THE FULCRUM

The Bush administration has been going to court to block lawsuits by consumers who say they have been injured by prescription drugs and medical devices.

The administration contends that consumers cannot recover damages for such injuries if the products have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. In court papers, the Justice Department acknowledges that this position reflects a "change in governmental policy," and it has persuaded some judges to accept its arguments, most recently scoring a victory in the federal appeals court in Philadelphia.

Allowing consumers to sue manufacturers would "undermine public health" and interfere with federal regulation of drugs and devices, by encouraging "lay judges and juries to second-guess" experts at the F.D.A., the government said in siding with the maker of a heart pump sued by the widow of a Pennsylvania man. Moreover, it said, if such lawsuits succeed, some good products may be removed from the market, depriving patients of beneficial treatments.

See Y'all in New York

By ZELL MILLER
July 26, 2004

Twelve years ago, I delivered one of the keynote addresses on the first night at the Democratic National Convention in New York. It was a stinging rebuke of the administration of George H.W. Bush and a ringing endorsement of Bill Clinton. This summer I'll again be speaking in New York, but it will be to the Republican Convention that renominates George W. Bush.

Many have asked how I could have come so far in just over a decade. Frankly, I don't think I've changed much at all. At 72, I don't feel much need to change my opinions. Instead, the reason I'm not attending the Democratic Convention in Boston is that I barely recognize my party anymore. Most of its leaders -- including our nominee, John Kerry -- don't hold the same beliefs that have motivated my career in public service.

In 1992, I spoke of the opportunity and hope that allowed me, the son of a single mother growing up in the North Georgia mountains, to become my state's governor. And I attributed much of my success to the great Democratic presidents of years gone by -- FDR (a hallowed man in my home), Truman and JFK. The link these men shared was a commitment to helping Americans born into any condition rise to achieve whatever goal they set for themselves.

I spoke of Americans who were "tired of paying more in taxes and getting less in services." I excoriated Republicans who "dealt in cynicism and skepticism." I accused them of "master[ing] the art of division and diversion." And I praised Bill Clinton as a moderate Democrat "who has the courage to tell some of those liberals who think welfare should continue forever, and some of those conservatives who think there should be no welfare at all, that they're both wrong."

Bill Clinton did deliver on welfare reform, after a lot of prodding from the Republicans who took hold of Congress in 1995. But much of the rest of the promise I saw in his candidacy withered during his two terms in office.

Today, it's the Democratic Party that has mastered the art of division and diversion. To run for president as a Democrat these days you have to go from interest group to interest group, cap in hand, asking for the support of liberal kingmakers. Mr. Kerry's no different. After Hollywood elites profaned the president, he didn't have the courage to put them in their place. Instead, he validated their remarks, claiming that they represent "the heart and soul of America."

No longer the Party of Hope, today's Democratic Party has become Mr. Kerry's many mansions of cynicism and skepticism. As our economy continues to get better and businesses add jobs, Mr. Kerry's going around America trying to convince people that the roof is about to cave in. He talks about "the misery index" and the Depression. What does he know about either?

And when it comes to taxes and services, you'd be pressed to find anyone more opposed to the interests of middle-class Americans than John Kerry. Except maybe John Edwards. Both voted against tax relief for married couples, tax relief for families with children, and tax relief for small businesses. Now Mr. Kerry wants to raise taxes on hundreds of thousands of small-business owners and millions of individuals. He claims to be for working people, but I don't understand how small businesses can create jobs if they've got to send more money to Washington instead of keeping it to hire workers.

Worst of all, Sens. Kerry and Edwards have not kept faith with the men and women who are fighting the war on terror -- most of whom come from small towns and middle-class families all over America. While Mr. Bush has stood by our troops every step of the way, Messrs. Kerry and Edwards voted to send our troops to war and then voted against the money to give them supplies and equipment -- not to mention better benefits for their families. And recently Mr. Kerry even said he's proud of that vote. Proud to abandon our troops when they're out in the field? I can hear Harry Truman cussing from his grave.

