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August 1, 2008

Former Gun Control Colleagues 'Shocked' by Mary Lou Sapone's 'Malicious Duplicity'

States United to Prevent Gun Violence, where gun lobby spy Mary Lou Sapone served until recently as the director of federal legislation—the organization's chief federal lobbyist on gun control issues—has issued a press release on the "malicious duplicity" of their former colleague:

Members of States United to Prevent Gun Violence were profoundly disturbed to learn of the malicious duplicity of a longtime gun violence prevention activist. An investigative article published online on the Mother Jones web site reported that Mary McFate, the legislative director for States United to Prevent Gun Violence, was in actuality a mole for the gun lobby.

Information received by reporters for the online journal revealed that the person known as Mary McFate is also Mary Lou Sapone, a "research consultant" who was hired by the NRA. Sapone has a long history of infiltrating animal rights and environmental activist groups as well.

"Mary's long history of working with gun violence prevention groups, her knowledge of the issues, and her willingness to work as a volunteer lobbyist in Congress made her appear to be a good choice for States United's legislative director," stated the organization's Executive Director, Barbara Hohlt. "Unlike the NRA, which obviously has plenty of money to spend paying spies for years at a time, States United relies heavily on dedicated volunteers to accomplish the work of the organization."

McFate had earned a position of trust among members of the gun violence prevention community, many of whom are survivors or family of victims of gun violence. Many expressed shock and outrage at the news. Toby Hoover, Executive Director of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, has worked in the area of gun violence prevention since the shooting death of her husband many years ago during a robbery. "It is beyond my comprehension how someone could have listened to my story and expressed desire to help prevent others from having to experience the agony I went through, all the time collecting money as a gun lobby spy," said Hoover.

Alleged Anthrax Attacker Commits Suicide

Bruce E. Ivins, an anthrax scientist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, died Tuesday at a hospital in Frederick, Maryland, after ingesting a massive dose of prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine. He was 62. According to the Los Angeles Times, he was among the nation's leading experts on the military uses of anthrax. A native of Lebanon, Ohio, Ivins received his doctorate in microbiology from the University of Cincinatti, had worked in the Fort Detrick laboratory for 18 years, and, in 2003, was honored with the Pentagon's highest civilian award for resolving technical problems afflicting the Army's anthrax vaccine. He sat on USAMRIID's protocol and animal rights committees. He lived in a small white house near the laboratory with his wife. And on Sundays, he played keyboards at his church. He also, according to the FBI, is the man responsible for the anthrax attacks of 2001.

Ivins' apparent suicide occurred after he learned that the Department of Justice was preparing to file criminal charges against him for mailing a series of anthrax-laden letters in fall of 2001 that killed five people, sickened another 17, interrupted mail service, and shut down a contaminated Senate building for several months.

The anthrax investigation—dubbed "the largest and most complex" in FBI history, according to a spokesman—had become an embarrassment to the Bureau. For years it focused on Steven Hatfill, a onetime USAMRIID colleague of Ivins', named a "person of interest" by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2002. In June, the Justice Department settled with Hatfill for $5.82 million. (Hatfill continues to press libel cases against the International Herald Tribune, the New York Times, and columnist Nicholas Kristof. He has already reached private settlements with Vanity Fair and Reader's Digest for their coverage of the case.) Amid speculation that all the attention paid to Hatfill and the alleged mishandling of evidence had caused the investigation to go cold, FBI Director Robert Mueller told CNN last week that "in some sense, there have been breakthroughs" in the case. "I tell you we made great progress in the investigation, and it's in no way dormant," he continued.

In September 2006, having little to show for its efforts, the FBI replaced its lead investigator and, concluding that the strain of anthrax used in the attacks was not as sophisticated as first thought, broadened the search beyond Hatfill. The initial suspicion that the letters could only have come from a scientist expert in the production of military-grade anthrax, a field of about 30 individuals, seemed in doubt as agents looked farther afield for suspects. By last spring, however, it appeared that investigators had rounded a corner back to where they began. In March, FOX News reported that the Bureau was focusing on four suspects, among them "three scientists—a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax scientist and a microbiologist—linked to the research facility, known as USAMRIID."

