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NEWS DISSECTOR: Hill And Obama Reportedly Meet, Plan Their New Alliance
NEWS DISSECTOR June 6, 2008
Hill And Obama Reportedly Meet, Plan Their New Alliance
Obama and Clinton Reportedly Met Thurs Night: Will They Unite?
WATCH: REMEMBERING BOBBY WHO DIED THIS WEEK IN JUNE
The New York State Assembly today approved legislation to rename the Triborough Bridge in New York City as the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge.
WILD BLUE YONDER: SHAKE-UP IN THE AIR FORCE
KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED WANTS TO DIE
HONORING MY DAD, JERRY SCHECHTER, AT AGE 90
There was a big shakeup at the Pentagon. Here's what they say about it. What are they not saying?
WASHINGTON - In an extraordinary shake-up, the Air Force's top uniformed and civilian officials are leaving their jobs, U.S. officials said Thursday after an internal report on a mistaken shipment to Taiwan of warhead fuses for nuclear missiles pointed substantial blame at the Air Force.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates asked Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne to step down, said defense officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Air Force officials had no immediate comment.
WHAT'S BEHIND THIS? A LINK TO IRAN?
My own source who is wired into the Air Force world says: "It's all about the nuclear thing and may have been compounded by AF slowness to get UAV's to Iraq. No connection to Iran."
Writes WIRED:
The move isn't exactly a shocker. The Air Force has come under fire for everything from mishandling nukes to misleading ad campaigns to missing out on the importance of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. For months, the Air Force's
leadership has been on the brink of open conflict with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. In the halls of the Air Force's chiefs, the talk has been largely about the threats posed by China and a resurgent Russia. Gates wanted the service to actually focus on the wars at
hand, in Iraq and Afghanistan. "For much of the past year I've been trying to concentrate the minds and energies of the defense establishment on the current needs and current conflicts," he told the Heritage Foundation. "In short, to ensure that all parts of the Defense Department are, in fact, at war."
And yet as I googled around, I found a number of stories that don't make the Air Force look so good.
ANOTHER INCIDENT FROM SALT LAKE CITY TRIBUNE
Hill Air Force Base investigators say someone saw a man placing a container, which may have been a case of missing M-16 assault rifles, into his car on Tuesday.
The man was 40 to 50 years old, medium height, heavy set, with gray hair, balding on top. Witnesses said he put the container in his vehicle, a light-in-color or green-in-color four-door, and left the area.
Already smarting from a high-profile misplacement of nuclear missile components, the accidental burning of radioactive uranium and a friendly fire incident at the Utah Test and Training Range, the acknowledgment that the case of 12 rifles may have fallen out of a truck during transport added yet another embarrassing incident to the base's recent history.
Base personnel said security was out in full force as the officials attempted to locate the shipping case, which went missing about 3:45 p.m. on Wardleigh and Browning Road, south of Roy Gate on the installation.
Linda Medler, 75th Air Base Wing commander, called the recovery of the missing weapons "our top priority."
PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT (POGO) CALLS AF IMMATURE
Sources tell POGO that the DoD IG is investigating alleged improper communications between Air Force senior officials, Members of Congress, and Boeing on how to keep the C-17 production lines open, even though the additional C-17s are not needed for national security. Isn't this exactly what President Eisenhower warned us about?
…. It's about time the Air Force grows up-they have been acting immaturely for far too long….The dramatic shake-up in leadership comes after months of public squabbling
AP: ANOTHER PROBLEM
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - The Air Force wing blamed for a foul-up in which a bomber mistakenly flew to Louisiana armed with nuclear missiles will have to be retested after coming up short in an inspection.
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the Air Force conducted a weeklong inspection of the Minot Air Force Base's 5th Bomb Wing beginning May 16, said a base spokeswoman, Maj. Elizabeth Ortiz.
"It was a very thorough and important inspection that highlighted areas for improvement, especially in areas of training and discipline," Ortiz said. "That's what we're working on and that's where we're focusing on."
