Progress Report: Trampling Democracy To Protect It?

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Center for American Progress - Progress Report

 

 

by David Sirota, Christy Harvey, Judd Legum and

Jonathan Baskin

 

July 9, 2004

CIVIL LIBERTIESTrampling Democracy To Protect

It?INTELLIGENCEThe White House WhitewashAIDSIdeology

Trumps Science

UNDER THE RADAR

 

CLARIFICATION: Yesterday's Progress Report stated the

new Pentagon procedures for review of the status of

Guantanamo detainees do not provide detainees with

access to federal court as required by the Supreme

Court's ruling. While it is indeed the case that the

procedures themselves do not provide for federal court

review, detainees will be advised of their rights.

 

CIVIL LIBERTIES

Trampling Democracy To Protect It?

 

In a dramatic scene on the floor of the U.S. House

yesterday, the White House and Republican leadership

rigged a key vote on a bill that would have reformed

the Patriot Act by requiring " law enforcement to go to

a regular court instead of a secret court to get

permission to demand library and Internet access

records of people it is investigating. " The reform,

sponsored by Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and broadly

supported by 332 local governments, at one point was

winning 219-201, and when the official voting time ran

out " appeared to have been approved by a 213-206

vote. " But even as House members screamed " Shame!, "

Republican leaders abused their power by indefinitely

extending voting time, using the extra time to force

nine of their colleagues to switch their votes and

defeat the bill on a tie vote 210-210. Rep. Butch

Otter (R-ID), a top sponsor of the bill who voted for

it, said " You win some, and some get stolen. " See the

video of Rep. Sanders' admonishing House leaders after

they rigged the process and subverted democracy. And

see how lawmakers who supported yesterday's

legislation are today attempting to shut down the

House in protest.

 

IGNORING THE PROTEST OF DICK CHENEY: In rigging the

vote, House leaders ignored the timeless protest of

Vice President Dick Cheney. In 1987, then-Rep. Dick

Cheney (R-WY) criticized the practice of holding open

votes to overturn bills, calling the maneuver " the

most heavy-handed, arrogant abuse of power in the 10

years I've been here.''

 

VOTING DOWN A BILL THEY CO-SPONSORED: Rep. Zach Wamp

(R-TN) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), both co-sponsors of

Sanders's underlying legislation, refused in the

waning moments to support the bill. Lofgren, who voted

" present, " argued the Sanders bill was too broad. What

she refused to acknowledge, however, is that House

rules precluded him from offering more limited

legislation, and that his measure would have likely

been modified in House-Senate negotiations to

ultimately become the very bill she co-sponsored in

the first place. But because she and Wamp cast the

deciding votes against the measure, there will be no

Patriot Act reform at all.

 

SPREADING A MYTH TO DEFEAT A BILL: The Bush

administration, which threatened to veto the measure

if passed, resorted to outright misinformation to

confuse wavering Members of Congress. Just before the

vote, the Justice Department sent a letter to House

members saying that at least twice in recent months " a

member of a terrorist group closely affiliated with al

Qaeda used Internet services provided by a public

library. " What they failed to say was that the Sanders

legislation would not have precluded law enforcement

from obtaining those library records #8211; it would

have merely forced them to obtain a warrant from a

judge (which, if the threat was as critical as they

said, should not have been difficult). Rep. Wamp, the

co-sponsor who voted against his own legislation,

cited the Justice Department letter as the reason he

switched his vote.

 

CLAIMING PATRIOT ACT OPPONENTS DON'T CARE ABOUT 9/11

DEATHS: During the floor debate on the bill, Rep.

Chris Shays (R-CT) had the nerve to argue that those

supporting the bipartisan legislation were

disregarding those killed on September 11. Referring

to those in his district who died, Shays said, " I have

70 constituents who lost their rights on September 11;

and to hear this debate, I am not sure [you] seem to

care about that. " Incredibly, Shays made his comments

just moments after an impassioned speech in support of

the bill by Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who represents

the Manhattan district encompassing Ground Zero. Rep.