Ivins had been cooperating with the FBI investigation for about a year, his lawyer, Paul F. Kemp, told the Associated Press. The Bureau's interest was raised by the revelation that Ivins had failed to report several anthrax contaminations at the Fort Detrick laboratory in the five months immediately following the 2001 attacks. Ivins wiped down several parts of the laboratory with bleach to kill errant anthrax spores, believing, he later told investigators, that samples sent there for testing had been improperly contained. (Ivins was among the scientists involved with testing anthrax samples obtained from letters sent to the Senate.) "In retrospect, although my concern for biosafety was honest and my desire to refrain from crying 'Wolf!' . . . was sincere, I should have notified my supervisor ahead of time of my worries about a possible breach in biocontainment," Ivins explained to Army investigators. "I thought that quietly and diligently cleaning the dirty desk area would both eliminate any possible [anthrax] contamination as well as prevent unintended anxiety at the institute." The Army elected not to press charges. (Read the results of its official investigation here.)

According to people familiar with the incident who spoke to the Los Angeles Times, Ivins acknowledged swabbing areas in and adjacent to his office for anthrax and applied bleach to kill spores, but was uncertain if he ever reswabbed to ensure there was no further contamination—an obvious and essential step in anthrax containment. A USAMRIID official told the Times that "Ivins might have hedged regarding reswabbing out of fear that investigators would find more of the spores inside or near his office."

Still, despite suspicions raised by the incident and the Justice Department's subsequent decision to charge Ivins as the anthrax attacker, the nature of the evidence against him in the case has not been disclosed. The Justice Department will decide in the next few days whether to close the anthrax investigation, but has yet to do so, leaving open the possibility that Ivins did not act alone. There has been speculation that one possible motive for anthrax attacks, assuming they were committed by a government scientist, might have been to win greater funding for anthrax-related research. And according to the Associated Press, the Justice Department planned to charge Ivins with mailing the anthrax letters in order to test anthrax drugs he had been developing.

Also possible, of course, is that Ivins—like Hatfill—is the wrong guy. His suicide comes at a curious moment in the investigation, but Ivins, according to those who knew him, had been suffering from severe depression for many months and had even checked into a treatment clinic last month, partially as a result of the strain placed on him by the attention he had been receiving from federal investigators. Kemp, his lawyer, issued a statement today, denying his client's involvement in anything sinister. "We are saddened by his death, and disappointed that we will not have the opportunity to defend his good name and reputation in a court of law," he said. "We assert his innocence in these killings, and would have established that at trial."

UPDATE 1: New evidence paints Ivins as a bit more than a sensitive biodefense researcher who flew into a depression at being suspected of horrible crimes. According to documents obtained by The Smoking Gun, Ivins' psychological counselor, Jean Duley of Comprehensive Counseling Associates, filed a restraining order against Ivins last week, claiming he has "a history dating to his graduate days of homicidal threats, actions, plans, threats & actions towards therapist." The restraining order, granted by a judge, resulted from several threatening phone calls Ivins made last month. Duley writes in one of the documents that she had been scheduled to testify today before a federal grand jury in Washington, DC, with regard to Ivins' involvement in five capital murders. She further notes that his psychiatrist described him as "homicidal, sociopathic with clear intentions."

UPDATE 2: Rep. Rush Holt, Jr. represents New Jersey's 12th District, from which one of the anthrax letters was mailed in 2001. He's a physicist and the former assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory at Princeton University, the state's largest energy research facility. He's also a longtime critic of the FBI's handling of the anthrax case. (Read this response from the FBI to a critical letter it received from Holt in 2006.) When the FBI settled with Hatfill in June, Holt stated that he planned to press FBI Director Mueller to release more information on the investigation. I spoke with Holt this afternoon to get his reactions to the day's news and ask his thoughts about the FBI investigation. Some excerpts:

MJ: What do you think of today's revelations?

RH: However final this tragic turn is, whether or not it means that the case is closed, it doesn't change the fact that the investigation was not handled well and shouldn't have taken six years.

MJ: What went wrong with the FBI investigation?

RH: I watched the investigators take evidence. I've used the word sloppy before, and I'll use it again. They found anthrax in my office. They wiped the entire office with a couple of different wipes and they found anthrax. You'd think what they would do in a case like that is come back and check each inbox to see if you find anthrax there, so that there would be some way of tracing back how the anthrax entered the office. Similarly, once they knew there was anthrax at the Hamilton, New Jersey, mail sorting facility, you'd think they would trace back and find out exactly how the mail entered there. Well, seven months later, they found anthrax in a mailbox on Nassau Street in Princeton. I don't know what took them seven months to check that. They should have checked it the next day! And then it was reported in the newspaper that agents were on Nassau Street in Princeton the following summer asking if anybody remembered any unusual activity around that mailbox the previous fall.

MJ: Was the FBI forthcoming with you about where things stood?

