Necessary News

All you need to know to sound brilliant

A Private Army, An Army For Money...Lots And Lots Of Money

• Those Blackwater guys cost a bundle. [Washington Post]
• The Washington Post reports a stark fact: “It costs the U.S. government a lot more to hire contract employees as security guards in Iraq than to use American troops.”
• Here’s why: for every contract the U.S. government signs for security services, there are a set of subcontractors and sub-subcontractors that have to be hired, each one getting their cut.
• A contract made public by a House Government Oversight Committee investigation shows that a 34 man Blackwater team, which included 20 operatives, “was a subcontractor to Regency, which was a subcontractor to ESS, which was a subcontractor to Halliburton’s KBR subsidiary, the prime contractor for the Pentagon — and each company along the way was in business to make a profit.” This is typical.
• Blackwater charges Regency between $815 and $1,075 per person per day. Regency then charged ESS an average of $1,100 per person per day. Further undisclosed costs are passed on up the line.
• Compare: An unmarried sergeant makes $83 to $85 a day. A married sergeant makes $170 each day.
• General David Petraeus, who oversees more than 160,000 soldiers in Iraq, gets paid $180,000 every year, or $493 a day—less than half of the fee Blackwater charges for their senior manager of a 34-person team.
• A recent Brookings Institute report finds that these private security firms have “led to unnecessary violence against civilians, inflamed Iraqi sentiment towards the United States and jeopardized military strategies to defeat the insurgency.” [ABC]

A bad deal if we’ve ever heard one.

Bush Gives Thumbs Up On Afghanistan; Gates Says Not So Fast

• Flashback: Last Wednesday, President announced that Afghanistan is becoming a “safer, more stable country,” thanks, in part, to the efforts of Afghan president Hamid Karzai. Though, during their discussions, President Bush and President Karzai “made no direct mention of Afghanistan’s soaring drug trade, the unsuccessful search for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden or the resurgence of the Taliban. [Mic Check] [AP]
• Defense Secretary Robert Gates, though, is telling a different story. “Gates told a group of U.S. House Democratic lawmakers that the multinational mission in Afghanistan is suffering from a lack of resources, citing the war in Iraq and the reluctance of U.S. allies to contribute more troops.” [Bloomberg]
• Gates said that while the multinational force has held the Taliban at bay, it hasn’t defeated the insurgents, according to the lawmaker, who requested anonymity. Two additional Democrats also said Gates linked the U.S. commitment in Iraq to shortfalls in Afghanistan.
• About 34,700 NATO soldiers are trying to crush the insurgency and stabilize Afghanistan, which has experienced more than 25 years of conflict. The U.S. had 15,154 troops under NATO command as of Sept. 10, according to the alliance’s Web site. The U.S. has a separate force of about 10,000 that coordinates with NATO and conducts separate anti-terrorism operations.
• During the same press conference, Gates expressed concern about the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s commitment.
• Truth is, Gates is right: Afghanistan needs all the help it can get. In August, the United Nations reported that “Opium cultivation in [Afghanistan] grew by 17 percent in 2007, reaching record levels for the second straight year.” In sum, production in Afghanistan accounts for 93 percent of the world’s opium. Experts warn that insurgents use the drugs as currency that’s traded for weapons and bombs. [New York Times]

Sounds like Gates is looking at Afghanistan through some different glasses...

Congress Says Yes To Saying No

• Bad news from the Capitol: Congress again has extended funding for a core abstinence-education program. [Washington Times]
• The move has elicited anger from from abstinence-only foes who have been urging Democrats to pull the plug on such programs.
• And frankly, they’ve got a right to be upset. Earlier this year, a federal study “showed that most Americans have their first sexual experience in their teens and have six or fewer sexual partners in their lifetime.”
• About 57 percent of Americans had sex before age 18, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) said in a June report based on data collected between 1999 and 2002 from more than 6,000 adults ages 20 to 59.
• Meanwhile, earlier this year, the House approved a $28 million increase in spending on abstinence programs, despite reports that argued “the long decline in sexual activity among U.S. teenagers, hailed as one of the nation’s most important social and public health successes, appears to have stalled.” [Washington Post]
• “[Congress’s] actions defy logic and common sense,” said James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth. “Teens deserve better policies. We all deserve better leaders.”

We rarely defer to Paris Hilton’s logic — but here, we’ve got to agree: This is so not hot.

FBI Remains Vulnerable To Spies

• A new report from the Justice Department yesterday found “the FBI mus recognize the very real possibility that a spy could be working within the FBI ranks.” [Reuters] [AP]
• After spy Robert Hanssen was arrested six years ago for giving state secrets to the Russians for 20-odd years, the Justice Department put forth a set of steps to crack down on espionage.
• Today, however, the FBI has failed to adopt some of the more crucial aspects of the plan.
• Problem: The FBI still hasn’t resolved problems it has with tracking information, which allowed Hanssen “walk out of FBI headquarters with classified documents.”
• Problem: The FBI fought for years against setting up an outside unit devoted to uncovering spies within the FBI (though they recently did put one together.)
• Problem: The FBI hasn’t been able to create case files on new employees, thanks to ongoing problems with internal technology.
• Problem: The FBI hasn’t put together an internal monitoring system to collect/analyze bizarre or derogatory information gathered on its employees.
• We’ve already seen what happens when the FBI doesn’t move on this. In 2005, FBI analyst Leandro Aragoncillo was arrested in October 2005. Aragoncillo openly made shady calls on his cell phone, searching for secret documents on his computer and up to his eyeballs in debt. It took months, however, for the FBI to realize he was passing secret documents to the Philippines in an attempt to help topple that nation’s government.
• Why this is a big deal: Recent intel has shown that Russian and Chinese spying against the United States is actually back up to pre-Cold War levels.

