MotherJones.com | MoJoBlog - Social Issues and Political Commentary: November 12, 2006

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November 18, 2006

Americans Buying Organs of Executed Chinese

It's been widely rumoured for years, but now the Chinese government has admitted it: the organs of executed criminals are sold to people needing transplants, many of whom are Americans looking for cut-rate body parts. In fact, dead prisoners are the country's top source of harvested organs, second only to car-crash victims. At least 1,700 people were put to death last year in the People's Republic, and thousands of kidneys, livers and hearts were transplanted. Guess they've topped the US in both capital punishment and capitalist innovation.

Houston Mounted Police Run Over Protesters

Last night, nearly one thousand striking janitors met at the corner of Travis and Capitol in Houston in preparation for a protest march to Houston Police Department Headquarters on Travis Street. The four-week-old strike resulted in fourteen arrests on Wednesday, when striking janitors and union organizers chained themselve to the Chevron building in Houston. The janitors are striking in the hope of getting health benefits and a raise in wage to $8.50 an hour. The average current wage is $5.30 an hour. They also report numerous civil rights abuses and failure of management to bargain in good faith. The five main companies involved are Hines, Transwestern, Crescent, Brookfield Properties, and Chevron.

Last night's march never took place, however, because mounted Houston police officers rushed into the crowd, injuring four people. Forty-four were arrested. One of the janitors described the scene:

The horses came all of a sudden. They started jumping on top of people. I heard the women screaming. A horse stomped on top of me. I fell to the ground and hurt my arm. The horses just kept coming at us. I was terrified. I never thought the police would do something so aggressive, so violent.

One of the injured strikers was Hazel Ingram, an 83-year-old janitor from New York. Ingram was taken to the hospital for treatment of an arm injury. Several protesters report being stepped on by horses. Spectators said that the police grabbed a sign that said Stand Up For the American Dream, threw it to the ground, stomped on it, and then joined other officers in giving high-fives.

November 17, 2006

$2 B for a 700-Mile Fence or $30 B for a Faulty Virtual One?

It was $2 billion in appropriations for 700 miles of fencing that Republican Senators Jon Kyl and Jeff Sessions slipped into a Pentagon spending bill in August just before the Senate recessed. Mother Jones reported on the myriad opposition to this original bill in September. Now the program for a virtual fence, which is what the Department of Homeland Security has deemed their preferred plan, is being piloted along a 28-mile area in the Tucson Sector, where immigration is most dense. (Charles Bowden reported extensively on this desert area of Arizona in the September/October issue of Mother Jones.) But the Inspector General's office may have thrown a kink in the DHS' plan. Last Wednesday, the DHS watchdog forecasted that it could cost as much as $30 billion to create the desired virtual fence. And with a Democrat-controlled Congress, the warnings could very wll be heeded. To further add insult to injury, the Inspector General's office released this report in December of 2005, which shows that virtual technology along the border doesn't work anyway.

Oil Company Opts for Legal Hearing in San Francisco. Is Chevron Crazy?

The presiding judge in the case seems to think so. Judge William Alsup of San Francisco’s federal court, hearing arguments in a case pitting Chevron against aggrieved residents of the Ecuadorian Amazon, was perplexed why Chevron’s lawyers hadn’t asked to relocate the case to South America. "It’s a legitimate question to ask,” he recently said from the bench. Alsup was no doubt aware that Texaco (now Chevron) faced a similar case in New York in 1993 (jungle, pollution, health problems) and won a motion to send it to Ecuador. “Let me hear from ‘Big Oil,’” Alsup commanded, joking about the Big Oil part (perhaps). “Tell me why you didn’t make that motion.”