RH: No, no, certainly not forthcoming. They did brief members of Congress, including me, early on in some detail. They claim there were leaks. If there were, I know nothing about it. And then they just clammed up. It seemed to me that they clammed up, wouldn't brief us, when it was apparent that the investigation wasn't going well. Now, I don't know whether that was why they refused to brief us, but it didn't inspire confidence.

July 31, 2008

Hunting Season is Open on Polar Bears' ESA Listing

Even before the polar bear received "threatened" status under the Endangered Species Act in May, a host of organizations were already laying the groundwork for a legal challenge. As early as last January, Jim Sims, the president and CEO of the Western Business Roundtable, which reps for oil and mining interests, sent an email to colleagues detailing a strategy to "quite possibly reverse" the ruling, if the worst came to pass. Part of it would involve litigation filed by a "truly extraordinary plaintiff": Roy Innis, the chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), a decades-old civil rights group that has taken a sharp turn to the right under his leadership, joining forces with conservative activists particularly on issues related to the environment.

It looks like the plan is finally in motion. On Wednesday, the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative legal advocacy group that is representing CORE, the California Cattleman's Association, and the California Forestry Association, has sent what's known as a "60-Day Notice" (which is required before formally filing suit in this case) to Dale Hall, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne. "You are advised immediately to withdraw the Final Rule as unlawful and unwarranted," the letter states. "Failure to do so will result in legal action to invalidate the final rule."

As expected, their legal strategy will seek to challenge the science underpinning Interior's determination, which shows that climate change is rapidly eroding the sea ice that serves as the polar bears' primary habitat. Among other things, the PLF contends:

The "prediction" that 2/3 of the polar bear population will be lost by mid-century, touted by the popular press, is incorrect. That estimate is the guesswork of one man and is based on a qualitative "prototype" model that the Department warns is only preliminary and not to be taken as final.

And:

As temperatures have increased over the past 40-50 years, the polar bear population has increased to the highest levels in recorded history. The current population is approximately 25,000, up from an estimated low of 5,000-10,000 in the 50's and 60's.

As for the first claim, the "one man" in question also happens to be one of world's foremost authorities on polar bears, Dr. Steven Amstrup, whose "guesswork" was contained in a study conducted by the US Geological Survey, where Amstrup works as a wildlife biologist. As for the second contention (that polar bears are actually thriving), that seems clearly at odds with the reality on the ground. In May, when I spoke to leading polar bear ecologist Andrew Derocher, who was studying the bears in the Arctic at the time, he said: "It's looking to be one of the worst years I've seen up here in a long time. It's probably an extension of the low ice year we saw last year in the Beaufort Sea, actually throughout the Arctic. We haven't done anywhere near what we'd normally do. We're just not seeing many bears here. I know from talking on email with Alaskan colleagues they're seeing something very similar this year as well." He also told me: "Any notion that the population has increased in a large scale sort of context is highly unlikely, highly unsupported by any scientific data... We don't know how many bears there were before. We have very little census data on most areas in the Arctic. We have no idea how many bears there were in the 1960s. Absolutely zero. Some people have said that in the 1960s there were 5,000. Nobody knows."

The Pacific Legal Foundation's letter goes on to say that "researchers from Wharton and Harvard have found that none of the models"—forecasting a rapidly declining polar bear population—"meets accepted scientific standards." The researchers the PLF is referring to are J. Scott Armstrong and Willie Soon. Armstrong, for his part, is not a scientist but a professor of marketing at Wharton and an expert on forecasting methods. (He has previously blasted the forecasting approach used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Soon is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and a darling of the global warming denial crowd. And there's just one more thing about Willie Soon: His work has been funded by the oil industry, which most definitely has a dog in the global warming and polar bear fights. In a 2007 study (published as a "viewpont" since it didn't pass muster under peer review) that Soon co-authored, disputing the climate change explanation for the polar bears' habitat loss, the researcher acknowleged that his work was "partially supported by grants from the...American Petroleum Institute, and Exxon-Mobil Corporation."

Aside from challenging global warming science, the PLF also intends to make the argument, one advanced by Innis' group, that listing the bear could wind up disproportionately affecting poor people and minorities. Presumably this would occur through higher energy costs due to closing down oil rich areas, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to drilling. (Though this is something the Interior Department has emphatically said the listing won't do—a claim that is the subject of a lawsuit brought by conservation groups.)

Back in May, the Western Business Roundtable's Jim Sims told me, "You're going to start seeing lawsuits like dandelions in a field the day after the regulations are filed." It looks like the first crop are starting to sprout up.