The Air Force said it would not release the inspection findings, saying the report was classified. The Air Force Times, citing a copy of the report, said the base received an unsatisfactory grade and inspectors found security breakdowns during mock attacks at the base.
NYT: Senate Panel Accuses Bush of Iraq Exaggerations
The report accused the administration of exaggerating evidence of links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
THE ALLAH DEFENSE
(Bloomberg) - Self-proclaimed al-Qaeda commander Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, appearing at a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said he would welcome the martyrdom of execution for masterminding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.
"This is what I wish,'' Mohammed, speaking in English, told a judge who warned that he might be executed if convicted. "I am looking to be martyred for a long time.'' Mohammed, 43, said he was rejecting legal representation and will defend himself.
"Nothing shall befall us, save for what Allah has ordained for us.''
KSM: NOW A MEDIA CRITIC TOO, DEMANDS NOSE BE DRAWN LIKE FBI PHOTO
USA TODAY: "USA TODAY's Alan Gomez reports that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed raised an unusual objection during today's proceedings at Gitmo: the courtroom artists' rendering of his nose.
Photography inside or near the courtroom is barred, and security personnel had to view the sketches before they could be released to the public. During that process, the sketch was shown to Mohammed's defense team, and the accused terrorist took a moment to sit back and look it over.
Defense Department spokesman Cdr. Jeffrey Gordon says Mohammed felt his nose was drawn too wide, especially at the base.
"He said he wanted his nose to look like the FBI photo," Gordon says, referring to the picture distributed of Mohammed after his capture.
Gordon says the artist was not ordered to change the picture, but was given more time to properly depict Mohammed's appearance at the hearing.
"It shows the lengths we go to to take their desires into consideration," Gordon said.
THE CRIME ZONE OF DARFUR
'Whole State Apparatus' Involved in Darfur
KIDNAPPINGS INCREASE IN HAITI SPARKS PROTEST
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jun 5 (IPS) - Several thousand people, including remnants of the wealthy and educated class who remain in Haiti, took to the streets of Port-au-Prince Wednesday to rail against what they say is government inaction amid a rise in kidnappings.
AP: Court rules on sentences of 'Cuban 5?
ATLANTA - A federal appeals court has again upheld the politically charged convictions of five Cuban intelligence agents accused of spying in the U.S., but vacated sentences of three of them, including two who are serving life terms. The full 11th Circuit court already upheld the convictions of the so-called "Cuban Five" in August 2006. It rejected claims that their federal trial should have been moved from Miami because of widespread opposition among Cuban-Americans there to the communist Cuban government.
SAUDI FINANCIER WANTED BY FBI GIVEN $80 MILLION U.S. WAR CONTRACT
ABC NEWS The US military has awarded an $80 million contract to a prominent Saudi financier who has been indicted by the US Justice Department. The contract to supply jet fuel to American bases in Afghanistan was awarded to the Attock Refinery Ltd, a Pakistani-based refinery owned by Gaith Pharaon. Pharaon is wanted in connection with his alleged role at the failed Bank of Credit and Commerce International, and the CenTrust savings and loan scandal, which cost US tax payers $1.7 billion.
The Saudi businessman was also named in a 2002 French parliamentary report as having links to informal money transfer networks called hawala, known to be used by traders and terrorists, including Al Qaeda.
Interestingly, Pharaon was also an investor in President George W. Bush's first business venture, Arbusto Energy.
A spokesman for the FBI said Pharaon was not wanted in connection with the French report, but confirmed he was still sought by the US Justice Department. "Ghaith Pharaon is an FBI fugitive indicted in both the BCCI and CENTRUST case," said Richard Kolko, a spokesman for the FBI. "If anyone has information on his location, they are requested to contact the FBI or the US Embassy."
Several soldiers who have returned from combat zones talk with American News Project about what they say is the widespread practice of using "drop weapons" to cover up the killing of innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.
KATHA POLLITT: TWO CHEERS FOR HILLARY
Death of a Saleswoman-How Hillary Lost a Generation of Young Voters
Slate's Meghan O'Rourke says Hillary lost a generation of young voters, like herself, by refusing to portray herself as part of a joyful feminist narrative. Meghan is Slate's literary editor and political voice in Slate's women's blog, XX Factor.