Chevron’s lawyers argued the quickest way to dispense with the case would be to press for its dismissal. SF Weekly has been reporting on the trail, and today has an insightful piece on why Chevron is tempting fate at the pink hands of SF liberals instead of the well-greased arteries of a banana republic:

The plaintiffs' lawyers cite a couple of good reasons why Chevron might be wary of sending the present case down to Ecuador. The company may be getting nervous about an ongoing case in Quito, the remnant of the case removed from the United States in the 1990s. The judge recently put the trial on the fast track, and a ruling is expected in the next year. That lawsuit demands a massive environmental remediation effort; Amazon Watch estimates it could cost $6 billion in total. Meanwhile, in New York federal court, Chevron is locked into a lawsuit with the government of Ecuador about who should pay for the cleanup or any other legal damages awarded.

With governmental relations already frayed by the litigation in New York, the company may also be wary of the anti-American, socialist sentiment on the rise throughout South America — what commentators have taken to calling the "pink tide" that has swept leftist leaders into power across the continent. "Ecuador just kicked Occidental Petroleum out, and the government is starting to make populist noises," says Terry Collingsworth, one of the plaintiffs' lawyers. "Chevron is damn nervous."

These macro forces mean little to Judge Alsup, however, as he wades through the muddy legal waters of this case that has its roots in a South American rainforest. In October, he spent a long day hearing testimony from experts flown up from Ecuador. The next day he would have to discuss how the Ecuadorian plaintiffs would be deposed, and whether they could appear for trial; there was some concern that the impoverished Indians wouldn't be able to get visas to enter the United States. It was the end of the afternoon, and the judge finally let his irritation show. "I just don't understand why a case that involves Ecuador is up here!" he burst out. "Now you want a lowly district judge in San Francisco to resolve it! It's all topsy-turvy.”

The judge sighed, resigned. "But that's what I've got to do. See you tomorrow," he said, standing up. Chevron's lawyers stayed quiet.

Before You See Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation, Richard Linklater's movie adaptation of Eric Schlosser's seemingly unadaptable muckraking book, hits theaters today. Before you dig in, whet your appetite with our recent interview with Linklater and our review of the flim. And check out this piece Schlosser wrote for MJ about slaughterhouses—America's most dangerous workplaces. Bon apetit!

Tom DeLay Adds Another Side to “Exterminator”

Tom DeLay, the former House Speaker who began his working life in the Houston suburbs exterminating ants and roaches, made his name in Congress exterminating his opposition, and exterminated himself in a cloud of ethics scandals, has wrapped up his anihilatory political career by exterminating his paper trail. DeLay’s former aides, who recently went to work for his interim Republican replacement, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, deleted unnamed (and presumably sensitive) office files this week before quitting en-masse on Tuesday. A DeLay spokesman told the Times the trashing of files and scrubbing of hard drives was standard operating procedure for congressional transfers of power. Still, Sekula-Gibbs, who is occupying the seat until Democratic victor Nick Lampson is sworn in this January, has asked Congress to investigate the file deleting. You’ve got to hand it to the Exterminator for his skill creating scandals—even as his political life is upside down and twitching.

"Stay the Course" With a Twist

President Bush visited Vietnam today for the first time during his presidency, with the primary focus of strengthening business ties with the nation. Bush's trip to the country while we are engaged in a long and drawn out occupation conjured up questions about whether there are lessons to be learned from the war in Vietnam. In response, Bush, true to form, instead touted the country's steadfast resolve to succeed:

"One lesson is, is that we tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take a while."

And, although it is hard to tell from the sliced footage of CNN that the folks over at Think Progress have, Bush, seems to continue his response, sticking to his tired guns, saying, "We'll succeed until we quit." Apparently, the big/important lesson from Vietnam seems to have slipped his mind.

Iraq Study Group a/k/a Baker Commission Outlines Four Point "Victory Strategy"; Will Likely Call for More Troops

According to an article in the Guardian, officials at the Pentagon working closely with the Iraq Study Group have leaked the key parts of the group's upcoming report. There appears to be a four point "victory strategy." Because President Bush is rumored to be taking the Iraq Study Group's recommendations very seriously, the content below may be as good an indicator of where Iraq policy is headed as we could possibly have. Worth a read. The points are:

(1) Point one of the strategy calls for an increase rather than a decrease in overall US force levels inside Iraq, possibly by as many as 20,000 soldiers.

