Necessary News

All you need to know to sound brilliant

Afghanistan: It’s Just Getting Worse

• Last week, President Bush announced that “Afghanistan is becoming a safer, more stable country, thanks to the efforts of President Hamid Karzai.” Turns out, the President couldn’t have painted a more inaccurate picture. [AP]
• A new report from the UN says that “[v]iolence in Afghanistan has surged nearly 30 percent this year and suicide bombings are inflicting a high toll on civilians.”
• Additionally, “the report said Afghanistan was averaging 550 violent incidents a month, up from an average of 425 last year. It said three-fourths of suicide bombings were targeting international and Afghan security forces, but suicide bombers also killed 143 civilians through August.” [AP]
• On October 2nd, a suicide bomber attacked a bus in the downtown district of Kabul, the country’s capital. The attack killed 11 people — three of them were children. It was the second suicide attack on a bus in the capital in four days. [Washington Post]
• Meanwhile, at home, members of the Bush administration are singing a different tune than their commander in chief. Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Robert 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]
• And then there are the drugs: 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]

The President is, officially, living in the fourth dimension.

Denying Millions Of Kids Health Care With A Single Stroke Of His Pen

The Story

• With a single stroke of his pen yesterday, President Bush ensured millions of American children won’t have access to health insurance.
• Standing politically alone, President Bush decided to use the fourth veto of his presidency to veto the bipartisan SCHIP bill, which would have provided health care to millions of children of the working poor. [NY Times] [Washington Post] [ABC News]
• SCHIP: The State Children’s Health Insurance Program, a safety net that provides health insurance to 6.6 million kids whose parents make just enough that they don’t qualify for Medicaid but who are still too poor to afford private health coverage.
• The bill would have re-upped the program and added $35 billion over five years, which would allow another 4 million kids into the program. The program would be fully paid for by raising the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents, or up to a dollar.
• There are more than 6 million kids in the country right now who don’t have health insurance. That’s more than 9% of all kids.
• More than 70% of Americans support expanding SCHIP. Forty-three governors from both parties support SCHIP. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle support SCHIP.
• The SCHIP bill passed the Senate by a veto-proof vote (67-29) but the vote in the House was only 265-159, a strong majority but just shy of the two-thirds needed to overcome a veto. If they want to push past Bush’s veto, the House needs a total of 290 votes. The question now is, will they be able to find 25 more votes?
• President Bush claims he vetoed the legislation because he fears families would opt out of buying private insurance and instead rely on public health care.
• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Bush’s veto “heartless,” adding “Never has it been clearer how detached President Bush is from the priorities of the American people.”
• Sen. Edward Kennedy: “Today we learned that the same president who is willing to throw away half a trillion dollars in Iraq is unwilling to spend a small fraction of that amount to bring health care to American children.”

The Audio

• President Bush: I wanted to share with you why I vetoed the bill this mornin’. Poor kids first. Secondly, I believe in private medicine, not the federal government running the health care system.
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• CNN’s Jack Cafferty: “This is the same man who will soon go to Congress and ask for another $190 billion to continue that glorious war in Iraq...In fact, statistics show Mr. Bush has borrowed more money from foreign governments and banks since taking office than this country’s first 42 presidents *combined*. But the children’s health insurance bill was too costly.”
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• Rep. Nancy Pelosi: The president refuses to sign the bill, if he says veto, I forbid 10 million children in America to have health care, this legislation will haunt him again and again and again. It’s not going away because the children are not going away.
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• Rep. Peter DeFazio: After an orgy of borrowing, spending and misspending on many dubious things, his target? Ten million low-income kids.
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Other Vetoes: Bush’s first veto was in the summer of 2006 to block federal stem-cell research. His second was in May, on a bill to require bringing troops home from Iraq. His third was another bill for federal stem-cell research.