HILLARY SAYS VP CHOICE IS OBAMA'S: CALLS ON SUPPORTERS NOT TO PRESSURE HIM
LINDA MILAZZO HAS A PROPOSAL-AN OBAMA-CAROLINE KENNEDY TICKET
HUMOR-BOROWITZ REPORT:
The endgame of Hillary Clinton's bid for the Democratic presidential nomination took an unexpected turn today as her husband, former President Bill Clinton, updated his status on a popular social networking site.
Visitors to Mr. Clinton's profile page at Facebook noticed that minutes after Mrs. Clinton suspended her campaign, President Clinton updated his status from "Married" to "It's Complicated."
House Foreclosures Set New Record: 1 in Ten Homes At Risk
HOW'S THE ECONOMY DOING?
COMPLACENCY SHATTERING IN FINANCIAL MARKETS
The RGE Monitor of Economist Nouriel Roubini reports market under "Severe stress:"
The complacency that took hold of financial markets - after the bailout of the Bear Stearns' creditors and the extension of the lender of last resort support of the Fed to systemically important broker dealers - is rapidly fading away as financial markets and financial institutions are again under severe stress.
FORECLOSURES UP, UP AND UP
WASHINGTON - Home foreclosures and late payments set records over the first three months of the year and are expected to keep rising, stark signs of the housing crisis' mounting damage to homeowners and the economy.
The latest snapshot of the mortgage market, released Thursday, showed that the proportion of mortgages that fell into foreclosure soared to 0.99 percent in the January-through-March period. That surpassed the previous high of 0.83 percent over the last three months in 2007.
The report by the Mortgage Bankers Association also found that more homeowners slipped behind on their monthly payments.
The delinquency rate jumped to 6.35 percent in the first quarter, compared with 5.82 percent for the three months earlier. Payments are considered delinquent if they are 30 or more days past due.
Both the rate of new foreclosures and late payments were the highest on record going back to 1979.
Jay Brinkmann, the association's vice president of research and economics, told The Associated Press that the slump in house prices was the biggest factor for rising foreclosures and late payments.
With prices expected to keep dropping, foreclosures and late payments "are going to continue to go up" in the months ahead, he said.
Note: Many of these foreclosures are for now for PRIME rates, not SUBPRIME RATES.
"THE HIGHEST RATE EVER RECORDED"
AND THEN THERE IS THIS STATISTIC: Homes in foreclosure top 1 million "More than one million homes are now in foreclosure, the highest rate ever recorded, according to a trade group… ONE OUT OF TEN HOMEOWNERS ARE AT RISK.
Here's an article that's says our whole country has been mortgaged:
Eric J. Weiner:Mortgaging America
Thesis: Investment funds run by foreign governments are keeping the U.S. afloat.
DARK CLOUDS OVER AMERICA
AUGUSTA CHRONICLE: NEW YORK - Dark clouds continue to hang over the economy: The manufacturing sector shrank for the fourth consecutive month, construction spending has been falling for more than two years, future orders are down and prices are skyrocketing.||The few bright spots, such as strong exports, might be the only thing keeping us from a protracted recession, analysts said Monday.||"It's exports, and, of course, government spending, that's keeping us above water," said John Silvia, chief economist at Wachovia Corp.
MEDIA-WBAI: The Legend That Lost Its Way
In January 1960, Harold Winkler, Pacifica Radio's president and KPFA station manager, received an unusual phone call from New York. A former political science professor at the University of California, Winkler had resigned in protest over a required loyalty oath for faculty members. He was also independently wealthy. On the other end of the line was Louis Schweitzer, a Russian-born millionaire, radio station owner, and also a president - in his case president of the Peter Schweitzer Division of Kimberly-Clark. He knew about Pacifica and had a radical proposition…
For the full story, click here.