(2) Point two of the plan stresses the importance of regional cooperation to the successful rehabilitation of Iraq. This could involve the convening of an international conference of neighbouring countries or more direct diplomatic, financial and economic involvement of US allies such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.... Yesterday, a top state department official, David Satterfield, said America was prepared in principle to discuss with Iran its activities in Iraq.

(3) Point three focuses on reviving the national reconciliation process between Shia, Sunni and other ethnic and religious parties. According to the sources, creating a credible political framework will be portrayed as crucial in persuading Iraqis and neighbouring countries alike that Iraq can become a fully functional state.... To the certain dismay of US neo-cons, initial post-invasion ideas about imposing fully-fledged western democratic standards will be set aside.

(4) Lastly, the sources said the study group recommendations will include a call for increased resources to be allocated by Congress to support additional troop deployments and fund the training and equipment of expanded Iraqi army and police forces. It will also stress the need to counter corruption, improve local government and curtail the power of religious courts.

And, yeah, the President seems to be buying it. Here's the lede from the Guardian article: "President George Bush has told senior advisers that the US and its allies must make "a last big push" to win the war in Iraq and that instead of beginning a troop withdrawal next year, he may increase US forces by up to 20,000 soldiers."

For Dave Gilson's and Tom Engelhardt's analysis of how all of this might leave us in Iraq indefinitely for months and years, see this blog post, directly below.

Will Gates Open the Floodgates in Iraq?

That's the question posed by Tom Engelhardt in a new piece that deflates some of the hype surrounding the retun of Robert Gates and Jim Baker. The conventional wisdom is that "daddy's boys" have arrived to (once again) save George W. Bush's butt from a fiasco of his own making. (See this week's Newsweek cover for the short version of this satisfying pop psych-meets-poli sci analysis.) But Engelhardt suspects that rather than advocating redeployment or withdrawal, Gates and Baker may just prolong our involvement by signing onto the recently floated plans to send more troops to give it the old school try:

...[P]erhaps the disaster behind us will be nothing compared to the disaster ahead, especially if Daddy's Boys, the Iraq Study Group, other Democratic and Republican movers and shakers, and all those generals and former generals floating around our world decide that this isn't the moment to rediscover a Colin Powell-style "exit strategy," but "one last chance" to succeed by any definition in Iraq. Then, god help us -- and the Iraqis. Sooner or later, we'll undoubtedly be gone from a land so determinedly hostile to being occupied by us, but that end moment could still be a long, long time in coming.

Here, for instance, is Robert Gates' thinking eighteen months ago in a seminar at the Panetta Institute at California State University in Monterey on "phased troop withdrawals" from Iraq:

"But Mr. Gates qualified his comments, noting it sometimes takes time to accomplish your goals. Sixty years after the end of the Second World War, ‘there are still American troops in Germany,' he noted. ‘We've had troops in Korea for over 50 years. The British have had troops in Cyprus for 40 years… If you want to change history, you have to be prepared to stay as long as it takes to do the job."

So hold onto your hats. Tragedy and more tragedy seems almost guaranteed, and the Pentagon has just submitted to Congress a staggering $160 billion supplemental appropriation request in order to continue its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Engelhardt says we should expect "endless months or years of non-withdrawal withdrawal plans" combined with preparations for a permanent American presence in Iraq (a story that hasn't received much mainstream attention but was covered in MJ last year.) George Bush Sr.'s cavalry may have arrived, but we're far from being rescued.

Robo Call Harassment May Soon be Illegal

All too often, winning an election is enough to make a political party forget the dirty tricks it suffered around voting time. Looks like that might not be the case for the 2006 midterms. From TPM: "Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has introduced legislation that seeks to punish harassing robo calls and other attempts to mislead voters... which he said would be among the first 10 bills in the new Senate."

Obama's press release, also available at the TPM link, pretty much nails it.