How The Army Met Its Recruiting Targets

• The Army met their annual recruiting goal of 80,000 active duty soldiers for the 2007 fiscal year. Good for them. But how’d they do it? [Washington Post]
• Usually, the army likes to line up a good deal of recruits and enlisted soldiers for the following year. Typically, this is about 30% of the recruiting target for the following year.
• Not this year: There are only 7,000 soldiers “in the pipe” for 2008, a mere 9% of the recruiting target.
• The reason? They’re getting people into basic training faster: enticed with a $20,000 “quick ship” bonus, most recruits are shipped within 30 days of signing their contracts. [MicCheck]
• Plus, the Army isn’t meeting the goals they really want to be meeting. Internally, the Army has plans to grow the size of the overall force to 547,000 from the current 519,000 by 2012, but that would require 3,000 to 6,000 more recruits this year which the Army wasn’t able to attract. [Washington Post]
• The source of the trouble? Easy. “The Iraq war is unpopular, with parents and mentors increasingly worried about the dangers of combat. As a result, young people are less likely to serve,” says Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, head of the Army’s Accession Command.
• Funny, you think they’d be able to get around that. An undercover ABC news team last November found that Army recruiters were luring students by telling them that the “war ended a long time ago,” that “no one is going to Iraq anymore” and “if you don’t like the Army you can just leave” (that’s called going AWOL...). [MicCheck]

If only those recruiters were right.

North Korea To Disable Nuke Plants, No Thanks To Dick Cheney

• One third of the axis-of evil is about to get a lot less dangerous. How are those other two working out? [NY Times]
• Yesterday, North Korea agreed to dismantle all of its nuclear facilities by the end of this year. Whew!
• The agreement, which is a continuation of a preliminary agreement reached in February, comes at the tail end of a four day meeting of the “Six Party Talks"—negotiations between the US, Russia, China, South Korea, Japan, and North Korea.
• In exchange for their cooperation in revealing and shutting down their nuclear program, North Korea will receive 950,000 metric tons of fuel oil or its equivalent in economic aid and the United States will consider removing them from the list of state sponsors of terror. [XinHua]
• North Korea showed their good faith earlier this year by partially disabling their plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon.
• In pursuing these negotiations, chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have “had to maneuver around Vice President Dick Cheney” who “argued that the United States should not prolong the life of the North Korean government of Kim Jong Il, but rather seek ways to speed its demise.” Another war, Dick, really? [NY Times]

See Dick fight. Fight, Dick, fight.

Stopping The Rush

The Story

• Here’s the deal: Last Wednesday, conservative radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh declared that U.S. troops who support withdrawal from Iraq are “phony soldiers.” Limbaugh’s comment was made during an exchange about Iraq he was having with a caller. The pundit’s slap against “phony soldiers” appears to be a direct attack on seven members of the 82nd Airborne who wrote a New York Times op-ed in August, warning that Iraqis had been “robbed of their self-respect” as a result of the invasion and would “soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.” [Media Matters] [New York Times]
• Rush’s comments, though, weren’t taken with Democrats lying down. Last Friday, the Democratic Senate leadership began circulating a letter on Capitol Hill that called on Clear Channel CEO Mark Mays, Limbaugh’s employer, to repudiate the “phony troops” remark. Mays has since responded, offering his “regret” for Limbaugh’s comments. [Think Progress] [Clear Channel]
• Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lambasted those senators who recently criticized a MoveOn.org newspaper ad, and challenged them to condemn Limbaugh “with equal fervor.” On the other side of the aisle, Rep. Mark Udall (R-CO) announced that he would be introducing a resolution in the House criticizing Limbaugh. [Think Progress] [TPM]
• A classic move: Rush has responded with “revisionist history,” claiming that his comments were taken out of context. Limbaugh argues his “phony soldiers” remark was actually in reference to one man — Jesse MacBeth — who pretended to be an injured Iraq war veteran. But in fact, Limbaugh did not make reference to MacBeth on that show until nearly two minutes after talking about “phony soldiers” who opposed the war. [Media Matters]
• Still, though, the actions haven’t stopped the Conservative vultures from circling. From Fox News to right wing blogs to even members of Congress, Rush has found no shortage of defenders. While House Democrats were pushing a resolution to condemn the “unwarranted slur” made by Limbaugh, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) took exactly the opposite tact, offering a resolution to “commend” Limbaugh’s “commitment to American troops.” [Think Progress] [Michelle Malkin] [Think Progress]

The Audio

• The smear that started it all: Limbaugh calls soldiers who oppose the war in Iraq “phony.”
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• Rep. Sestak (D-PA) lauds the importance of encouraging military people to “think and critique differently”
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We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Crazy is as crazy does.

