Progress Report, OCTOBER 27, 2004

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Wed, 27 Oct 2004 09:25:19 -0700

Subject:Progress Report: Breaking All the Sprouls

 

 

" American Progress Action Fund "

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Progress Report

by Christy Harvey, Judd Legum and Jonathan Baskin

 

 

OCTOBER 27, 2004

ENVIRONMENT Swift and Steady Sabotage

VOTING Breaking All the Sprouls

VOTING 'Caging' Democracy

UNDER THE RADAR Go Beyond The Headlines

 

 

 

ENVIRONMENT

Swift and Steady Sabotage

 

Last week, the Washington Post reported thirty-four Superfund projects

in 19 states will go unfunded this year. The Environmental Protection

Agency acknowledged that Superfund, which is the government's toxic

waste cleanup program, is now nearly bankrupt. Why are these crucial

sites being neglected? Carol Browner, the administrator of the EPA

from 1993-2001, explains, " Because the fees that are used to pay for

these cleanups are no longer being collected. " In a sop to the oil

industry, the Bush administration ended the tax on corporate polluters

that funded the program by refusing to ask Congress to reinstate the

fee oil and chemical companies paid that generated the money for

cleanups. This is part of an overall pattern of a swift and steady

sabotage of environmental safeguards.

 

THE ENVIRONMENT AT A GLANCE: A new study by Knight Ridder, for

example, found that the steady improvement in air and water quality of

the past three decades " has stalled or gone in reverse in several

areas " since January 2001. Specifically, Superfund cleanups of toxic

waste fell by 52 percent; fish-consumption warnings for rivers

doubled; the number of beach closings rose 26 percent; civil citations

issued to polluters fell 57 percent; asthma attacks increased by 6

percent; and there were " record-low " additions to national parks,

wilderness, wildlife refuges and the endangered species list. (For a

look at how your state stacks up with health, safety and the

environment, check out American Progress's new interactive map.)

 

LETTING THE INMATES RUN THE ASYLUM: The Washington Post reports that

the chemical industry has given $2 million to the EPA for a study

supposedly " exploring the impact of pesticides and household chemicals

on young children. " (For those of you keeping track, the American

Chemistry Council is the same group that fought against the finding

that wood treated with arsenic shouldn't be used in playground

equipment.) The EPA already has a $572 million research budget; no

word on why the agency needed to take money from the chemical industry

to conduct an independent study. The EPA admits the money means " We

will seek their opinions. " Carol Henry, a vice president at the

American Chemistry Council, also acknowledges the association has set

up a board of hand-picked academics and industry officials to be a

" resource to investigators, " adding, " We'll give them our guidance. "

(The administration has a track record of allowing corporations to

call the regulatory shots; check out this comprehensive report about

the special interest takeover.)

 

DRILLING AWAY THE WILDERNESS: President Bush has claimed, " I guess

you'd say I'm a good steward of the land. " Not really. According to

the Los Angeles Times, environmentally damaging policies put in place

by Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton take away the safeguards

which for decades have protected potential wilderness areas. Even more

egregious, the administration claimed that the Department of the

Interior " is barred – forever – from identifying and protecting wild

land the way it has for nearly 30 years. " In effect, " The

administration is giving industry virtual carte blanche to look for

oil and gas wherever it wants outside of existing parks and wilderness

areas. " The Washington Post points out that President Bush has

" approved about 70 percent more drilling permits on public lands

during the first three years of his administration " than the three

preceding years. And, writes the New Yorker, " By stripping away

restrictions on the use of federal lands, often through

little-advertised rule changes, the Administration has potentially

opened up sixty million acres, an area larger than Indiana and Iowa

combined, to logging, mining, and oil exploration. "

 

GLOBAL WARMING: A top NASA climate expert yesterday joined a long line

of scientists in criticizing the Bush administration for its disregard

of science. Dr. James E. Hansen, who has twice briefed Vice President

Dick Cheney's task force on global warming, charged, " In my more than

three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching

the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has

been screened and controlled as it is now. " Hansen also " said the

administration wants to hear only scientific results that 'fit

predetermined, inflexible positions.' " Specifically, he charged the

White House edited reports that outline the potential dangers of

global warming to make the problem appear less serious. " This process

is in direct opposition to the most fundamental precepts of science, "

he said. " This, " he warned, " is a recipe for environmental disaster. "

 

VOTING

Breaking All the Sprouls

 