The legislation, the Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act of 2006, would make it illegal for anyone to knowingly attempt to prevent others from exercising his or her right to vote by providing deceptive information and would require the Attorney General to fully investigate these allegations. The legislation would also require the Attorney General, in conjunction with the Election Assistance Commission, to provide accurate election information when allegations of deceptive practices are confirmed.

Note: How is this not already law? To continue:

In House races across the country, reports surfaced of Democrats receiving dozens of harassing robocalls designed to imply that they came from Democratic candidates. In fact, the calls were paid for by Republicans and were intended to suppress turnout among Democrats.

Yup. Mother Jones wrote about this in late October. See the story here.

Bush's New Family Planning Czar: Like Appointing Dennis Kucinich as SecDef

To run the federal government's family planning program--no fewer than $283 million in funds serving low-income women nationwide--President Bush has picked Ed Keroack, an ob-gyn who has been running a crisis pregnancy center in Massachusetts that opposes birth control. Not a huge surprise, perhaps, coming from a president who seems to have it in for contraception generally (or at least understands that many of his supporters have moved from fighting abortion to fighting birth control in general). But still. Sometimes you wish it was true about laughter being the best birth control.

November 16, 2006

Besides Haditha

It's been a bad week for American war criminals. Yesterday, a 20 year old Marine was sentenced to 18 months for taking part in kidnapping and killing an unarmed Iraqi man. The day before that, an Army specialist plead guilty to raping and murdering a 14-year-old Iraqi girl. That makes a total of at least 16 U.S. military personnel who have been convicted of illegally killing Iraqis since the war began. And we have yet to hear whether the Marine Corps will bring charges against its soldiers accused of massacring 24 Iraqis in Haditha last November.

Counting Casualties in Suburbia

Meet the suburban schlub behind icasualties.org, the independent website that tracks deaths in Iraq so authoritatively that it's used as a reference by media from the New York Times on down:
"He is not a military man, and he has no friends or relatives who serve. He is a guy with a Honda Civic, a mortgage and a job in a suburban office park. A guy with a wife and a 7-year-old daughter who has soccer games to go to.

But for almost 3 1/2 years — for no pay and no glory — White has kept a meticulous tally of every U.S. and coalition military fatality, posting the names and the numbers on his website, http://www.icasualties.org."

Edwards a Go for 2008?

In response to Jon Stewart’s hammy attempt last night to get Edwards to declare his candidacy on The Daily Show, former North Carolina senator John Edwards coyly told his supporters that if they go to his website in the next few weeks, “they may see something new and exciting.”

“Dude, did you get a shower cam?” mugged Stewart.

Well, no, but Edwards offered another hint at his possible presidential bid in the same appearance. “Do you feel that going back into politics would diminish your effectiveness or enhance it,” asked Stewart. “Depends on what’s the job,” replied Edwards with a smile.

Edwards is showing signs that he's ready to run. There’s his new book, Home, in which celebs and everyday folks tell stories about their childhood houses (the proceeds go to charity). Add to that his very well-publicized poverty center in South Carolina, successful attempts to raise the minimum wage in several states, trips to war-torn Uganda, and his appearance tomorrow night on The Late Show with David Letterman, plus various interviews, and you’ve got yourself a bit of a media blitz.

And of course where would any would-be candidate be without action in the blogosphere? He's got that too, offering up details on his charity work and even the obligatory pics of his adorable offspring.

Edwards (who, remember, got 34% of the vote during the 2004 democratic primary) has been abetted by his faithful wife, Elizabeth, who said in October that Hillary would be “a formidable opponent” to her husband. If he runs.

Hypothetically, that is. Possibly.

—Jen Phillips

Golden Gate Bridge: Your Ad Here

The rebranding and repackaging of America marches on... The SF Chronicle reports that the cash-strapped Golden Gate has hired a consultant to look for corporate sponsors:

The consultant's recommendations could include installing signs at the south visitors area or on benches and sidewalks at the ends of the bridge.

"This is not a naming rights deal," cautioned bridge spokeswoman Mary Currie. "It's more of a behind-the-scenes, low-key, corporate partnership, much like the Proud Partners Program in the national parks."

