THE FULCRUM

A report released by a House committee on Thursday describes how the Bush administration worked with the United States chemical industry to undermine a European plan that would require all manufacturers to test industrial chemicals for their effect on public health before they were sold in Europe.

[snip]

Behind the scenes, the administration was working with the chemical industry to devise a plan to undermine the proposal, according to e-mail messages and documents released in the report.

[snip]

The report, requested by Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, says that American environmental groups and the general public were kept out of the administration's closed discussions and strategy sessions.

"We were frozen out," said Joseph Digangi of the Environmental Health Fund, an advocacy group cited in the report. "The administration went directly to the U.S. chemical industry and adopted their position whole cloth."

Anthony Gooch, the spokesman for the European Commission in the United States, said of the report: "There would seem to be an inordinate weight given to only one side of a complex argument. Significant concerns about the environment and public health seem to be totally absent from their policy."

The lobbying efforts of the United States appear to have succeeded. The European Union revised the proposal, known as Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals, or Reach.

Five months after trade officials sent e-mail messages discussing how to persuade senior European officials to demand new cost-benefit analyses, France, Germany and Britain wrote to the president of the European Commission requesting a new assessment of the effects that the program would have on the industry.

The Washington Post says people with direct knowledge of the call say Alberto Gonzales, President Bush's top lawyer, called commissioner Fred Fielding and may also have called commissioner James Thompson, before Richard Clarke was due to appear on March 24.

[snip]

Fielding and Thompson both asked questions on March 24 that concerned Clarke's credibility. Fielding referred to a previously classified briefing Clarke gave to Congress in 2002 in which he reportedly praised the Bush administration's terrorism strategy.

Thompson mentioned a White House briefing in 2002 that Clarke had given anonymously. Fox News first reported on Clarke's White House briefing just hours before.

A pharmacist refused to fill a North Richland Hills woman's prescription for birth-control pills this week, but the woman hopes her experience will provoke an examination of pharmacists' power over patient care.

Julee Lacey, 32, a first-grade teacher and mother of two, ran out of birth-control pills Sunday night and went to her local CVS pharmacy for a last-minute refill. The new pharmacist at the branch told her, "I'm sorry, but I personally do not believe in birth control, so I will not fill your prescription," Mrs. Lacey recalled.

Her husband and the assistant manager could not persuade the pharmacist to change her mind.

When pressed, the pharmacist added that birth-control pills "cause cancer."

"I think my doctor should make these decisions," Mrs. Lacey said. "If they're going to decide not to do birth-control pills, where are they going to draw the line?"

The Treasury tapped civil servants to calculate the cost of Sen. John Kerry's tax plan and then posted the analysis on the Treasury Web site. A federal law bars career government officials from working on political campaigns.

House Majority Leader Tom Delay of Texas requested the estimates, said Stuart Roi, a DeLay spokesman, because several Democratic budget proposals had provisions similar to the Kerry tax plan. Mr. DeLay then distributed the analysis widely, including to the Republican National Committee. "The Democrats are all one and the same" on tax repeal, Mr. Roi said. "They don't attempt to make a distinction."

The U.S. search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq will continue, but the focus now includes whether
Saddam Hussein intended to develop such weapons, the chief U.S. arms hunter says.

"Ultimately what we want is a comprehensive picture, not just simply answering questions -- were there weapons, were there not
weapons?" Charles Duelfer told reporters after a closed-door briefing to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"The hunt will go on until we're able to draw a firm and confident picture of what the programs were and where the regime was headed with
respect to them. But we're looking at it from soup to nuts -- from the weapons end to the planning end and to the intentions end," he said.

"...we're looking for the decisions by the regime to sustain a capability..."

If you're ever thinking about going down to Crawford, Texas, to protest against Bush, beware.


The police do not take kindly to demonstrators there--or legal observers, for that matter.


And even if you're just wearing an anti-Bush button, you could get arrested.


That's the message a local jury sent last month.