I still believe in hope and opportunity and, when it comes right down to it, Mr. Bush is the man who represents hope and opportunity. Hope for a safer world. And opportunity for Americans to work hard, keep more of the money they earn, and send their kids to good schools. All the speeches we hear this week won't be able to hide the truth of what today's Democratic Party has become: an enclave of elites paying lip service to middle-class values. Americans looking for a president who understands their struggles and their dreams should tune in next month, when we celebrate the leadership of George W. Bush.

"If the Congress and the president delay unnecessarily, and it's difficult again for me to say exactly when they should act,'' Mr. Kean said, "but if it seems that they are delaying, I think they are going to be held responsible by the American people, especially if the experts are right and there is another terrorist attack."

Mr. Bush, who began a weeklong vacation on Friday at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., ordered his chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., to lead an administrationwide review of the recommendations and to report to him "as quickly as possible," a spokeswoman said.

Musings about a second Bush term typically assume another four years of the same right-wing policies we've had to date. But it'd likely be far worse. So far, the Bush administration has had to govern with the expectation of facing American voters again in 2004. But suppose George W. Bush wins a second term. The constraint of a re-election contest will be gone. Knowing that voters can no longer turn them out, and that this will be their last shot at remaking America, the radical conservatives will be unleashed.

Of the four state high school health textbooks under consideration in Texas this summer, one says teenagers should “get plenty of rest” if they want to avoid sexually transmitted diseases. It also suggests students can help prevent pregnancies by respecting themselves. The book avoids any discussion of condoms.

[snip]

"Texas has the nation’s highest teen birth rate among girls age 15 to 17, and nearly half of all new sexually transmitted disease infections occur among people age 15 to 24,” Dan Quinn, a spokesman for the Texas Freedom Network told the Dallas Morning News.

The U.S. military has spent most of the $65 billion that Congress approved for fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and is scrambling to find $12.3 billion more from within the Defense Department to finance the wars through the end of the fiscal year, federal investigators said yesterday.

[snip]

The strain is beginning to add up, the GAO said. The hard-hit Army faces a $5.3 billion shortfall in funds supporting deployed forces, a $2 billion budget deficit for the refurbishing of equipment used in Iraq and a $753 million deficit in its logistics contract. The Army also needs $800 million more to cover equipment maintenance costs and $650 million to pay contractors guarding garrisons.

The Air Force has decreased flying hours for pilots, eliminated some training, slowed civilian hiring and curtailed "lower priority requirements such as travel, supplies and equipment," the report said.

Despite public claims that recruiting is on track, senior military officials involved in U.S. Army recruiting say that the service is cutting deeply into its delayed-entry pool of recruits, which likely will create a shortfall later this year.

[snip]

Already, the strains of those deployments are showing. Last month, Army officials announced that thousands of active-duty soldiers who are nearing the end of their volunteer service could be forced to serve an entire 12-month tour overseas if their units are tapped for duty in Iraq or Afghanistan.

"We are facing a serious manpower crunch," said a senior defense official.

By the time the 9/11 commission releases its final report today, President Bush will be well into a day of White House events designed to bolster his image as a defender of the homeland.

In the Oval Office this morning, Mr. Bush will sign a law giving police officers added authority to pack weapons while off duty. By midafternoon, Mr. Bush will have beaten a trail to a police training academy in Illinois, where he plans to deliver a speech on domestic security. The theatrics underscore the lengths to which the White House will go to protect what have been Mr. Bush's biggest political assets: his launching of the war on terrorism and his image of resoluteness. But the need to go to such lengths also suggests that the Bush team worries that the president's edge on national-security issues may be eroding.

The tightness of the race and diminished backing for Mr. Bush's handling of the war on terror underscore the danger the commission's final report poses for Mr. Bush, particularly if voters conclude the administration was negligent in handling the terror threat. Mr. Bush's leadership in the war on terror "is the underpinning of Bush's support right now," says Frank Luntz, a pollster who has worked with top Republicans in past elections. "If that underpinning comes apart, then so does his support."

