “just the opposite” of “Mission Accomplished”: “You know that the mission accomplished banner was put up by members of the USS Abraham Lincoln, and the president, on that very speech, said just the opposite, didn’t he?” But for that May 1, 2003 speech, Bush stood in front of a large banner that read, “Mission Accomplished.” In the opening of his speech, he declared, “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.” He called the “battle of Iraq” a “victory” In his radio address shortly after the speech, he boasted, “I delivered good news to the men and women who fought in the cause of freedom: their mission is complete and major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” Additionally, as Bob Woodward reported in October, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had to pressure the White House to take out of the speech the actual phrase “Mission Accomplished,” but he couldn’t “get the sign down.” In Oct. 2003, then-White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan admitted that the White House — not members of USS Lincoln — had “take[n] care of the production of the banner.”

MEDIA — ABC/DISNEY SHUTS DOWN BLOGGER WHO HIGHLIGHTED INFLAMMATORY RHETORIC ON ABC STATION: For several months, a blogger nicknamed “Spocko” has been highlighting the inflammatory rhetoric used by talk radio hosts on KSFO, an ABC Radio-owned station in San Francisco. As Media Matters documents, “Spocko compiled a litany of examples on both his weblog, Spocko’s Brain, and in numerous letters to corporations advertising on KSFO. He noted that KSFO hosts had claimed to have put ‘a bull’s-eye’ on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), advocated hanging various New York Times editors, called for the murder of millions of Muslims, and so on.” (Listen to several specific examples HERE and HERE.) Major advertisers, including MasterCard, Bank of America, and Visa, reportedly pulled their ads from the station. In response, “on December 21, ABC Inc., a subsidiary of the Disney-ABC Television Group, apparently issued a cease-and-desist letter targeting Spocko and his blog for copyright violation. Specifically, ABC alleged that by posting brief audio clips of various talk radio hosts on KSFO, the site was ‘in clear violation’ of the station’s copyright. The letter demanded that the owner of the site ‘remove the content immediately.’ Soon after, according to Spocko, his Internet service provider shut down his blog.” The major media has yet to report on this story. In related news, ABC News announced this week that right-wing talk show host Glenn Beck will soon join Good Morning America as a “regular commentator.” Beck has a history of inflammatory and offensive remarks. During an interview with Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), Beck said “what I feel like saying is, ‘Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.'” On another occasion, Beck said that if “Muslims and Arabs” don’t “act now” by “step[ping] to the plate” to condemn terrorism, they “will be looking through a razor wire fence at the West.“

ADMINISTRATION — MULTIPLE BUSH NOMINEES WITHDRAWN IN ‘CONCESSION TO POLITICAL REALITY’: “In an apparent effort to lower the temperature in the fierce battle over federal judges — and in a concession to political reality,” President Bush “won’t rename four controversial federal appeals court nominees whose confirmations were blocked last year.” “William Haynes, William G. Myers III and Michael Wallace all asked to have their appointments withdrawn, these officials said. Judge Terrence Boyle was informed of the White House’s decision.” “Haynes is the Pentagon’s top lawyer, and was an architect of the Bush’s now-abandoned policy toward treatment of detainees… He had been tapped for the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.” “Myers, nominated to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, sparked opposition from environmentalist organizations.” Wallace drew opposition from “civil rights groups and the American Bar Association.” Boyle’s nomination to the 4th Circuit drew opposition because of “his rulings in civil rights and disability cases, as well as his higher-than-average reversal rate by higher courts.” In addition, Kenneth Tomlinson “has told the president that he would rather write a book about his experiences than undergo another confirmation process” to become chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors.  Fox News reported. Tomlinson previously “headed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but was forced to step down from that organization after an inspector general’s report in 2005 found evidence that he had violated rules meant to insulate public television and radio from political influence.”

Think Fast

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow admitted yesterday that Congress had funding control over the Iraq war but said “the president could ultimately do what he wants.” Snow told reporters, “The President has the ability to exercise his own authority if he thinks Congress has voted the wrong way.”

“Last year was the warmest in the continental United States in the past 112 years — capping a nine-year warming streak ‘unprecedented in the historical record’ that was driven in part by the burning of fossil fuels, the government reported yesterday.”

“Democratic leaders said Tuesday that they intended to hold symbolic votes in the House and Senate on President Bush’s plan to send more troops to Baghdad,” the New York Times reports, “forcing Republicans to take a stand on the proposal and seeking to isolate the president politically over his handling of the war.”

Faculty members at Southern Methodist University, the “likely site” of Bush’s presidential library, “are raising sharp questions about the school’s identification with his presidency.” Yesterday, 150 faculty members voiced “a range of concerns, particularly on whether the school’s academic freedom and political independence might appear compromised by an association with not only the Bush library but also a museum that would accompany it.”

“Federal prosecutors have notified a former deputy secretary of the interior, J. Steven Griles, that he is a target in the public corruption investigation of Jack Abramoff’s lobbying activities.” 

“Pentagon insiders say members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have long opposed the increase in troops and are only grudgingly going along with the plan because they have been promised that the military escalation will be matched by renewed political and economic efforts in Iraq.”

“An Army private charged with the slaughter of an Iraqi family was diagnosed as a homicidal threat by a military mental health team three months before the attack.” The private was given medication and ordered to “get some sleep,” then returned to duty the next day “in the particularly violent stretch of desert in the southern Baghdad suburbs known as the ‘Triangle of Death.'”

Former senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) is now a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he “directs a program called ‘America’s Enemies,’” which will “focus on identifying, studying, and heightening awareness of the threats posed to America and the West.”

National taxpayer advocate Nina Olson told Congress yesterday to “repeal the authority it gave the Internal Revenue Service to use private debt collectors,” calling the program “inefficient, uneconomical and prone to abuse.”

And finally: Despite his “thin and slightly reedy” real voice, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) can “steal the show” when he “really sings, deepening his voice and slowing the tempo to a working-in-the-fields, sharecropper cadence.” On Monday, Kucinich sang (and spoke) to an audience at Jesse Jackson’s 10th annual Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Wall Street Project Conference.