Voter Outreach of America – a front group run by Republican operative

Nathan Sproul and financed with more than $600,000 from the RNC –

hired Tyrone Mrasek to register voters. The LA Times reports, Mrasek

" was given a written script to ask people whether they favored Bush or

Sen. John F. Kerry. To those favoring the Massachusetts senator,

Mrasek replied that he was just taking a poll and thanked them for

stopping. " He was told to offer registrations to people who favored

Bush and tell them " George Bush really needs your help this election. "

There was a backup plan for anyone who inadvertently signed up a

Democrat: outside Sproul's office Mrasek " found a stack of signed

registrations for Democratic voters in a trash can. " Similar stories

of partisan dirty tricks by Sproul have been documented in Oregon,

West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

 

LEAVE NO REPUBLICAN OPERATIVE BEHIND: Nathan Sproul doesn't just

collect money from the RNC for running voter registration scams. As a

director for Voyager Expanded Learning, he receives buckets of cash

for selling the " Voyager reading curriculum " to schools attempting to

comply with the No Child Left Behind Act.

 

SPROUL'S COMPANY USES CONNECTION TO BUSH TO GET CONTRACTS: The Public

Advocate of the City of New York accused Voyager of using " politics to

gain contracts, " including close ties to Bush and Secretary of Defense

Donald Rumsfeld. The Public Advocate notes, " as Texas Governor, George

W. Bush pushed a proposal giving $25 million in state money to after

school programs that would aid Voyager, which had contributed more

than $45,000 to Bush and over $20,000 to Bush's lieutenant governor

running mate. "

 

SPROUL'S COMPANY MANIPULATES RESEARCH TO PUSH PRODUCT: There is

controversy on the effectiveness of the Voyager reading curriculum.

Most of the research that does exist has been conducted by people with

" connections to, or financial interest in, the company. " The research

is described by university scholars who specialize in reading

curriculum as " flimsy and unscientific. "

 

ED DEPARTMENT PRESSURES SCHOOLS TO HIRE SPROUL'S COMPANY: Many

education experts believe " the research used to justify Voyager's

claims to success were unscientific and produced very little results. "

Nevertheless " the U.S Education Department led applicants for federal

reading funds to believe that approval of their application would be

speeded up if they indicated a preference for particular commercial

programs, including Voyager. "

 

VOTING

'Caging' Democracy

 

Yesterday, new evidence emerged that high ranking members of the Bush

campaign are engaged in an orchestrated effort to disrupt voting in

predominately African-American precincts. But don't expect to read

about it in your morning newspaper – the only major news organization

that has bothered to report the story is the BBC. Two e-mails,

obtained from the Bush campaign, contain a 15-page " caging list, "

containing " 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black

and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida. " Ion

Sancho, an elections supervisor in Tallahassee, said, " The only

possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge

voters on election day. " Civil rights attorney Ralph Neas noted, " US

federal law prohibits targeting challenges to voters, even if there is

a basis for the challenge, if race is a factor in targeting the

voters. " Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher

said that the list was not created to challenge voters " but refused to

say it would not be used in that manner. " Similar efforts are taking

place in other battleground states, such as Ohio. According to ACORN,

a non-profit group, " 46 percent of the Republican challenges in

Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, were against black people,

who represent only 27 percent of the county's population. " (Don't let

tactics like these keep you from the polls. Remember, if you don't

vote, this election will not be stolen; it will be given away.)

 

THE MYTH OF VOTER FRAUD: The Republican talking points manipulate the

facts to create a false impression of widespread voter fraud in key

states. For example, appearing on Meet the Press on Sunday, GOP

Chairman Ed Gillespie said that " If you look at Franklin County

[Ohio]... a very important county in the election, there are 815,000

people according to the census, 18 or older eligible to vote. There

are 845,000 registered voters. " Gillespie suggests that the only way

this can be explained is voter fraud. That isn't true. Federal law

prohibits purging records of voters who have moved out of the state –

or should otherwise not be on the rolls – for four years. So if there

are more registered voters than eligible voters, that doesn't mean

scores of people are attempting to commit fraud. It means the state is

complying with the National Voter Registration Act.