The bill, explicitly requiring people who have never been in combat to serve in the wars they start, would affect thousands of neoconservatives in Washington and New York. It was strongly opposed by the Bush Administration on the grounds that it would leave most of the Administration's upper-level positions vacant, including the presidency and vice-presidency, but it was left unattended on President Bush's desk and he inadvertently signed it after deciding it looked too long and too hard to read first.

In a statement, Sen. Kerry described Mr. Berger as a friend who "has tirelessly served this nation with honor and distinction. I respect his decision to step aside as an adviser to the campaign until this matter is resolved objectively and fairly."

Singer Linda Ronstadt was thrown out of the Aladdin casino in Las Vegas on the weekend after dedicating a song ("Desperado") to liberal film maker Michael Moore and his movie "Fahrenheit 9/11," a casino spokeswoman said on Monday.

[snip]

"Ms. Ronstadt was hired to entertain the guests of the Aladdin, not to espouse political views," the casino said.

Joshua Berry and Ricky Williams, both Houstonians, have seen two very different economic recoveries.

Mr. Berry, an entrepreneur, has profited handsomely from the stock market, in the real-estate boom and by selling a business. Mr. Williams, an airline baggage handler, has been waiting since 2001 for a pay raise.

[snip]

Hotel revenue was up 11% in the first five months of 2004 at luxury and upscale chains, but up just 3% at economy chains, according to Smith Travel Research, a market-research firm. At the five-star Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colo., $600-a-night lakeside suites are sold out every day through mid-October.

At high-end Bulgari stores, meanwhile, consumers are gobbling up $5,000 Astrale gold and diamond "cocktail" rings made for the right hand, a spokeswoman says. The Italian company's U.S. revenue was up 22% in the first quarter. Neiman Marcus Group Inc., flourishing on sales of pricey items like $500 Manolo Blahnik shoes, had a 13.5% year-over-year sales rise at stores open at least a year.

By contrast, such "same store" sales at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., retailer for the masses, were up just 2.2% in June. Wal-Mart believes higher gasoline costs are pinching its customers. At Payless ShoeSource Inc., which sells items like $10.99 pumps, June same-store sales were 1% below a year earlier.

A similar pattern shows up in cars. Luxury brands like BMW, Cadillac and Lexus saw double-digit U.S. sales increases in June from a year earlier. Sales of lower-tier brands such as Dodge, Pontiac and Mercury either declined or grew in the low single digits.

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

1. A politician may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human to come to harm. I would interpret harm to mean physical or psychological or developmental harm. So that international aid, education and universal health care debates would have entirely different articles of debate.

2. A politician must obey desires expressed to them by citizens, regardless of political affiliation, except where such desires would conflict with the First Law. No longer would some political doors remain closed because of a citizens political party. No longer would the majority - or a vocal and well funded minority - be able to impose its bigoted or uneducated will on the rest of the citizenry.

3. A politician must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. I see this as addressing not only the political existence of the candidate, but of the politician's actions concerning the continued existence of the country. This would force consideration of the cost in lives of not only our own citizens but of the rest of the world.

The [Minnesota] state Republican Party has developed a Web site that allows its activists to tap into a database of voters whose political allegiances and concerns it would like to know. But it is not just any group of voters -- they are the activists' neighbors.

The project, dubbed WebVoter, gives GOP activists the names and addresses of 25 people who live, in most cases, within a couple of blocks from them. The party has asked 60,000 supporters from across the state to figure out what issues animate their neighbors and where they stand in the political spectrum, and report that information back to the party -- with or, possibly, without their neighbors' permission.

The anticipated disclosure by the 9/11 Commission of contacts between Iran and al Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks could ratchet up pressure on the White House to explain its subsequent emphasis on a threat from Iraq despite apparently far greater evidence of Iran's terrorist dealings.

People familiar with the report, expected to be released Thursday, say it will detail evidence that Iran instructed its border guards in late 2000 to allow al Qaeda operatives to pass freely from Afghanistan into Iran, and back, and that at least eight of the Sept. 11 hijackers passed through Iran from late 2000 through February 2001. At least some were allowed to pass without having their passports stamped, allowing them to conceal trips to training camps in Afghanistan.