Photo by flickr user longhorndave used under a Creative Commons license.

Have Your Say on Proposed Government Transparency Legislation

While it continues to press its "Let Our Congress Tweet" campaign, the Sunlight Foundation—a Washington-based non-profit that pushes ways for technology to increase transparency in government—today released a revised version of another of its projects, the Transparency in Government Act 2008. The model legislation, which intends to update congressional disclosure requirements to meet modern technological standards, is the product of a period of public comment hosted electronically at PublicMarkup.org. Since March, interested netizens have been able to use the site to add their input to the bill on subjects like whether Congressional Research Service reports should be made public, whether political action committees and candidates should be compelled to disclose campaign finance receipts, and whether disclosure requirements for lobbyists should be expanded. You are now free to comment on the revised version if you wish, while Sunlight continues negotiations on Capitol Hill for the bills introduction in Congress.

Richest 1 Percent Get Biggest Share of Income Ever; Inequality At Record High: What Do We Do?

In 2006, the richest one percent of Americans garnered the largest share of the national income since 1929, the Wall Street Journal reported last week. The Journal, which based its conclusions on the most recent available IRS data, also noted that in 2006 the richest one percent's average tax rate fell to its lowest level in 18 years. Who are these richest one percenters we hear so much about? Well, in 2008, the richest one percent of Americans make at least $462,000 a year, and the average income of the group is almost $1.5 million. Bush administration tax policies have been especially kind to this group, which has reaped the bulk of the country's economic gains since 2001. That has led to record income inequality, and, of course, to hearings on Capitol Hill. More on that after the jump.

Today the House Workforce Protections Subcommittee, chaired by Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), called in economists and policy experts to testify at a hearing called “The Growing Income Gap in the American Middle Class.” Robert Greenstein, the Executive Director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, had some especially interesting things to say. Greenstein noted that high-income households had not only benefited disproportionally from the economic expansion after 2001, but also from the Bush tax cuts. The Right likes to claim that since the rich are paying a higher share of income tax now, the tax system must be more progressive than it was in the past. Greenstein explained why that's not true:

A progressive tax cut, like a progressive tax system, is one that reduces inequality. The 2001-2003 tax cuts have done the opposite. When fully in effect, those tax cuts will boost after-tax income by more than 7 percent among households with incomes of more than $1 million, but just 2 percent among middle-income families, according to the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. That is an average tax cut of $158,000 in 2010 for households with incomes of over $1 million, but just $810 for middle-income families. Tax analysts know that effective tax rates and shares of after-tax income, not the share of taxes paid, are the proper indicators of progressivity.

So what to do about all this? Greenstein points to the work of MIT professors Frank Levy and Peter Temin, who argue (gasp!) that the decline in union membership has played a major role in the decreasing ability of our society to distribute the gains from economic growth. That's not a reason to try to duplicate the structures of the postwar economy (likely an impossible task, anyway), but, "Reducing barriers to labor organizing, preserving the real value of the minimum wage, and the other workforce security concerns of this committee would surely be a part of the kinds of institutions and social norms that would contribute to an economy with less glaring and sharply widening inequality," Greenstein notes.

Despite a rough couple decades for the labor movement, reducing barriers to organizing is still a major goal for many on the Left. In his syndicated column last week, liberal writer David Sirota explored one of the ways unions might be able to claim a bigger role in the American economy.

Speaking with legendary labor lawyer Tom Geoghegan (author of the classic 1992 history of the labor movement, Which Side Are You On?), Sirota stumbled upon an interesting idea. Geoghegan thinks that instead of seeking to reform the National Labor Relations Board (the unions' current goal), labor should just get "six little words" added to the Civil Rights Act. What are those six words? Amending the act to prohibit discrimination "on the basis of union membership." That would create a legal cause of action, allowing workers to sue if they were discriminated against for trying to organize. The NLRB—seen by labor as slow, ineffective, and anti-union—would be out of business, and union-busting managers would be just as dangerous to hire as racist ones. Finally, Sirota says, "Companies would have a reason—fear of litigation—to respect workers' rights."

More union members in an economy generally means higher wages and less inequality. Geoghegan's solution might actually create more union members in America. That's probably why Sirota and others are now trying to draft Geoghegan to serve as a hypothetical Obama administration's Secretary of Labor. That would definitely put union busters on notice.

