Necessary News

All you need to know to sound brilliant

As The Economy Crashes, Where’s Our “CEO-In-Chief?”

• Flashback: When George W. Bush took office in 2001, he touted his credentials as the nation’s first MBA in the Oval Office. No more lawyers; he had the trainings of a manager. And Harvard Business School, after all! [New York Times]
• So much for all that. The New York Times reports that as the economy continues to slump, the President — our chief MBA — has becoming largely invisible.
• First, there were the early signs of detachment. In February, President Bush admitted that he hadn’t heard the widespread predictions that gasoline could skyrocket to $4 per gallon.
• Then, according to the Times, “Bush went to Wall Street to warn against “massive government intervention in the housing markets,” two days before his administration helped broker the takeover of the investment bank Bear Stearns.”
• Currently, Bush is in eastern Europe (one of the eight trips abroad he’s got planned for this year) at the NATO conference, as Congress scrambles to make sense out of the nation’s economic mess.
• “He’s over there arguing about who should get into NATO, and the American people are focused on what’s in their pocketbooks,” said Kenneth M. Duberstein, who was chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan in his second term. “He has talked about the economy, but it is not viewed as being a satisfactory response. Unfortunately, the lasting image is of not knowing of $4-a-gallon gas.”
• Another thing we’re guessing the President won’t take note of? The current spike in jobless claims. The Labor Department reported that new applications for unemployment insurance jumped a seasonally adjusted 38,000 to 407,000 for the week ending March 29. The increase left claims at their highest point since Sept. 17, 2005. [USA Today]

We *knew* all you do during MBA programs is go to happy hours.

Hey Pentagon, Here’s A Tip: Test The Body Armor Before You Buy It

• Another day, another incompetence. [USA Today]
• A Defense Department audit discovered that “the Army can’t be sure some of its body armor met safety standards, partly because it didn’t do proper paperwork on initial testing of the protective vests.” D’oh.
• Here’s how it should work: Before the Army purchases body armor from a supplier, they do what’s called “first article testing” to make sure the armor is safe.
• But almost half (13 of 28) of the army orders reviewed, “specific information concerning testing and approval of first articles was not included” and in 11, ” files were not maintained...to show why procurement decisions were made.”
• Bottom line from Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY): “Nearly half of the Army’s contractors did not perform the most basic test on the body armor before it was sent to our troops fighting overseas.”
• She went on: “During a time of war, it’s shameful that the Army would not scrupulously ensure that every piece of equipment is properly tested, especially a fundamentally life-and-death product such as body armor.”
• This isn’t the first time the Army’s body armor situation was found lacking.
• In 2006, a Pentagon study found that “as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor.” [NY Times]

It’s almost as if “supporting our troops” was some kind of political line and not an actual commitment...oh wait.

How Torture Happened. Read This. Now.

• Stop reading. Stand up. Walk to your nearest drug store, newsstand or grocery. Pick up the brand-new Vanity Fair issue – the one with Madonna on the cover. Buy it. Open it to the article by Phillippe Sands titled “The Green Light.” Read it. Now.
• The article, which came out even before the latest Yoo torture memo was revealed this week, traces exactly how the White House planned to circumvent the laws banning “aggressive interrogation.” The result is chilling.
• If you can’t actually leave your desk until after work, here are a few excerpts to tide you over. [Vanity Fair]
• “The Bush administration has always taken refuge behind a “trickle up” explanation: that is, the decision was generated by military commanders and interrogators on the ground. This explanation is false. The origins lie in actions taken at the very highest levels of the administration—by some of the most senior personal advisers to the president, the vice president, and the secretary of defense.”
• In 2002: “A month later, the administration was struggling to adopt a position. On January 9, John Yoo and Robert Delahunty, at the Justice Department, prepared an opinion for Haynes. They concluded that the president wasn’t bound by traditional international-law prohibitions. This encountered strong opposition from Colin Powell and his counsel, William H. Taft IV, at the State Department, as well as from the Tjags—the military lawyers in the office of the judge advocate general—who wanted to maintain a strong U.S. commitment to Geneva and the rules that were part of customary law. On January 25, Alberto Gonzales put his name to a memo to the president supporting Haynes and Rumsfeld over Powell and Taft.”
• “Addington, Bybee, Gonzales, Haynes, and Yoo became, in effect, a torture team of lawyers, freeing the administration from the constraints of all international rules prohibiting abuse.”
• Then-#3 guy at the Pentagon, Neocon Doug Feith: “’The problem with moral authority,’ he said, was ‘people who should know better, like yourself, siding with the a**holes, to put it crudely.’”
• Then-General Counsel at Defense Jim Haynes: “’Military necessity can sometimes allow … warfare to be conducted in ways that might infringe on the otherwise applicable articles of the Convention.’ Haynes provided no legal authority for that proposition, and none exists. The minimum rights of detainees guaranteed by Geneva and the torture convention can never be overridden by claims of security or other military necessity. That is their whole purpose.”