The eight to 10 hijackers who crossed through are said to have been among the so-called muscle hijackers whose job was to overcome resistance by flight crews and passengers during the hijackings.

The panel's findings are also said to note that Iranian officials contacted al Qaeda leaders after the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and proposed a collaboration on terrorist attacks. But Osama bin Laden spurned the offer because of fear of a backlash by supporters in Saudi Arabia. The commission information is based on reports of statements by al Qaeda detainees during interrogations, and numerous electronic intercepts by the National Security Agency.
The report will say, however, that there isn't any evidence that Iran knew in advance of the Sept. 11 plot. Details of the commission's findings on Iran and al Qaeda were reported earlier on Time magazine's Web site.

Although President Bush some time ago labeled Iran a member of the "axis of evil" along with pre-war Iraq, the administration's main focus consistently was on a military response to Iraq. Both Mr. Bush and Vice President Cheney cited alleged evidence of al Qaeda contacts with Iraq to justify the war.

The Bush administration is withholding information from U.N.-sanctioned auditors examining more than $1 billion in contracts awarded to Halliburton Co. and other companies in Iraq without competitive bidding, the head of the international auditing board said Thursday.

The audit, which covers May 2003 to December 2003, asserts that the coalition's management of Iraq's oil was plagued by "inadequate" bookkeeping and accounting systems, high turnover among coalition finance officials and a disregard for procedures designed to ensure competitive bidding for contracts. KPMG is planning to produce a second audit that covers the coalition's management of the program through June 2004.
 
[snip]
 
KPMG outlined a series of other shortcomings, including the coalition's failure to install meters on Iraq's Persian Gulf export loading platforms, making it impossible to determine how much oil Iraq was exporting. KPMG said that it was unable to verify independently the value of crude oil Iraq bartered for Syrian electricity.

Mr. Kerry's remarks, two weeks before he accepts the nomination of a Democratic Party with deep misgivings about the war, indicate the Massachusetts senator isn't preparing to spell out a timetable for rapid withdrawal of the roughly 140,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq. To the contrary, he suggested that Mr. Bush was more likely to do so, saying "I've heard [it] said by many people" that the White House might be gearing up to withdraw troops before the November election.

"I'm prepared for any political move" on Iraq, Mr. Kerry said. "I'd put nothing past them."
 
[snip]
 
"I don't trust this administration's definition of where they're going or what they're going to do," he said. "They've already shifted everything. They shifted the reason for the war. They're capable of shifting anything."

This is a surprise? Groupthink has become as American as apple pie and prisoner abuse; in fact, it's hard to find any thinking these days that doesn't qualify for the prefix "group." Our standardized-test-driven schools reward the right answer, not the unsettling question. Our corporate culture prides itself on individualism, but it's the "team player" with the fixed smile who gets to be employee of the month. In our political culture, the most crushing rebuke is to call someone "out of step with the American people." Zip your lips, is the universal message, and get with the program.

This nation was not founded by habitual groupthinkers. But it stands a fair chance of being destroyed by them.

Three years after Gov. Jeb Bush announced a new voting system that he called "a model for the rest of the nation," Florida is grappling with some of the same problems that threw the 2000 presidential election into chaos, as well as new ones that critics say could cause even more confusion this November.

A recent analysis by The Sun-Sentinel found that touch-screen machines in South Florida failed to record votes eight times more often than optical-scan machines in the March presidential primary.

– UnitedHealth Group Inc. Thursday said its net income rose 36% in the second quarter, and raised its forecast for full-year earnings.

[snip]

"We expect strong results from our businesses in the second half of this year," said UnitedHealth Chairman and CEO William W. McGuire, M.D.

July 13, 2004
Ken Mehlman
Campaign Manager
BUSH-CHENEY '04, Inc.


Dear Ken:

Over the past several months, allies of the President have questioned John Kerry’s patriotism while your staff has criticized his service in Vietnam. Republicans and their allies have gone so far as to launch attacks against his wife and your campaign has run $80 million in negative ads that have been called baseless, misleading and unfair by several independent observers.