Primary Sources: DOJ Memos to CIA

Last week, the ACLU released three previously sealed memos written by various CIA and Department of Justice officials, from George Tenet on down the line, that outlined the departments' policies on torturing prisoners. The heavily redacted notes shed more light on just how slyly the two agencies sidestepped the law to escape any blame for torture.

One memo from 2004 indicates interrogators should only use "interrogation techniques, including the waterboard" if they clearly understand the "legal and policy matters" of those devices. The problem is those policy matters contradict each other and ultimately present an incredibly narrow opinion of what constitutes torture. The memo reminds the interrogator the US has implemented Article 16 of the UN's Convention Against Torture. Article 16 outlaws "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" during an interrogation that do not necessarily amount to torture.

But the memo also directs interrogators to be aware of a document drafted in 2002 by legal councils at the Department of Justice informing (.pdf) the CIA of their opinion that "a good faith belief" that the interrogator was not intently inflicting any "prolonged" mental or physical harm on the subject does not amount to torture or cruel treatment, and therefore makes the act legal.

So, in the Department of Justice's view, strapping someone to a board and pouring water on their face to drown him is humane and legal if the interrogator says he had no intention of causing the subject long term mental and physical suffering. Of course, it doesn't matter that the entire point of waterboarding and other forms of torture is to do just that. —Steve Aquino

Judge: Current and Former White House Aides Must Comply With Congressional Subpoenas

U.S. District Judge John Bates issued a ruling today that former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten must comply with the subpoenas issued to them by the House Judiciary Committee. The subpoenas were issued as part of Congress's investigation into the allegedly politically-motivated firing of eight US attorneys. The White House had argued that Miers and Bolten were immune from testifying or sending documents to Congress, but Bush-appointed judge John D. Bates was having none of it. Bates, regarded as a pro-administration judge, said in his decision that the White House's claim that its aides were always and in all circumstances immune from subpoenas was "unprecedented" and "without any support in case law." Glenn Greenwald, who goes deeper into the legal implications of this ruling, pointed to a passage from page 78 of the ruling as especially important:

The Executive cannot identify a single judicial opinion that recognizes absolute immunity for senior presidential advisors in this or any other context. That simple but critical fact bears repeating: the asserted immunity claim here is entirely unsupported by case law. In fact, there is Supreme Court authority that is all but conclusive on this question and that powerfully suggests that such advisors to not enjoy absolute immunity.

That's a pretty serious smackdown of the administration coming from the same judge who said in 2002 that Dick Cheney could keep his Energy Task Force records secret from the Government Accountability Office. The White House will likely appeal the ruling, but it's unlikely to get a judge more favorably inclined towards the Bush administration than Bates. Still, the appeal will keep Bates' ruling—which would have required Miers to testify and required both Bolten and Miers to hand over documents—from being enforced until there is a final judgment. And as in the White House emails case, the Bush administration may be able to simply run out the clock.

Photo by flickr user dcjohn used under a Creative Commons license.

Leaders of "Al Qaeda in Iraq" Now in Afghanistan?

With this morning's report by the Washington Post that senior leaders of Al Qaeda in Iraq may now be operating in Afghanistan, it's difficult not to see the decreasing violence in Iraq in a new light. Attacks are way down, yes, and the number of insurgents crossing into Iraq from neighboring countries has fallen to about 20, down from an average of 110 last summer, according to an intelligence analyst interviewed by the Post. But Al Qaeda, despite the intense military pressure being brought to bear on it, has proven to be remarkably resilient and tough to kill, organizationally-speaking.

The problem, according a new report (.pdf) by the RAND Corporation, lies in how we've chosen to deal with Al Qaeda. The "War on Terror" paradigm is fundamentally misguided, says Seth Jones, the study's lead author. "Police and intelligence agencies, rather than the military, should be the tip of the spear against al Qaeda in most of the world."

To make their case, RAND researchers analyzed 648 terrorist groups that operated between 1968 (the year Palestinian extremists inaugurated terrorism's modern age) and 2006. How did these terrorist groups meet their end? The study found that 43 percent of them entered the political process, whereas 40 percent were dismantled by the efforts of police and intelligence organizations or by decapitation strikes against their leadership. Just 7 percent were subdued by military force. (The remaining 10 percent of terrorist groups achieved their goals... so don't believe the mantra that terrorism doesn't work. Unfortunately, it does, at least on occasion.)

The report's other findings, as described in a press release:

Religious terrorist groups take longer to eliminate than other groups. Since 1968, approximately 62 percent of all terrorist groups have ended, while only 32 percent of religious terrorist groups have done so.

No religious terrorist group has achieved victory since 1968.