Good News, Bad News

Meet Dr. Jay Parkinson: A doctor from Brooklyn with a photography habit and a new take on modern medicine. From Wired: Parkinson’s medical practice combines quaint house calls of yore with decidedly 21st-century technology. For a yearly fee of $500, Parkinson makes an initial visit to his patients in their apartments and offers two additional visits as needed. But he is available to them any time between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. weekdays for unlimited consultation on IM or e-mail. Let’s check out the pros and cons. [Wired]

GOOD NEWS

No waiting rooms, no screaming kids, no reception room nazis.

BAD NEWS

Sux ur gonna die =(

Quote Of The Day

“David Petraeus is a political general. Yet in presenting his recent assessment of the Iraq War and in describing the ‘way forward,’ Petraeus demonstrated that he is a political general of the worst kind — one who indulges in the politics of accommodation that is Washington’s bread and butter but has thereby deferred a far more urgent political imperative, namely, bringing our military policies into harmony with our political purposes.”

— Move over, MoveOn, this quote is from a new article in the UltraConservative “American Conservative” magazine. The cover of this month’s issue features a picture of Gen. Petraeus under the headline “Sycophant Savior.” [HuffPo]

Speed Round

TORTURE

Despite declaring torture “abhorrent” in 2004, Alberto Gonzales and the Bush Justice Department approved the use of torture in a secret 2005 memo. The memo gave the CIA “explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.” [NY Times]

FISHY ADVICE

A new group of private and government agencies has suggested “pregnant and breast-feeding women should eat at least 12 ounces of fish and seafood per week to ensure their babies’ optimal brain development.” This flies in the face of the current government line that women should cut back on seafood over mercury concerns. [Washington Post]

SICK OF BUSH

Almost half of GOP voters want a president who will take a “different approach” than Bush. [MSNBC]

SAYONARA, SENATOR

Senator Pete Dominici (D-NM), best known for creepily pressuring the administration to fire U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, is not running for re-election. [AP]

$5.1 Million

The amount of money raised this quarter by Ron Paul, the only candidate in the GOP field that opposes the War in Iraq. That’s roughly the same amount as Senator John McCain (R-AZ)...you may remember him? [ABC]

GODSPEED

Sen. John Warner (R., VA) was admitted to the hospital Tuesday for an “atrial fillibration.” [Roll Call]

FAKE NEWS FINED

The FCC has proposed five new fines for cable operators for using VNRs, Video News Releases, without attribution. VNRs grabbed the spotlight when the White House distributed propaganda spots filmed to look like newscasts back in 2004 and local cable stations ran them as actual objective news segments. [Washington Times] [Washington Post 2005]

JEFF GANNON RIDES AGAIN

The gay right-wing escort who infiltrated the White House press corps explains on how he came up with his fake name: “The name Jeff Gannon sounded simple and strong, like Wolf Blitzer, one of the greatest sounding names in broadcasting.” [Yays & Nays]

DEATH PENALTY

It’s like they outlawed football or big hair: The state of Texas halts executions indefinitely. [NY Times]

WAL-MART

“Wal-Mart workers in Pennsylvania who previously won a $78.5 million class-action award for working off the clock will share an additional $62.3 million in damages, a judge ruled Wednesday.” [USA Today]

NA NA NA NA NA

The White House’s response to UK PM Gordon Brown’s announcement that British troops would be withdrawing from Iraq: Whatever, they were doing a crappy job, anyway. [Think Progress]

30 PERCENT

The percentage of flights on US airlines that were delayed in August. [AP]

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE...

Yesterday, police extinguished fires in four different Senate offices. “They are suspicious in nature,” said Sgt. Kimberly Schneider. [AP]

IRAQ

A car bomb explodes and injures a Polish ambassador, while killing a Polish bodyguard and an Iraqi civilian. [AP]

BURMA UPDATE

The EU gives Burma the international smackdown, expands sanctions against the country’s military regime. [AP]