NASA's $785 million Aura mission to study Earth's atmosphere was stranded on its California launch pad again today, the third launch date this week missed because of technical problems.

[snip]

The bus-sized Aura, built for NASA by Northrop Grumman Corp., is designed to monitor the health of the depleted layer of ozone gases in the stratosphere that protect Earth from solar radiation. It will also track pollutants in the atmosphere to see where they travel and how they interact, NASA said.

"The constitutional amendment we're debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans," McCain said. "It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them."

"The founders wisely made certain that the Constitution is difficult to amend and, as a practical political matter, can't be done without overwhelming public approval. And thank God for that," he said.

In many parts of the country in recent years, strapped local governments have imposed big increases in property-tax rates, as well as in home assessments, to fill budget shortfalls. In response, voters have organized efforts to repeal or slow property-tax boosts in states from Virginia to Oregon, in some cases with the support of frustrated local officials.

[snip]

For many homeowners, the increases have eaten into benefits they gained from President Bush's cuts in federal income taxes. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com Inc., a research firm in West Chester, Pa., estimates that nearly a fifth of the income-tax benefit Americans are receiving from federal tax cuts this year is going to pay for higher property taxes. Mr. Zandi says he expects property taxes to continue rising "very rapidly."

The federal government's color-coded threat system is too vague and confusing to help many local and state law enforcement officials prepare for possible terrorist attacks, Congressional investigators said Monday in a report that prompted leading members of Congress to call for an overhaul.

"I'm afraid if we don't make improvements in the system," Mr. Turner said, "the public's going to lose trust and confidence in that system and won't pay any attention to it anymore."

Afghanistan plans to hold its first democratic election in a few months. But in this highland village, a jumble of mud forts set amid terraced orchards and fields of ripe wheat, no one has registered to vote.

Arapat, a farmer with the gilded skullcap and jet-black beard of a Pashtun tribesman, explained that some 60 Taliban insurgents had been to Shelem Kele just three days earlier. "We are all afraid. All the countryside here is under the control of the Taliban," whispered Mr. Arapat, who like many Afghans uses only one name.

Minutes later, the valley echoed with explosions as U.S. Army helicopters lobbed missiles into a mountainside. The same week, a Taliban unit operating just a few miles away executed 16 Afghans found to carry voter-registration cards.

The Bush administration, shelving a Clinton-era decision that put 58.5 million acres of national forests off-limits to development, announced a new rule Monday that will allow the nation's governors to help decide whether roadless areas in their own states should be opened to logging or other commercial activity.

Under the new rule, governors who want to protect pristine areas will have to petition the Forest Service to keep them off-limits to development. The Forest Service will make the final decision about what areas would remain roadless.

U.S. counterterrorism officials are looking at an emergency proposal on the legal steps needed to postpone the presidential election in case of such an attack, Newsweek reported on Sunday.

In what some military experts see as another sign of how the Army's commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan have strained it, the service for the first time will soon begin aggressively recruiting thousands of sailors and airmen who are otherwise scheduled to leave the Navy and Air Force because of cutbacks.

Pushing Musharraf to go after Al Qaeda in the tribal areas may be a good idea despite the risks. But, if that is the case, it was a good idea in 2002 and 2003. Why the switch now? Top Pakistanis think they know: This year, the president's reelection is at stake.

The destroyed records cover three months of a period in 1972 and 1973 when Mr. Bush's claims of service in Alabama are in question.

Australia and the United States have signed a pact to develop a controversial missile defense shield. President Bush made the project a priority after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in 2001. But critics have questioned its cost, viability, and Australia's need for such a system.

Australia's government says it need a way to protect its shores from ballistic missiles, even though at the moment the remote continent faces no threat from long-range weapons.

Like all incoming high school seniors, Tim Bueler has big plans after graduation. The 17-year-old student at Rancho Cotate High School near San Francisco is acclaimed in conservative circles for starting the High School Conservative Clubs of America, an organization that is just what its name states. But instead of taking the next logical step and entering politics, Bueler plans to do what so many conservatives merely dream about: kill Muslims.