[snip]

According to the pending contract, "the sponsorship program must enhance the value of the Golden Gate Bridge's 'brand' and its image as an internationally recognized icon of historical engineering and architectural significance."

Bartram and Currie said the district's plans follow the lead of the National Park Service's "Proud Partners Program," which has raised $100 million from corporations such as Discover and Ford Motor Co. Currie noted that signs at trailheads in some parks greet hikers with: "This trail brought to you by Ford."

Hopefully any Silicon Valley companies thinking about getting a piece of the bridge will consider the cautionary tale of microchip magnate Max Zorin's unsuccessful 1985 attempt to use the bridge in his bid for world corporate domination.

Toward the End of the Week, Everyone Needs A Good Laugh

A center whose focus is freedom is planned for Israel, and will be named for George W. Bush, in gratitude "for his support for the country and its security." Daniel Ayalan, outgoing Israeli ambassador to the U.S., has gotten the go-ahead from Bush to proceed. Ayalan says he does not anticipate any problem in raising funds to build the Bush Center.

And speaking of security, I don't even like to think about the kind of security that will be needed to protect a complex in Israel named after Bush.

When Bush explained to Ayalon the tradition of outgoing presidents building libraries as part of their legacies, he told him that the Bush library in Texas would be an institute to advance freedom. Ayalon is said to have replied to the creator of "free speech zones" that perhaps the Israeli center could be a branch of the Texas library.

Police Brutality, Brought to You by YouTube

Police tasered an unarmed student at least four times on Tuesday night inside the UCLA library.

23-year-old Mostafa Tabatabainejad did not have or was not showing his ID when he told the police, "Don't touch me," after they grabbed him on his way out with his backpack.

After they stunned him, he screamed and yelled, "Here's your Patriot Act. Here's your fucking abuse of power."

A crowd of dazed and angry students demanded the officers' names, with one saying, "You shocked him repeatedly. It's a violation…." to which an officer warned, back off or "you're gonna get tazed too."

The hair-raising scene is the third LA police brutality case publicized on YouTube this month. The first showed an officer repeatedly punching a suspect in the face after a foot chase in Hollywood. The second showed an officer pepper-spraying a suspect who is handcuffed inside a cruiser.

After the second video surfaced, Councilman Bernard C. Parks, a former police chief, said that for over a year, the LAPD has ignored warnings of an "ongoing discipline problem" in the department. Of course, the LAPD likely isn't fazed by the YouTube phenomenon; they've been starring in on-camera beatings for more than 15 years.

—April Rabkin

McCain Launches Exploratory Committee, Wants GOP to Look Beyond "Self-Interest"

No shocker here:

On the same day he launched a presidential exploratory committee, McCain said voters felt that Republicans valued their incumbency over their beliefs on such conservative standards as limited and efficient government - and he urged a return to those tenets.

"Americans had elected us to change government, and they rejected us because they believed government had changed us," the four-term senator said. "We must spend the next two years reacquainting the public and ourselves with the reason we came to office in the first place: to serve a cause greater than our self-interest."

Influential Economist Milton Friedman Dies

One of the world's most well-respected economists, dead at 94.

As one of the granddaddies of free market thinking -- some would argue the granddaddy -- Friedman was enormously influential in the political philosophies of generations of conservatives.

In the name of equal time, something Friedman likely wouldn't have supported, we offer this bio of Friedman, and this homage to his grand competitor, John Kenneth Galbraith.

Kowtow to Lieberman Watch

Amid Kate Zernike's NYT story about the back-scratching/stabbing, camera mugging, stump practicing, circus that was yesterday's Congressional hearing (ostensibly, the reason was to ask Gen. Abizaid what he thought of the more troops/less troops, timetable vs. facts on the groud debate on Iraq strategy), came sickening evidence of the games that Joe Lieberman is playing with both sides of the asile:

There was the self-described “Independent Democrat — capital I, capital D,” who is at risk of bolting and taking his party’s new narrow majority with him. (Was that red tie a hint?) And there were the two parties, trying to bolster their positions on the war after an election that each side seemed to interpret in wildly different ways...