Size is an important predictor of a groups' fate. Large groups of more than 10,000 members have been victorious more than 25 percent of the time, while victory is rare when groups are smaller than 1,000 members.

There is no statistical correlation between the duration of a terrorist group and ideological motivation, economic conditions, regime type or the breadth of terrorist goals.

Terrorist groups that become involved in an insurgency do not end easily. Nearly 50 percent of the time they end with a negotiated settlement with the government, 25 percent of the time they achieved victory and 19 percent of the time, military groups defeated them.

Terrorist groups from upper-income countries are much more likely to be left-wing or nationalistic, and much less likely to be motivated by religion.

Photo used under a Creative Commons license from James Gordon.

Mary Lou Sapone the Runner Up for Olbermann's "World's Worst Person"

On Countdown last night, Mary Lou Sapone narrowly avoided being named the "world's worst person" by Keith Olbermann. In the end, that distinction went to Fox & Friends for mistakenly showing a picture of Osama bin Laden when discussing presidential candidate Barack Obama. Though Sapone was dubbed "worser" than Olbermann nemesis Bill O'Reilly.

July 30, 2008

Brady Campaign Prez Weighs in on MoJo Story

In a blog item titled "NRA Dirty Tricks," Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, has just weighed in on today's MoJo article on gun lobby mole Mary Lou Sapone (a.k.a. Mary McFate). He writes:

When the National Rifle Association asks its members for their next contribution, they might want to disclose how much of that money will be spent to spy on gun violence victims and their families.

Mother Jones Magazine today reported that someone the gun violence prevention movement believed was a committed gun control activist was, in fact, a gun lobby spy.

Mother Jones focused on the activity of Mary McFate, also known as Mary Lou Sapone, a woman who has apparently led a double life for over twenty years, performing industrial espionage services for a variety of anti-environmental and gun lobby organizations – including the National Rifle Association...

... Reading the story, one imagines a group of executives over at NRA headquarters huddled around a copy of The Art of War with a flashlight in a dark basement office, hatching a new cloak-and-dagger plot.

Whatever the case, it’s clear that some over there have too much money and no moral compass.

It is one thing to recognize, as CNN found last month, that 86% of the American people favor a waiting period before buying a gun, while 79% favor the registration of guns with the local government. That’s reason enough for the NRA to feel defensive.

It is another thing entirely to pay a woman to trade on the grief of gun violence victims and their families—to pay someone to pretend to be their friend and confidant—when in reality she was spying on their efforts to strengthen this country’s tragically weak gun laws.

Does this behavior reflect the NRA’s membership? I don’t think so. I think this represents the bunker paranoia leaders who will resort to any means—by hook or by crook—to get any information they can get about the gun violence prevention movement, and that contradicts every statement they make about being a “civil rights” organization.

Read the rest of Helmke's blog item here.

Meantime, the story is ricocheting through the gun control community. The Freedom States Alliance, where McFate is a board member (though presumably not for long), just posted the article to the front page of its site.

Have You Seen This Woman? She's a Spy

This morning Mother Jones broke the news that, for more than a decade, a prominent gun control activist has actually been a mole for the gun lobby. In addition to infiltrating gun control groups, Mary Lou Sapone (who also goes by Mary Lou McFate and Mary McFate) has, in the past, spied on animal rights and environmental groups. Has she been involved in any other operations? Targeted any other citizens groups? If you recognize the woman pictured below (and above), let us know: dschulman[at]motherjones.com.

Source: Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

Source: Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

Photo at top from Mary McFate's blog.

July 29, 2008

Prison Song Playlist

In conjunction with Slammed: The Coming Prison Meltdown, Mother Jones' investigation into the prison system, the MoJo staff compiled some of our favorite prison songs by the Bobby Fuller Four, ACDC, Sam Cooke, Thin Lizzy, Johnny Cash, and more.

We're locking up 1 in every 100 American adults—and going bankrupt in the process. Are there alternatives to a total meltdown? Our MoJo Prison Guide tells you everything you wanted to know about prison but were afraid to ask. And, a comprehensive guide to all Mother Jones articles, audio, and video on the prison system and links to resources will help you find out more.

Why not listen while you read?

An Indicted (GOP) Senator, a Disgraced (GOP-run) Justice Department, a Gagged (GOP-managed) EPA--Just Another Day in D.C.

Corruption-o-rama in Washington on Tuesday:

On the front page is news (or confirmation) that Aberto Gonzales' Justice Department was run by partisan hacks who illegally denied jobs to applicants who were not Republicans and Christian conservatives.