And that’s just a taste. Call us when you’re finished reading so we can discuss.

Good News, Bad News

Robo-Sommelier

Hey all you classy folks out there, think you’ve got a nose for wine? Well, prepare to meet your match. It’s little, it’s clever, and it’s...a robot. The 2008 Guinness World Records just acknowledged a “2-foot-tall, blue-and-white talking android can identify about two dozen blends and varietals by grape and region, and — in a childlike voice — describe them in terms like ‘buttery’ or ‘full-bodied.’” We’re concerned. [ABC]

GOOD NEWS

Sneak one of these into the restaurant to impress your date.

BAD NEWS

Your robot is sexier and more sophisticated than you are.

Quote Of The Day

“He had no question, he just wanted to accuse me of undermining the Constitution and blah-blah-blah-blah-blah.”

—Karl Rove, on a run-in with a college student who objected to his...um...undermining of the constitution. [GQ]

Speed Round

BUT IT...UH...DOESN’T WORK

“President Bush won support from NATO on Thursday for his plans to build a limited missile defense system in Eastern Europe and finalized a separate agreement to station part of it in the Czech Republic.” [Washington Post]

MORE MEMOS

Hidden in a footnote of the recently declassified Yoo memos on torture was evidence of another secret Justice Department memo which said that “for at least 16 months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, the Bush administration believed that the Constitution’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures on U.S. soil didn’t apply to its efforts to protect against terrorism.” [AP]

FEMA

Who does FEMA call when it has a disaster? The agency evacuated yesterday after a small fire blew smoke through its headquarters in DC. [Washington Post]

SUPPORT THE TROOPS

Why on earth hasn’t Sen. John McCain thrown his support behind the new GI bill drafted by Sens. Jim Webb and Chuck Hagel yet? Inquiring minds really want to know. The bill would give great educational opportunities to Americans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Sen. McCain is AWOL. [Huffington Post]

SMELL THE DESPERATION

In a desperate attempt to have you talk about her, Ann Coulter just compared Barack Obama’s book to “Mein Kampf.” Oh, Ann, you’re so (yaaaaaaaawn) shocking. [Yahoo]

ROLLING STONE

Director Oliver Stone says his new movie about the Bush Dynasty will examine “How did an alcoholic bum become most powerful leader in world?” [Guardian]

YOU STAY CLASSY, JOHN

Speaking at Skidmore College yesterday, former Attorney General John Ashcroft “drew hollers of disapproval” when he accidentally referred to Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) as “Osama.” [Think Progress] [Times Union]

300,000

“About 1 in 50 U.S. infants are victims of non-fatal child abuse or neglect in a year, according to the first national study of the problem in that age group.” [AP]

TECHNOLOGICAL DIFFICULTIES

Thanks to computer glitches, the U.S. Census Bureau will be forced to conduct the 2010 census of the nationa’s 300 million residents the old fashioned way...by paper and pencil. The decision’s pushing the cost of the census to more than $14 billion.[AP]

GOOD NEWS

A new report shows that American teens are getting better at basic writing skills. No word yet on any improvements made on making it home by curfew. [AP]

THE ECONOMY AND YOUR HEALTH

More bad news from the spiraling economy: As American markets bite the dust, prescription drug costs skyrocket. [USA Today]

GLOBAL WARMING

18 states are suing the EPA for refusing to comply with a Supreme Court decision classifying greenhouse gases as pollutants that must be regulated. [AP]

ANOTHER KBR RAPE VICTIM SPEAKS

” That dawn, naked, covered in blood and feces, bleeding from her anus, she found a US soldier she did not know lying naked in the bed next to her: his gun lay on the floor beside the bed, she could not rouse him and all she could remember of the night before was screaming and screaming...” [Nation]

264

The number of pages it took to list the names of the 4,009 American soldiers in a Senate resolution “honoring members of the military killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.” [ABC]

DEPRESSED

“Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s.” [NY Times]