Spooky! (Get it?)

Your Supreme Court Cheat Sheet

• The Supremes are headed for prime time. In this year’s controversial bunch of cases the Roberts Court is diving head first into headline-grabbing law and order issues: crack cocaine, lethal injection, terrorism, child pornography, racial discrimination, voting rights and your 401k. [ABC] [NY Times]
• The Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has become dramatically polarized, offering up more 5-4 decisions last term than in any other year since Harvard Law Review started tracking 5-4 decisions in 1981. [New Republic]
• Here are the cases for your radar screen:
• Boumediene vs. Bush and Al Odah vs. United States: The court will decide whether, in the 2006 Military Commissions Act, Congress had the right to prevent detainees at Guantanamo Bay from having their case heard in a federal court.
• Baze vs. Rees: Lethal injection needles have been shown to inflict pain some consider unnecessary. The court will decide whether this is cruel and unusual punishment.
• Crawford vs. Marion County Election Board and Indiana Democratic Party vs. Rokita: Indiana requires voters to present government issued photo ID before they can vote. The court will determine whether this unfairly disenfranchises the elderly and the poor.
• Kimbrough v. U.S.: Federal mandatory sentences for crack cocaine, used more frequently by blacks, are higher than those for cocaine. In this case, the court will determine whether an individual judge can reduce a crack dealer’s sentence because the judge objects to the disparity. [AP]
• LaRue vs. DeWolff, Boberg and Associates: If you tell your employer to shift your 401k money to bonds, but they forget and keep it in stocks which then tank, can you get your money back? The court will decide. [Hewitt]
• U.S. v. Williams: The court will decide whether current laws which outlaw online contents “intended to cause another to believe” is child pornography is too restrictive on free speech. In 1996, the court found that virtual simulated child pornography which did not involve actual children could not be outlawed. [First Amendment Center]
• The court also might hear District of Columbia v. Heller which challenges Washington, D.C.’s gun ban on second amendment grounds.

Stay tuned.

Good News, Bad News

It’s a story of when acronyms backfire: Leader’s in India’s Jewish community are upset over a new line of linens entitled the NAZI collection that was recently released by a Mumbai-based home-furnishing company. The company swears that “NAZI” is an acronym for “New Arrival Zone for India,” even though swastikas are being used in promotional materials for the new line. Let’s check out the pros and cons. [Fox]

GOOD NEWS

Silky soft linens to make you feel luxurious, pampered, and...

BAD NEWS

Anti-Semitic.

Quote Of The Day

The MySpace generation is a “somewhat alien life force” filled with “coddled,” “narcissistic praise junkies” who can get “disgruntled if not praised for simply ’showing up’ for work.”

— An internal Naval recruitment memo, on why kids today aren’t joining the military. [Naval Presentation]

Speed Round

AUDIO: PETER PACE SAYS GOODBYE

Good ol’ Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Peter “Homosexuality Is Immoral” Pace had his going away celebration today. Here’s him giving his take on American democracy.

AUDIO: PETER PACE’S FAVORITE MOVIE

Is The Kite Runner. You’d think he’d have some other inside look at what’s going on in Afghanistan...but maybe not.

AUDIO: BUSH TALKS ABOUT HIS MAMA

Peter Pace enjoys his mother’s love. Georgie and Barbara’s relationship is a little more strained.

BLACKWATER

The FBI says they’ll open up an investigation into the shoot-out that killed 11 Iraqi civilians. [TPM Muckraker]

BLACK IS WHITE, DOW IS UP

The Dow surges to record highs after weeks of uncertainty surrounding the subprime mortgage market.

GUANTANAMO MYSTERY

No one can figure out where detainees at Guantanamo Bay got their new, unauthorized Speedo underpants. [The Blotter]

$25,000

Cost of the full-length dividers the Minneapolis Airport is installing between bathroom stalls to protect travelers from congressmen with “wide stances.” [ABC News]

WAR

A teenager in Afghanistan was killed by the Taliban for having U.S. money in his pocket. [USA Today]

GRANDPA’S LOCKED UP

Forget being stuck with a shiv during lunch or elaborate prison breaks; the new big challenge facing America’s jails is their growing elderly population. [USA Today]

TODAY IN LARRY CRAIG

Love this headline: “Craig’s Fall May Benefit Salmon.” [AP]

MISSED THE MEMO

Apparently GOP presidential contender Fred Thompson missed that whole “there were no WMD in Iraq” memo. [Des Moines Register]

HEADLINES THAT MAKE US CRINGE

“School stages mock lynching with little kids” [USA Today]

AIN’T NO PARTY LIKE A PUTIN PARTY

He’s not done yet: Vladamir Putin announced “he’ll lead the dominant party’s ticket in December parliamentary elections and suggested he could become prime minister.” [AP]

GOOD NEWS!

Fatal airplane crashes have plummeted 65% (Get it? Plummeted? Forget it.) [NY Times]