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, began acting the role of cross-examiner, leading Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American military commander in the Middle East, to say that such a withdrawal would increase violence and instability.

“I take it by your answer that you profoundly disagree?” Mr. Lieberman asked. With the Democrats, he meant. “We have a window of opportunity and, really, responsibility now, after the election,” he said, “to find a bipartisan consensus for being supportive of the efforts of our troops and our diplomats there to achieve success.”

To this, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, the leading Democratic contender for the 2008 race, knocked back the remains in her coffee cup [Easy, Hill.]...

As [Flordia Dem. Senator] Mr. Nelson questioned General Abizaid, the Arizona senator [that'd be McCain] stood up to confer with Senator Susan M. Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine. At this, Mr. Lieberman got up and walked to the Republican side to join them in a brief, chuckling huddle, then ambled back to his party’s side with a glance at his colleagues as if to say, “You watching?”

In his questions, Mr. Lieberman noted that he was “picking up on” points Mr. McCain and [GOP Sen] Mr. Graham had made.

Sigh. Six more years of this.

Iraqis to Rumsfeld: Send Us Beer

Last week, we found out that some U.S. soldiers in Iraq don't know who Donald Rumsfeld is.

But the Iraqis do, take this shopkeeper in Bahgdad:

The beer was running out, he said, a problem he blamed on the Americans. All the alcohol sellers in his area, Mansour, have been killed, and most shops are now closed.

“Who’s responsible for that? Rumsfeld,” he said. “He should send us some beer.”

Yup, on the "my bad" front, Rummy owes a whole lotta people a round of drinks.

Bush to Lott: Help Is On Its Way

Just a reminder from Mother Jones: "We've got a lot of rebuilding to do. First, we're going to save lives and stabilize the situation. And then we're going to help these communities rebuild. The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch." (Laughter) -- President Bush, touring hurricane damage, Mobile, Alabama, Sept. 2, 2005.

B-1 Bob to Run for Prez?

That's the scuttlebutt from the New Hampshire Union Leader, which says former California Republican Rep. Bob "B-1" Dornan is considering throwing his hat into the ring for 2008. His platform? Purge the adulterers and gays from the GOP:

"I can’t stand the thought of my party having as its three front-runners three open adulterers, Newt Gingrich, Giuliani, and McCain,” Dornan said.

“I’ve got one mission left in me, to come up to New Hampshire and tell the truth, and tell the Republicans you better find yourself a fresh face and not Rudy Giuliani who took his mistress around with him and then divorces Donnna who learns she was divorced sitting at home watching TV with her children.

“We need a fresh face if the Republican Party is going to appeal to an Orthodox Jewish, Evangelical or practicing Catholic.”

Aside from adultery, Dornan’s other issue is homosexuality, which he called “a cancer in my party.”

He said he’d consider backing the right candidate or even running for President himself.

“Fifteen hundred bucks (to file for President)? It would be worth it if I could stand in front of a huge audience again and say, folks, is the Republican Party the party of values, the party of life?”

Oh, this is gonna be good. Let's see if this—unlike many of Dornan's pet military aviation projects—can actually get off the ground.

Leave No ID Behind, Said the Poll Workers

Many people who made the grave error of not updating their drivers' licenses after moving [gasp] were rejected from the polls last Tuesday. The GOP's latest disenfranchisement strategy, tightening voter-ID requirements, might have worked a little too well. Among those rejected was Republican Rep. Steve Chabot of Ohio. (Republican Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina was also turned away but not because of a new law). They had enough time and will to go home and retrieve another ID. God only knows how many people didn't.

Poll workers zealously enforced new requirements, even in states where courts had struck them down. For one, Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan had to argue her way into the booth.