IAN WILLIAMS ON SCOTT MCCLELLAN
He might not be up there with St Augustine, but former White House press secretary Scott McClellan give an honest depiction in his book of someone wrestling with his conscience. He is legibly torn between his loyalties to his country and to the president he helped elect. As Mr Everyconservative, his signposts on his personal road to Damascus are indeed those that define why the American public lost faith in the administration: the still unexplained rush to war in Iraq, the abysmal handling of the occupation and the inept response to Katrina.
The media reaction to his revelations on the duplicity of the Bush regime led to some unkind thoughts of front-page headlines on ursine defecation in the woods and papal Catholicism. Five years on, it is hardly the stuff of Pulitzers that the White House was not entirely candid over Iraqi WMDs and the Niger uranium letter, or had played a role in the vindictive outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent.
The surprised reaction to his book tends to weaken his argument that most of the press were doing a fine job all along. In fact, Arianna Huffington's new book has an honor roll of the press who did not go dizzy with the spin from McClellan and his colleagues. (In a spirit of full disclosure, she includes me in her list).
McClellan and his former chums were doing their job, which was to be as parsimonious with the truth as possible in what they fed to the White House press corps, which in turn seems to have bought the overall picture. While his apostasy from unwavering belief in a personal GOP with all the answers is impressive in itself, the sound of silence is still deafening. Perhaps the most egregious example, both of selective silence and of his professional stonewalling is his evasive refusal to answer veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas's questions about whether Bush had been sentenced to community service while he was supposed to be serving in the Texas Air National Guard. After 15 minutes, in February 2004, McClellan had not conceded a single word of substance.
Remarkably, neither Thomas herself nor the incident appear in McClellan's book. Also absent is mention of her exclusion, together with correspondents like her, from McClellan's list of journalists who were safe for the president to call on at his few and nugatory press encounters.
It seems that McClellan has not yet completed the 12-step programme to break his Bush dependence. McClellan shows he is still under the spell when he mentions the CBS 60 Minutes scandal over Bush's war record. He mentions it en passant, calling the documentary evidence "dubious". But the programme showed what others had demonstrated - that the story was substantially correct. Bush did dodge the Vietnam war, he did not fulfil his National Guard duty. And throughout, his answers were the presidential equivalent of pleading the Fifth Amendment.
NEW BOOK ON JOURNALISM: New book by Charlie Beckett, an award-winning journalist and Director of the London School of Economics media think-tank Polis.
SuperMedia: Saving Journalism So It Can Save The World (Blackwell books) is a passionate and controversial defence of the social value of journalism. But it argues that the news media must be transformed in to 'Networked Journalism' that allows the public much more power and participation. It outlines how forces such as new technology are destroying old media forms around the world. And it gives international examples of how new media will change the way that we report on the big issues such as politics, terror, Development and climate change.
INTERNATIONAL REACTIONS TO US POLITICS
MAIL & GUARDIAN, SOUTH AFRICA:
"Go Obama!
It's not just that he's a black male. Or young. Or raised in a country of the developing south. It's for all these reasons and more we celebrate that Barack Obama has won the Democrats' nomination to run for the United States presidency."
ANOTHER LETTER FROM INDONESIA
Ianni writes:
"Who does not follow American politics in this earth? They must be insane!!
So Obama will be the US president - what will happen - will there be any significant change specially in regards to economic collapse?
Good question. Right now, I would have to respond in the negative.
DEPARTMENT OF UNSUNG HEROES: A TRIBUTE TO MY DAD
My favorite unsung hero is the man I owe it all too - and the man I want to tell you about, and honor today, my father, mentor, educator, guardian, fondest supporter and harshest critic, and amazing role model, Jerry Schechter whose 90th birthday we will miraculously be celebrating this weekend up in Boston.
A year ago, this month, my dad was struck with pneumonia and was rushed to an intensive care unit. When he recovered, and sentenced to some rehab, they gave him a terminal sentence and a month to live. His apartment became a hospice. We were all facing the fear of losing him.