Jose Serrano (D-NY), who also represents New York City

and supported the bill, immediately stood up after

Shays and said " to have a New Yorker hear that we

somehow do not care for the victims of September 11 is

really the cheapest kind of blow... I knew people that

died there. I was friends with people who died

there...[but] in the process of caring for the victims

of September 11, no one said we were supposed to throw

away the Constitution. "

 

A PATTERN OF INTIMIDATION: Republicans have abused

their power and extended votes before in order to get

their way. As the NYT reports, when the controversial

Medicare bill appeared headed for defeat last year,

Republican leaders " held the vote open for three hours

to get colleagues to switch their votes. " Currently,

the House ethics committee is looking into accusations

that one lawmaker, Mr. Smith (who also switched his

vote on the Patriot Act measure yesterday), was

offered a bribe on the House floor for his vote. Rep.

Sanders' noted just how obscene yesterday's behavior

was saying, " I find it ironic that, on an amendment

designed to protect American democracy and our

constitutional rights, the Republican leadership in

the House had to rig the vote and subvert the

democratic process in order to prevail. " Rep. Jim

McGovern (D-MA) said the tactics " have turned

[Congress] into a laughingstock, " while other

lawmakers " suggested wryly that the United Nations

needs to send in election observers to monitor the

House. "

 

INTELLIGENCE

The White House Whitewash

 

The Senate Intelligence Committee will release today a

controversial report on the use of intelligence in the

lead up to the invasion of Iraq. The report is little

more than a blatant attempt to absolve the Bush

administration of responsibility for misusing and

manipulating intelligence in going to war. The Miami

Herald predicts that the report will do " little to

quell feuding over how forthright Bush was in making

his case for last year's invasion of Iraq. " Politics

played a part as well: Some on the committee had

" wanted the White House's use of the intelligence

reports to be part of the study's formal mandate, " but

were shot down by conservatives. As a result, " the

second part of the Senate study, exploring the White

House's actions, will likely be released after the

November presidential election. "

 

DEFLECTING RESPONSIBILITY: The Senate report attempts

to absolve the Bush administration of responsibility

for hyping the WMD threat to justify its war of

choice. According to the International HT, " [the]

effect may be to provide an opening for President

George W. Bush and his allies to deflect

responsibility for what appear to have been

exaggerated prewar assessments about the threat posed

by Iraq, by portraying them as the fault of the

Central Intelligence Agency and its outgoing director,

George Tenet, rather than of Bush and his top aides. "

Not so fast, says the director: In a goodbye speech

yesterday, George Tenet hinted at the biased findings

of the report, saying, " My only wish is that those

whose job it is to help us do better show the same

balance and care: in recognizing how far we have come;

in recognizing how bold we have been; in recognizing

what the full balance sheet says. "

 

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS: Today's report fails to discuss

the politicization of intelligence; the role of

administration officials outside the CIA; the

Pentagons' Office of Special Plans with direct links

to Vice President Cheney; the use of favored but

non-credible Iraqi exiles like Ahmed Chalabi; or the

administration's claims of links between al Qaeda and

Saddam Hussein. Sen. Carl Levin [D-MI] also charged

that it " avoids the critical question of the

administration's possible pre-war exaggerations

regarding an al-Qaida link to the Iraqi government. "

Sen. Richard Durbin [D-IL] wrote that the Senate

intelligence report leaves out the ways the White

House " misused, misinterpreted or ignored " existing

intelligence in making the case for war in Iraq. Daryl

Kimball, the executive director of the nonpartisan

Arms Control Association, said the report ignores the

fact " that raw intelligence from unreliable sources

was fed to the White House, " and the fact " the

president and his advisors ignored evidence

contradicting the worst-case assessments of Iraq's

weapons capabilities. "

 

AIDS

Ideology Trumps Science

 

Public health experts and political leaders are

gathering in Bangkok this weekend for an international

AIDS conference. According to a new United Nations

report, " The proportion of the world's new H.I.V.

infections occurring in Asia has risen sharply in the

past two years. " Also, HIV infections last year were

" the highest of any year since the epidemic was

recognized more than two decades ago. " The report also

charges the cost of fighting AIDS is actually

quadruple the current level of spending. The White

House has talked a big game about its dedication to

eradicating this epidemic. But time and time again,

the administration has sabotaged its commitment to

fighting the disease by choosing to placate its

right-wing base. This is just part of an overall

pattern in the Bush administration of subordinating

science and fact to politics and ideology.