NTodd, over at Dohiyi Mir, has a great new digital SLR! Go see the first of what is likely to be plenty of beautiful photos. And while you're there, scroll up one entry and read Rummy's latest work of poetry!

The Fantastic Four who write Corrente have written so many posts lately that it's hard to keep up, even with an RSS feed! It also makes it hard to pick just one post to send you to read... Take your pick of any of the (literally) hundreds written in the past week. These guys are on fire!

Although I've considered myself to be an atheist for quite a while, I'm always interested to see how other peoples' faith - or faithlessness - develops over time and what events transpire to change it. Amy, at BlogAmY explores her faith and that of some of her family in a couple of great posts.

Bark Bark Woof Woof may be one of the oddest blog titles you'll run across, but don't let that put you off. Mustang Bobby writes some of the best social commentary you'll find. So good, in fact, that he just passed 10,000 total hits since he started blogging just five short months ago. Drop by and help him on his way to the next 10,000!

Steve Gilliard takes on angry, fat guys who think that American Women Suck. Steve's right on with his analysis, I think. You'll find yourself shaking your head and then laughing - and then you'll be thinking about it all day.

Protecting Karl Rove may seem an odd concern for a Liberal blogger, but rest assured, Andante has her reasons! Go check out Collective Sigh and see why Uncle Karl should get Secret Service protection (or not!).

Snakes, as far as I know, and Snake Goddesses, in particular, don't do polls. Or so I thought. Echidne of the Snakes, however has taken a liking to dissecting polls. Check out her take on a CNN/USA Today poll of likely voters; seems that there might be some very interesting people in those polls. Go see what I mean.

I failed to note when New World Blogger joined the ranks of the Liberal Coalition. It was a serious oversight on my part. HLVictoria brings a new perspective to blogging and to Liberal politics. I highly recommend NWB - in fact, if you have the time, check out the archives and the photoblog as well. The latest NWB post concerns education funding and the IMF. As you can imagine, those usually hurt most by IMF requirements are those who most need additional educational funding, but... Go check it out, please.

I ran across Points of Information via the TTLB Ecosystem. This Canadian blog is run in a manner of a Parliament, with ten members on both sides - or may be all sides is more like it - of the political spectrum. It's an interesting idea, with posts generally being in the form of parliamentary discourse. Check it out.

Preposterous Universe is a wonderful mix of politics and science, specifically physics. It seems an odd mix - and it is - but Sean makes it work. Discussion ranges from the latest BushCo. gaffe to string theory to the role of ego in science. Go read it, your mind needs expanding!

I have to admit that the name drew me in: Kamikaze Kumquat. How could you not follow a link to a blog with that name? Lisa had commented on some of my posts so I followed the link to her blog - as I do with all new commenters here. What I found was lots of fun. Lisa's tag line? "Sometimes a blog is just random insanity and a squirrel." Exactly!

"Nothing would be better, from my point of view, than to be able to testify," Ms. Rice said yesterday in an interview on CBS's "60 Minutes." "But there's an important principle involved." She added that her private comments to the commission would be the same as what she would say in public. In response to Mr. Clarke's public apology to Sept. 11 victims' families last week, she said that she would like to meet with the families to answer questions.

Mr. Clarke said he "would welcome" the declassification of his testimony before a congressional committee looking into events around Sept. 11, and hopes the White House will release even more documents that he claims will bolster his credibility and his charges.

In addition to his testimony, Mr. Clarke called on the administration to release Ms. Rice's testimony; all pre-Sept. 11 e-mails between Mr. Clarke and Ms. Rice; a Jan. 25, 2001 antiterrorism memo sent by him to Ms. Rice; and a Sept. 4 national-security directive that he says embraces his memo's recommendations. The two latter documents, he said, show the administration "wasted months when we could have had some action" in ratcheting up the war on terrorism.

bushwa (BUSH-wa) n., (also bushwah)

Nonsense; bull.