Allow me a few moments on a point of personal privilege, to celebrate the fact that he has survived this past year, beat the odds so far, with all of his faculties, memories and values intact, even if his breathing is not what it once was. He's a World War 2 veteran and like many of his comrades became a three pack a day man. Thanks to the smoking addiction, he lost a leg first, some years back, and now has a lung cancer threatening to become aggressive. Every day is a joyous occasion and I know he knows it, even if his lifestyle is not what he would like it to be. He's very independent, and had his drivers license reissued at age 87. He can't really drive now and that is driving him a bit crazy
But who woulda thunk he would have outlasted the reaper this long, and made it to the big 9.0, outliving his parents and my mom. He is alert, lively and does not just live in the past. He is as informed and disgusted by what's going on today as I am. He is also an artist, a sculptor, a "handy man" with layers of talent and nuanced understandings. His memory is memorable. While in his 80's, he got his first computer and can now email with the best of them.
He was a worker, a garment worker, and the shops he worked in are not far from the Globalvision office I labor in today. He and his father were union people His father was part of the generation of Jewish immigrants who arrived here in 1913, just before World War 1 shut down the seas and the immigration tide. My dad went to the same high school I did in the Bronx.
He fought in a war-well actually avoided fighting, defending Florida not Frankfurt, and I fought against several. He survived the depression; I am warning of a new one now. He helped make a great life for my mom, my brother Bill and then Denzil McKenzie, a Jamaican young man who came to live with us and became our other brother and a great lawyer in Boston.
My dad was there for us, for his three dogs who came and went, his many grandkids, and is a living and loving custodian and advocate of the principles of the labor movement and the humanitarianism and fraternalism of Jewish labor organizations.His values are progressive. His common sense or sachel unmatched.
A few years ago, thanks to research by my brilliant brother and historian Bill, we discovered living relatives among those we thought lost to the holocaust. My brother and dad traveled to Nuremburg Germany for a reunion with people we last communicated with in 1936. My dad charmed these long last members of the family. They spoke German and Russian but his knowledge of Yiddish provided a bridge of communication. (Recently I met a branch of this part of the family in Berlin.)
I will be seeing him Friday and partying with him on Saturday. He's told me he has prepared an "acceptance speech."
But tonight, Thursday, I joined a march that I knew he would have approved of, fighting against plans in New York to gentrify and privatize the free speech park in New York, our town square, the one and only Union Square. The protest was led by the charismatic Reverend Billy and his Church of Stop shopping.
Here's the petition on his website at revbilly.com/petition.
To: New York City Department of Parks and Recreation
CC: Union Square Partnership
We, the undersigned, believe the historic Pavilion at Union Square must be kept public space for use by the people of New York City. The Pavilion's priceless legacy as a platform for children and families, musicians, and progressive political activists must not be subverted by a backroom deal to turn it into a restaurant. The Union Square neighborhood is saturated with restaurants, yet New York City is starving for public space.
The First Amendment, invoked in public space, is a community's greatest weapon against repression and exploitation. Emma Goldman and Paul Robeson and countless activists have demonstrated this at Union Square, winning the 40 hour work week and other freedoms we now take for granted. A high-end restaurant on the site of the Pavilion will have a chilling effect on the essential demonstrations and organizing that take place on the north side of the Square to this day, and will swindle the families and people of New York City out of yet another commercial-free space for community use.
We call on the City and Union Square Partnership to preserve and invest in the Pavilion as a public space for the public good, and terminate their plan to convert it into a restaurant.
One of the heroes of Union Square that was saluted tonight was the Socialist Leader Norman Thomas who I met through my dad. Thomas was one of the few American politicians to support Matatma Gandhi's fight for the independence of India. There is a Gandhi statue in Union Square today.
In his speech to the crowd which jointly shouted and sung the First Amendment to the Constitution, Reverend Billy, as brilliant a street performer/organizer as there is in this country said that all of us are in debt to the many heroes of Union Square and that they are "living in us." I know my dad took part in union assemblies there that gave this Square its name.
That's how I feel about my father. No matter what happens, because death (and taxes) are our one certainty in life, he is living in me and I know that the rest of our family are living in him. We hope to be with him on his l00th.
Happy Birthday Jerry Schechter, a force in our lives, a patriarch in our family, an example for the world to emulate. And if you are fortunate to meet him, you will know I am not exaggerating.
Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org
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