 

THEY AREN'T COMMITTING VOTER FRAUD, THEY'RE IN IRAQ: Many of the

people that Republicans are targeting in Ohio – claiming their

addresses are invalid – " are overseas military members...whose mail

cannot be forwarded. " Among those challenged was " Lisa Potts, a

longtime Marine currently stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C. " Potts – a

Republican – said, " I pay taxes to the state of Ohio every year. "

 

VOTER FRAUD IS RARE: According to a new study by Demos finds that

" election fraud is at most a minor problem across the 50 U.S. states,

and does not affect election outcomes. " For example, election

officials in Arizona " say voter fraud involving undocumented

immigrants is rare. " Karen Osborne, Maricopa County's director of

elections, said, " if we have one case a year, it's an amazement. "

Officials in Arizona are concerned that a new ballot measure – which

would require proof of citizenship to vote – " could end up blocking

legitimate voters from exercising their rights. "

 

 

Under the Radar

 

IRAQ – ALLAWI BLAMES U.S. FOR MASSACRE: Prime Minister Ayad Allawi

blamed American-led military forces on Tuesday for the weekend

massacre of 49 freshly trained Iraqi soldiers by insurgent forces in

Iraq. In a speech before the interim National Assembly, Allawi accused

multinational forces of " major negligence, " saying, " It was a way to

damage Iraq and the Iraqi people. " Allawi's criticism " marked the

first time he has publicly criticized the American-led forces,

disclosing his profound frustration at the assault and perhaps the

deteriorating security situation as well. " The Bush administration has

tried to downplay Allawi's accusations, but an anonymous official told

the New York Times his division was " baffled by the utter lack of

protection given the Iraqi soldiers. "

 

NORTH KOREA – BUSH ADMINISTRATION CHIDED AS MISSILE TEST LOOMS: South

Korea's Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said in a press conference with

Colin Powell on Tuesday that the U.S. " must come up with a more

creative and realistic proposal " to get North Korea to resume talks on

its nuclear program. The comments, which were omitted by a State

Department translator until South Korean reporters demanded the record

be corrected, come at the same time the U.S., Japan and South Korea

are boosting their monitoring of a missile base in North Korea because

" military intelligence indicates that the communist nation might be

preparing to test missiles. " According to a South Korean newspaper,

" North Koreans began making moves at the Jeongju base, such as moving

mobile missile launch stations, " which could lead to a test – a report

South Korea's Defense Ministry " neither confirms nor denies. "

 

JUSTICE: ASHCROFT'S DEATH PENALTY CAMPAIGN: Mother Jones reports

" federal prosecutors across the country have become demoralized and

infuriated " by Attorney General John Ashcroft's unprecedented attempts

to push the federal death penalty. " Since Ashcroft took office in

February 2001, he has imposed the formerly rare federal death penalty

in nearly 100 cases across the country. In 37 of them to date, he took

the unprecedented step of overriding the wishes of local prosecutors

who had not sought the death penalty. He has also asked for the

federal death penalty in cases in seven states that don't allow

capital punishment. " Judges and prosecutors quoted in the article

accused Ashcroft of " undermining the investigation and prosecution of

violent crimes " in America.

 

IRAQ – ANDERSON SETS RECORD STRAIGHT ON AL QAQAA: White House

officials have suggested the 380 tons of powerful explosives missing

from the Al Qaqaa complex in Iraq may have disappeared while Saddam

Hussein still controlled the country, saying a brigade of American

soldiers did not find the explosives when they visited the complex the

day after Baghdad fell. But the New York Times reports the unit's

commander said " his troops had not searched the site and had merely

stopped there overnight. " The commander, Col. Joseph Anderson, said he

did not learn until this week that the site, Al Qaqaa, was considered

sensitive. " We happened to stumble on it,'' he said. " I didn't know

what the place was supposed to be. We did not get involved in any of

the bunkers. "

 

IRAQ – A DANGEROUS STORY TO TELL: For reporters in Iraq, the

intensifying dangers are making it almost impossible to tell the daily

story of the country. A new study by Reporters Without Borders counts

44 journalists killed in Iraq since March 2003, " making the country

the deadliest in the world for the profession. " Perhaps even more

troubling, several Iraqi journalists quoted in the report said their

freedom of the press has been limited. " Besides getting short shrift

from officials in Iraq, local journalists and photographers…find they

are frequently prevented from working by Iraqi police or US forces. "

One photographer complained, " This is the same style as the Saddam

regime. We face many attacks and explosions both from American and

terrorist forces. Now they never let us shoot pictures. " Overall, the

report ranked Iraq 148th in the world for press freedom.