 

A LACK OF SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY: The administration's

manipulation of science isn't limited to its AIDS

policy. This week, the Union of Concerned Scientists

released a report charging the Bush White House with

widespread " manipulation of the process through which

science enters into its decisions. " UCS also revealed

that more than 4,000 scientists have now signed a

statement #8211; first released in February #8211;

blasting the administration's politicization of

science. Signatories include 48 Nobel laureates, 62

National Medal of Science recipients, and 127 members

of the National Academy of Sciences. The document

contains specific instances where politics trumped

science in areas such as the environment,

contraception policies and the use of a political

litmus test for scientific advisory panel appointees.

As Gov./Dr. Howard Dean's op-ed on the Bush

administration's war on science states, in this White

House, " when a right-wing theory is contradicted by an

inconvenient scientific fact, the science is not

refuted; it is simply discarded or ignored. " (For more

on ideology prevailing over science in this White

House, see this new column by American Progress's

Reece Rushing.)

 

PROTECTING PHARMACEUTICAL POWER: Generic drugs which

fight AIDS are markedly cheaper and easier to use than

their brand-name counterparts. The Wall Street Journal

reports, however, that U.S. trade negotiators are

actually trying to block the use of generics in order

to " strengthen protections for costlier brand-name

drugs. " The White House has justified this by saying

there are safety concerns. However, the New York Times

reported last week that " the first clinical trial of

generic AIDS drugs in a simple 3-in-1 pill has found

that they work as well as brand-name drugs. "

 

WHERE ARE ALL THE SCIENTISTS? The White House is

sending an emaciated delegation to the international

AIDS conference in Bangkok this year. The

administration is only sending 50 scientists to the

conference#8211; compare that to the 236 people sent

to the 2002 International AIDS Conference in

Barcelona. The White House also forced 28 researchers

from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to

cancel their presentations to the conference. Even

though the AIDS epidemic is exploding, the Bush

administration will spend less than 15 percent of what

it spent in 2002 to send scientists to the conference.

 

CONTROLLING " WHO " ?: In an unprecedented move, the Bush

Administration has declared that all government

scientists who wish to participate on scientific

review panels must first be approved by a " senior

political appointee. " This has outraged the World

Health Organization and others in the scientific

community, who believe this opens the door for the

government to " blackball any scientists who don't toe

the administration line on controversial health

issues. "

 

GUTTING THE GLOBAL FUND: In a counterproductive move,

the White House has been reluctant to provide funding

to the Global Fund, the international group which has

been devoted to fighting AIDS. Although President Bush

takes credit for supporting the Global Fund, his

administration is seeking to cut funding by 64 percent

in 2005. " Our nation took the lead in [sic] sounding

the global fund, " Bush said. " We remain the world's

largest contributor to the fund. We're setting the

example for others to follow. " But, according to the

Philadelphia Inquirer, " Congress approved $550 million

this year for the Global Fund, which serves more than

120 AIDS-afflicted nations. Bush seeks only $200

million. The United States is sidelining this

innovative cooperative program while pushing its own,

underfunded AIDS effort. " According to a statement to

be released by the Global Aids Alliance (GAA) before

the Bangkok meeting starts Sunday, " as of today, the

Global Fund will not have enough funding to provide

any additional grants next year and will likely not be

able to initiate a new round of grants until 2007.

Given that three million people die each year from

AIDS, the several year delay in new grants will mean

that many people will die that could otherwise have

been treated. "

 

SIPHONING FUNDS FOR IDEOLOGY: The White House AIDS

funding is laden with ideologically based conditions

that make it more difficult to defeat the disease. For

example, the administration mandates that 33 percent

of all funds earmarked for prevention must be directed

toward abstinence-only programs.

 

 

 

 

 

MILITARY #8211; THE DOG ATE HIS HOMEWORK: The

controversy over President Bush's military service

#8211; or lack thereof #8211; thickens. The New York

Times reports, " Military records that could help

establish President Bush's whereabouts during his

disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more

than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed,

according to the Pentagon. " Whoops. The Pentagon is

claiming the records spanning the three months in 1971

and 1972 which would clear up the question of whether

Bush completed his service were conveniently lost

during a tragic microfilm accident in 1997. This comes

as a surprise #160;- " there was no mention of the

loss, for example, when White House officials released

hundreds of pages of the President's military records

last February in an effort to stem#8230;accusations

that he was 'AWOL' for a time during his commitment to

fly at home in the Air National Guard during the

Vietnam War. "

 