The Associated Press is reporting that the "Environmental Protection Agency is telling its pollution enforcement officials not to talk with congressional investigators, reporters and even the agency's own inspector general, according to an internal e-mail." AP adds: "The EPA is currently under pressure from several congressional committees to disclose documents relating to its position on global warming and its denial of a petition by California to control greenhouse gases from motor vehicles. Last week, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson denied a request to appear before two Senate committees to discuss whether the agency's decisions comply with its staff's technical and legal recommendations."

And Senator Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, was indicted for making false statements on his financial disclosure forms to conceal $250,000 in goods and services he received from an oil company that sought official assistance from Stevens. The 84-year-old Stevens used to chair the powerful Senate appropriations committee.

Cronyism that undermines good government, a gag order that attempts to block the flow of information needed for oversight, and a case of (alleged) personal corruption in which a legislator exploited his office to line his own pocket--it's as if the seven-and-half years of the Bush presidency was boiled down into one news cycle. The only thing missing is a war sold on false pretenses.

Obama, DNC Reserve $20 Million to Target Hispanic Voters

The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee will announce later today a decision to commit $20 million to bringing out the Hispanic vote. According to a recent report (.pdf) from the Pew Hispanic Center, the Hispanic vote has shifted decisively in favor of the Democratic Party. Numbering about 46 million, Hispanics make up about 15 percent of the U.S. population. As a group, their influence this election cycle will be somewhat muted due to the fact that many are either not citizens or are under 18. Forecasts indicate that they will comprise only 6.5 percent of voters who turn out in November. But their influence in swing states like New Mexico, Florida, Nevada, and Colorado could be the deciding factor in which candidate wins those states—all of which fell into the Bush column in 2004 by five percentage points or less. A July 24 poll taken by the Pew Hispanic Center showed that Obama enjoys a 66-23 lead over McCain among Hispanic voters.

China to Spy on Beijing Hotels During Olympics

The Chinese government is intent on presenting its best face to the world when the Beijing Olympics open on August 8. The construction of world-class facilities and grounds and the filtering of pollution from the air bring to mind the single-minded determination of China's Five-Year Plans of old. But as Amnesty International points out in a report (.pdf) released today, China's eagerness to have the Games go off without a hitch is also showcasing the government's worst traits, particularly in the area of human rights and press freedom. As Amnesty spokesman Sam Zarifi told Voice of America:

The Chinese government has become so obsessed with projecting an image of stability and harmony that they won't allow any voice of disagreement, however reasonable or peaceful, so we see human rights activists being targeted .... Even the promise that foreign media would be allowed to report completely freely as has been the case in previous Olympics, that has not been met.

Freedom of the press will be the subject of a news conference on Capitol Hill today, where Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, will release several translated documents, showing that all hotels in the area of the Olympics have been required to install Internet surveillance software. The move, according to a press release, "is aimed at visiting guests and journalists." From one of the documents, translated from Chinese:

In order to ensure the smooth opening of Olympic [sic]... It is required that your company install and run the Security Management System for Internet Access from Public Places in addition to provide network interfaces consistent with the industrial technical standards on public security for the implementation the foregoing management and technical measures (the person who access the Internet must be registered in his or her real name)

Let the Games begin.

July 28, 2008

Iraq Contracts: Inspectors General Point to Waste and Fraud

Following on my post from last week about the Senate Appropriations Committee's outrage at the scale of waste and fraud endemic to Iraq contracts, I offer two specific examples, both disclosed today in separate official audits.

To begin with, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) released an audit (.pdf) of a $900-million, cost-plus contract awarded to Parsons Delaware Inc., in March 2004 to design and build infrastructure in support of Iraq's security and justice sectors. This was to include the construction of things like prisons, fire houses, and police stations. As of May 21, 2008, the firm had spent $333 million—of which $142 million (43 percent of the total) was wasted on projects that were never completed. Now, it's easy to point the finger at Parsons. But as SIGIR makes clear, blame also rests with the U.S. government for lack of oversight. Only 10 contract officers, for example, were assigned to the Parson's contract—a project that required about five-to-six times as many. To make matters worse, the audit itself was compromised by inadequate record-keeping by federal agencies. According to the report, SIGIR "contacted a number of responsible contracting offices, but at the conclusion of our review the U.S. government has been unable to locate the files for the contract bid and award process... SIGIR also could not locate inventory records for items purchased by the contractor in support of construction activities."