The requirements are a complicated patchwork of laws across the country. States that have recently tightened laws and now require a photo ID are Arizona, Indiana, New Mexico (but only in Albuquerque), and Ohio (but only for in-precinct voting, and a lawsuit is still pending). On the other hand, courts blocked laws that legislatures passed that would require IDs in Georgia and Missouri. Michigan's Supreme Court is currently debating a photo-ID requirement and Arizona has increased the documentation you need to register to vote.

Here are the laws in every state.

—April Rabkin

November 15, 2006

Did Robert Gates' Planning Help Bring Black Hawk Down?

When the lame-duck Senate Armed Services committee starts confirmation hearings next week on Robert Gates, President Bush’s replacement for Donald Rumsfeld, Gates’ performance in his last government job, as head of the CIA, is certain to come up. But will any of the senators ask Gates about his role in the first Bush administration’s final blunder—the military operation in Somalia, launched by George H. W. Bush in the lame-duck days after the 1992 election, and brought to a disastrous conclusion six months later under Clinton? John Prados, an analyst at the National Security Archives and author of the new book Safe for Democracy, says it was Gates who approved the "initial architecture'' for the operation, including making arrangements for TV crews in Mogadishu to train their spotlights on the Marines’ dramatic night landing. The CIA then led the troops inland, spread them out, and set up bases while keeping tabs on the conflict through its assets with the warlords; by the following spring most of the U.S. troops had been replaced by UN forces, and the rest were pulled after the Black Hawk Down debacle in June 1993.

Despite questions about his handling of the Somalia planning and other intelligence matters, Prados says he expects Gates to be confirmed easily; Armed Services Committee chair John Warner, R-Va., voted for Gates’ confirmation in 1991. Once in office, Prados says, Gates could help bridge divisions between the CIA and the military, perhaps even pulling the plug on Rumsfeld initiatives that pit military intelligence initiatives against the CIA. Just don’t expect him to crack down on politically influenced intelligence; that, after all, was his specialty.

Pakistan Rape Victims Get Break ...

Here's what passes for progress in the Islamic world these days: Pakistan has repealed a law that required rape victims to produce four witnesses to prove that a crime had been committed against them. Failing that, the victims could be charged with adultery - as several thousand have been since the law was imposed in 1979. The issue has been highlighted by the dogged fight of Mukhtar Mai, a village woman who was gang-raped in 2002 and then had the temerity to try to get her attackers prosecuted. Naturally, she now has a blog.

... and Iranian Gays Get Death

The latest Iranian convicted of "moral corruption, battering and sodomy" was publicly hanged in the western town of Kermanshah to the cheers of hundreds of spectators, the official news agency IRNA reports. As I've mentioned before,
the regime has executed an estimated 4,000 gay men and lesbians since the 1979 revolution.

McCain Officially Forms Exploratory Committee for '08 Run

Word leaked a few days ago that John McCain would soon launch an exploratory committee for his 2008 presidential run. Today, he did it. The BBC reports he launched a website as well; readers who believe McCain's reputation as a political maverick to be undeserved may find this website just as interesting.

In other McCain news, his plan to send more troops to Iraq did not fare well when proposed to CentCom commander Gen. John Abizaid. The general said he "met with every divisional commander, Gen. Casey, the core commander, Gen. Dempsey" and asked them if bringing "in more American troops now, [would] add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq and they all said 'no.'"

Report Links Homelessness To Federal Spending Priorities

According to a report released by the Western Regional Advocacy Project, "massive homelessness" has been created in the U.S. over the last twenty-five years because of cutbacks in federal affordable-housing programs. In the last decade, HUD has spent no money at all directly on construction of new public housing. Instead, the government has focused on the Hope VI grant program, which transforms distressed public housing into mixed-income communities.

Also during the last decade, HUD has demolished, sold or re-developed 100,000 housing units. As a result, the report says, there are fewer subsidized dwellings available. Over 4 million families live in HUD-subsidized housing, and between 2 and 3.5 million are homeless in any given year.