Their disgust with the 60's spurs oxymoronic - and moronic - behavior, as anti-big-government types conjure up audacious social engineering schemes to turn back the clock.

The day after his re-election to the House in 1994, the future speaker, Newt Gingrich, jubilantly told me he intended to bury any remnants of the "Great Society, counterculture, McGovernik" legacy represented by the morally lax Clintons and return America to a more black-and-white view of right and wrong.

[snip]

W., who had tuned out during the 60's, preferring frat parties to war moratoriums and civil rights marches, and George Jones to "psychedelic" Beatles albums, was on board with his regents' retro concerns, like Star Wars and Saddam, and outdated cold-war assumptions, like the idea that terrorists could thrive only if sponsored by a state.

The president did end up changing America's image in the world. Just not for the better.

This morning, about 3,000 Shiites rallied here calling for the execution of Mr. Hussein, according to the Agence France-Presse news agency. And in the Sunni stronghold of Samarra, north of here, hundreds [of Sunnis] demonstrated against what some marchers called the "ridiculous" trial of Mr. Hussein, and pledged support for the ex-president, the news agency reported.

In the heart of the capital this morning, insurgents in a bus used a homemade launcher to fire rockets next to a mosque in Firdos Square, where in April 2003 a towering statue of Mr. Hussein was pulled down by American troops as they took the city. One of the launchings misfired and destroyed the bus, according to Iraqi police and private security officials.

[snip]

At the same time, explosions also struck outside the Baghdad Hotel, hundreds of feet north of the square. The police said that rockets had been fired at the building, which is popular with foreigners. Police officials said three security guards were injured.

"Fahrenheit 9/11" is a tendentious, flawed movie, but it tells essential truths about leaders who exploited a national tragedy for political gain, and the ordinary Americans who paid the price.

Beyond that, the idea of a liberal elite nourishes the right's perpetual delusion that it is a tiny band of patriots bravely battling an evil power structure. Note how richly the E-word embellishes the screeds of Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and their co-ideologues, as in books subtitled "Rescuing American from the Media Elite," "How Elites from Hollywood, Politics and the U.N. Are Subverting America," and so on. Republican right-wingers may control the White House, both houses of Congress and a good chunk of the Supreme Court, but they still enjoy portraying themselves as Davids up against a cosmopolitan-swilling, corgi-owning Goliath.

It's true that there are plenty of working-class people - though far from a majority - who will vote for Bush and the white-tie crowd that he has affectionately referred to as his "base." But it would be redundant to speak of a "conservative elite" when the ranks of our corporate rulers are packed tight with the kind of Republicans who routinely avoid the humiliating discomforts of first class for travel by private jet.

What's Iran Up To?

That's what U.S. authorities wondered as they expelled two security guards at the Iranian mission to the United Nations last weekend, after the mission was warned repeatedly against permitting its employees to videotape the Statue of Liberty, the subway, bridges and other New York landmarks.

For a dismaying answer, consider the statement made two weeks ago in Tehran by one Hassan Abassi, head of the Revolutionary Guards' Center for Doctrinaire Affairs of National Security Outside Iran's Borders. (Quite the job description.) "We will map 29 sensitive sites in the United States and give the information to all international terror organizations," the New York Sun quotes Mr. Abassi as saying.

In a June 17 report, Memri -- the Middle East Media Research Institute -- reports a nearly identical statement by Mr. Abassi about compiling a target list of "29 sensitive sites." And also: "We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization."

That strategy would certainly explain its all-out sprint to develop nuclear weapons, which Iran could possess in about a year unless the West acts to stop it. Also relevant is Tehran's recent announcement that it has allocated $1 billion to resume developing long-range missile systems that can reach targets in Europe and the U.S. Then there's the 9/11 Commission's disclosure last month of Iran-al Qaeda links.

All of which suggests that maybe it's time for U.S. policy to more forcefully and directly support democrats in Iran who want to liberate their country from this terror-sponsoring regime.