Meanwhile, the U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General (SBA IG) issued a report (.pdf) today, suggesting that Moyock, North Carolina-based Blackwater Worldwide may have evaded millions of dollars in taxes by misrepresenting its legal status and improperly bid for contracts reserved for small businesses. Blackwater has long claimed that its 1,000 Iraq-based operators legally qualify as "independent contractors," meaning that the firm merely hires personnel and funnels them to contract work rather than providing direct management and oversight. For this reason, the company argues, it qualifies as a small business—this despite its $1 billion contract windfall since 9/11, not to mention its burgeoning fleet of planes, ships, blimps, and armored vehicles. The SBA IG investigated 39 small business contracts obtained by Blackwater—38 awarded by the Pentagon; one by the Department of Veterans Affairs—as well as the company's $1.2 billion security contract with the State Department. It concluded that far from allowing its contractors to work for themselves, Blackwater helped establish shift schedules, monitor mission and personnel performance issues, and enforce conduct and performance standards. The State Department contract, in particular, "required Blackwater to provide a large number of supervisory positions to oversee the security personnel." The stuff of small business? Not quite, and the SBA IG has now forwarded its findings to inspectors general at the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs for further investigation.

Israeli Defense Minister Meets with Cheney, Rice Today, Iran on the Agenda

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has arrived in Washington and is scheduled to meet with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Pentagon officials and a few members of Congress today. Iran is on the agenda. Barak is accompanied by Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni and Transport Minister Shaul Mofaz. Their visit follows that of Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi to Washington last week.

(I recently wrote about the planned visits, and signs of a growing divergence between US and Israeli timelines and sense of urgency on the Iran issue. Israel was reportedly not informed in advance that the Bush administration planned to send a US representative to international nuclear talks with Iran. Barak's visit, which had been planned for earlier this month, was postponed several times, including because of a recent Israel-Hezbollah prisoner swap.)

Rice has given Iran until Saturday to respond to an international offer on a package of incentives in exchange for negotiations on halting its nuclear program. Accompanying the latest international incentives package to Iran, was a "freeze for freeze" proposal, under which Iran would agree to freeze further installations to its uranium enrichment program, while the international community would agree to freeze placing further economic sanctions on Iran, for a six week pre-negotiations period. In order to move to full-fledged negotiations, Iran has been asked to agree to suspend uranium enrichment for the duration of negotiations, in exchange for the UN agreeing to suspend sanctions already passed against it.

Iran reportedly did not provide a specific response to the freeze for freeze offer when it met with international representatives, including US undersecretary of state for political affairs William Burns, at international nuclear talks held in Geneva earlier this month. "What we're looking for is, at the end of the two weeks, a definitive statement through the normal channels, [Iran nuclear negotiator Saeed] Jalili to [international representative Javier] Solana, on where the Iranians stand," a State Department spokesman told reporters today.

A Potent and Populist Economic Issue for Obama?

On Monday, Barack Obama, fresh off his triumphant overseas trip to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, and Europe, turned to the homeland's number-one concern: the faltering economy. He was in Washington to hold a meeting with his top economic advisers. Here's how his campaign described what would happen:

Senator Obama will be joined by leading figures from business and labor, Democrats and Republicans to talk about the recent developments in the economy: job loss, financial markets, and the rising costs of oil, food and other commodities....Participants of the early afternoon meeting include: Warren Buffett, Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker, Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, SEIU Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger, Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt and other economic leaders.

Most of the agenda is pretty obvious. And campaigns are supposed to do the obvious. But there's one economic issue that Obama ought to consider raising with these economic leaders and with the voters: transparency. So much of the economy now takes place in dark corners, where traders and speculators develop, buy and sell financial instruments that are unregulated and, perhaps worse, barely understood, except by the small number of players who trade them. This is partly what brought on the subprime meltdown. (See my description of swaps here.) Even former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin did not understand the financial products that led to the housing credit crisis.

So here's a populist issue for Obama: the U.S. economy is too important to be placed in the hands of wheeler-dealers who in the shadows engage in transactions that have the potential to send waves of harm throughout the highly-interconnected financial world. Americans are entitled to feel insecure when they see that the economy can be so severely affected by a few big firms that go off the reservation, thanks to the imaginative machinations of a small number of traders. More transparency, more regulation--whatever the policy prescriptions are (and they will be technical and hard for most of us to understand), Obama could by addressing this issue gain a political advantage over John McCain, who tends to celebrate the workings of the markets.

These days there is very good reason for commoners to be suspicious of the markets. If Obama can speak to that, it could make for good policy and good politics.