This study is of particular interest in New Orleans, whose public housing has been steadily decreasing for years, and because of the damage done by Hurricane Katrina. There has also been a recent controversy in Jefferson Parish, which is just outside New Orleans, involving Parish Councilman Chris Roberts, who maintains that "With the number of jobs out there, nobody should be on public housing unless you're ignorant or lazy."

Roberts and the Jefferson Parish Council have made it clear that they do not want displaced public housing residents from New Orleans moving to Jefferson Parish. The rationale is that low-income housing causes crime. As da po' blog points out, people who relied on public housing in the city before Katrina cannot afford to come back, a lot of working poor rely on public housing, and low-income housing does not cause crime. "You can’t eliminate crime by eliminating low-income housing. Try fair education and workers’ rights to achieve that end." da po' blog also points out that most of the people not wanted by Jefferson Parish just happen to be African American.

South Africa: Gay is OK

Yesterday South Africa became the fifth country to permit gay marriage, joining the liberal likes of Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada and socialist-ruled Spain. The South African Parliament amended the country's marriage laws yesterday in response to a December 2005 Supreme Court ruling that found that denying same-sex couples the right to marry violated of the country's liberal constitution.

Conservatives in South Africa didn't like the court ruling any more than conservatives in this country liked Massachusetts' trail-blazing decision. The conservative African Christian Democratic Party interpreted the December ruling to require only that the legislature debate the issue. Errol Naidoo, a spokesman for His People Christian Church, played the Bush of the situation, calling the ruling a weapon of mass destruction against heterosexual marriage. He accused the high court of "surrender[ing] the future of this nation to the unreasonable demands of a sexually confused minority."

But unlike African-American groups in this country, who prickle at the suggestion that discrimination against gays and lesbians is comparable to racial discrimination, the African National Congress embraced the issue. The majority party pushed hard to allow marriage, rather than just domestic partnership despite the resistance of some of its members. Vytjie Mentor, the ANC's parliamentary caucus chairman, said ''How do you give someone permission to discriminate in the name of the ANC?'' Kenneth Meshoe, a member of the ACDP, saw it differently. He called Tuesday the "saddest day in our 12 years of democracy" and warned that South Africa "was provoking God's anger."

Some prominent members of the ANC until recently denied the existence of the AIDS epidemic ravaging the continent, essentially endorsing condomless sex and marital infidelity. But in the ANC's defense, the new law stands in stark contrast to laws in other African nations that punish consensual homosexual sex more harshly than they do rape. It's also far more progressive than U.S. laws: Twenty-two states now prohibit gay marriage with both a statute and a constitutional amendment.

Jack Murtha: Ethics Bill "Total Crap"

Yesterday we, among other news outlets, pointed out that Jack Murtha, Nancy Pelosi's pick for Majority Leader, has a few skeletons in his closet when it comes to his ties to lobbying outfits, including one that once employed his brother, Kit. All told, some have suggested, Murtha may not be the best pick for a party looking to place an emphasis on ethics reform and distance itself from the cavalcade of scandals that led, in part, to the GOP’s fall from grace. Not helping Murtha’s case in the slightest is the fact that, according to Roll Call, he “told a group of Democratic moderates on Tuesday that an ethics and lobbying reform bill being pushed by party leaders was 'total crap.'” Three sources told the paper that Murtha said: “Even though I think it’s total crap, I’ll vote for it and pass it because that’s what Nancy wants.” (Perhaps Pelosi is taking a page from the “Hammer,” since this is the second time in as many days that I've heard Dems remark that they'll do as she commands. Here's what Rep. Jim Moran, the Virginia Democrat, told The Hill yesterday. “We are entering an era where when the Speaker instructs you what to do, you do it.”)

Murtha's alleged ethical lapses don't end with securing earmarks for the clients of favored lobbying firms that he has personal and professional ties to -- unfortunately, that is considered a fairly run-of-the-mill offense in the District these days -- but extend to more serious forms of malfeasance. Back in the late '70s and early '80s, the FBI ran an undercover sting operation, which came to be known as ABSCAM, targeting congressional corruption. TPMmuckraker