IRAQ #8211; CHENEY'S MYTH UNSPUN: Vice President

Cheney has continued to assert that 9/11 hijacker

Mohamed Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in

Prague in April 2001, trying to perpetuate the myth

that there was a relationship between Saddam Hussein

and al Qaeda. That claim was further debunked by

outgoing director of the CIA, George J. Tenet, who

told Congress that the C.I.A. is " increasingly

skeptical " that meeting ever took place. " In a letter,

sent to Congress on July 1, Mr. Tenet said Mr. Atta

'would have been unlikely to undertake the substantial

risk of contacting any Iraqi official' at such a date,

when the Sept. 11 plot was well under way. "

 

HOMELAND SECURITY #8211; MORE SOUND AND FURY: In a

statement " as relatively free of details about the

threat as similar alerts he issued in recent months, "

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge appeared on

television yesterday to inform Americans that " al

Qaeda terrorists are planning another attack in the

U.S. to upset the November elections. " Reporters

wondered what new information had prompted the

statement, but Ridge admitted his department knew of

no specific threats, and said there were " no plans to

raise the alert level to orange, as Homeland has done

several times in recent years. " The New York Daily

News reports counterterrorism sources were surprised

by the timing of the warning, considering " significant

new threats have not emerged recently. " Of course,

there were plenty of other reasons the administration

may have chosen yesterday to distract the public with

a terror warning, including a barrage of critical

reports due out shortly about the U.S. intelligence

community's lack of coordination and failure to react

to warnings before the Sept. 11 attacks. For more on

Ridge's appearance, read P.J. Crowley's statement.

 

IRAQ -#160;THESE DOGS DON'T HUNT: In a new report for

the American Prospect magazine, the Center for

American Progress explores how President Bush

specifically appointed partisan allies and corporate

cronies to positions overseeing U.S. taxpayer money in

Iraq. From the Pentagon inspector general, to budget

officers at the Coalition Provisional Authority, the

White House made explicit decisions to appoint people

with party/corporate loyalty instead of independent

oversight experience. To cite just one example

discussed in the report, the Pentagon's inspector

general #8211; the man whose sole job is to guard

taxpayer money used in defense contracts - last week

defended the Bush administration by publicly

justifying Halliburton's overcharging in Iraq. Not

surprisingly, he is a man whose chief experience prior

to coming to the Pentagon was working for Newt

Gingrich, representing large corporations, and being a

loud voice in anti-Clinton movements. See the article

in its entirety.

 

MEDIA #8211; MURDOCH'S BIG TIP: According to the New

York Times, The New York Post's decision to feature

Dick Gephardt on Tuesday's front page as John Kerry's

choice for Vice President " was based#160; on a very

high-ranking source: Rupert Murdoch, the man who

controls the company that owns The Post. " An employee

at the Post said Murdoch " called his tip in to the

Post's news desk just after 10 on Monday night,

between the first and second editions, " prompting a

new headline which said " unequivocally that the

running mate would be Mr. Gephardt. " Check News Corp's

Web site to identify other media outlets which might

be benefiting from Murdoch's valuable news tips.

 

#160;Don't Miss

DAILY TALKING POINTS: 'Shame, Shame, Shame!'

 

INTELLIGENCE: Sen. Richard Durbin writes Senate

intelligence report leaves out the ways the White

House " misused, misinterpreted or ignored " existing

intelligence in making the case for war in Iraq.

 

IRAQ: Defector charges Chalabi's allies made up

stories of WMD in Iraq to draw U.S. into war.

 

SCIENCE: More than 4,000 scientists have signed a

statement blasting the administration's politicization

of science.

 

Contact The Progress Report:

pr.

 

 

 

 

#160;Daily Grill

 

" These documents clearly show that the president

fulfilled his duties. "

 

#8211; White House Spokesperson Scott McClellan, on

documents regarding President Bush's National Guard

service, 2/11/04

 

VERSUS

 

" Military records that could help establish President

Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the

Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have

been inadvertently destroyed, according to the

Pentagon. "

 

#8211; NYT, 7/9/04

 

#160;Daily Outrage

As the House leadership abused its power by extending

a vote on Bernie Sanders's (I-VT) amendment to the

Patriot Act, Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT) had the nerve to

argue that those supporting the bipartisan legislation

were disregarding those killed on September 11.

Shays's comments came just moments after an

impassioned speech in support of the bill by Rep.

Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who represents the Manhattan

district encompassing Ground Zero.

 

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