Now a TravelBlog (though still a Refuge for Progressives, Liberals, and Other Thought Criminals)
posted by bda at 12:28 PM
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In a late-night move that could be worth billions of dollars to a small group of major drug manufacturers, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) inserted language into the fiscal year 2006 Defense Department spending conference report.
Shortly before midnight on Sunday, the leaders agreed — after House and Senate negotiators had already signed the report and announced its details to the public — to insert controversial language that protects vaccine manufacturers from product liability claims in the event of a viral pandemic, such as one caused by avian flu.
Observers familiar with the procedural history of conference reports said that they were unaware of any precedent for inserting language after conferees had signed off on the report. A review of several Congressional Research Service guides to conference proceedings make no reference to any prior example.
[...]
During an early-morning meeting of the House Rules Committee on the bill, Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), a vocal critic of the vaccine industry, complained bitterly that he had been assured the language would not be included in the bill. “This kind of thing should not be done at 11 at night,” he said.
House Appropriations Committee ranking member David Obey (D-Wisc.) accused the GOP of tricking conferees, saying on the House floor that he had been assured the liability provision would not make it into the defense bill.
[...]
Republicans strongly denied that they misled negotiators and insist that the unusual arrangement to include the language was struck only because the provisions had been inadvertently left out.
“There appears to have been some administrative snafu ... that led to much confusion,” a Senate Republican aide familiar with the situation said, adding that it took “several hours’ work to clear up that
the avian package ... were indeed physically included along the lines understood by the Leader and the Speaker.”
posted by bda at 11:23 AM
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posted by bda at 11:13 AM
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More than ever, Americans do not trust business or the people who run it.
Pollsters, researchers, even many corporate chiefs themselves say that business is under attack by a majority of the public, which believes that executives are bent on destroying the environment, cooking the books and lining their own pockets.
But animosity toward executives as a class, not just the institutions they work for, seems to be rising to a new level. "Society has come to believe that the term 'crooked C.E.O.' is redundant," said Robert S. Miller, the chief executive of Delphi, the bankrupt auto parts company.
[...]
James R. Houghton, chairman of Corning, said he felt little animosity in Corning, N.Y., even though his company had cut thousands of jobs there. "Maybe I'm in an ivory tower, but I think society realizes that 98 percent of businesses are doing the right thing," he said. "The press doesn't write that, because it's the world's most boring story, and because business does a really lousy job of promoting itself."
Business is trying to rectify that. Commercials for Wal-Mart show its employees lauding their benefits and career opportunities.
posted by bda at 3:25 PM
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posted by bda at 3:26 PM
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...Although White House officials said many federal departments had contributed to the document, its relentless focus on the theme of victory strongly reflected a new voice in the administration: Peter D. Feaver, a Duke University political scientist who joined the N.S.C. staff as a special adviser in June and has closely studied public opinion on the war.
Despite the president's oft-stated aversion to polls, Dr. Feaver was recruited after he and Duke colleagues presented the administration with an analysis of polls about the Iraq war in 2003 and 2004. They concluded that Americans would support a war with mounting casualties on one condition: that they believed it would ultimately succeed. ...
The role of Dr. Feaver in preparing the strategy document came to light through a quirk of technology. In a portion of the document usually hidden from public view but accessible with a few keystrokes, the plan posted on the White House Web site showed the document's originator, or "author" in the software's designation, to be "feaver-p." ...
posted by bda at 12:19 PM
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WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 - It is the time of year when bedtime stories and television specials often recall the plucky reindeer and the little girl of Whoville who managed to save Christmas. This year, some conservative groups are hoping to add a new name to that pantheon of heroes: Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., the Supreme Court nominee.
"Liberal groups like People for the American Way and the A.C.L.U. have opposed public Christmas and Hanukkah displays and even fought to keep Christmas carols out of school," declares a radio commercial paid for by the conservative Committee for Justice beginning Monday in Colorado, Wisconsin and West Virginia, states whose senators are considered pivotal votes on Judge Alito.
[...]
Mr. Sekulow, who is the host of a Christian radio program and often appears on the Christian Broadcasting Network, says he has begun discussing Judge Alito's support for public Christmas displays regularly on his radio broadcast, including reading the Committee for Justice commercial. He said his organization was sending out e-mail messages to 850,000 supporters to urge their support for Judge Alito in the name of saving Christmas as well.
"If they think that hitching Samuel Alito to Santa's sleigh is going to eliminate serious issues about his regard for the Constitution, I think they are mistaken," Mr. Lynn said.
posted by bda at 9:42 AM
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posted by bda at 5:04 PM
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WASHINGTON — Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s views on abortion caused a stir this week, but another memo that surfaced from his years as a Reagan administration lawyer was notable for its strong support of the police.
Alito wrote that he saw no constitutional problem with a police officer shooting and killing an unarmed teenager who was fleeing after a $10 home burglary.
"I think the shooting [in this case] can be justified as reasonable," Alito wrote in a 1984 memo to Justice Department officials.
"I do not think the Constitution provides an answer to the officer's dilemma," Alito advised.
A year later, however, the Supreme Court used the same case to set a firm national rule against the routine use of "deadly force" against fleeing suspects who pose no danger.
"It is not better that all felony suspects die than that they escape," wrote Justice Byron White for a 6-3 majority in Tennessee vs. Garner. "Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no
threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so."
The 4th Amendment forbids "unreasonable searches and seizures" by the government, and the high court said that killing an unarmed suspect who was subject to arrest amounted to an "unreasonable seizure."
posted by bda at 11:35 AM
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"I strongly urge the House Judiciary Committees to take the lead in investigating this serious matter. As the committee with primary oversight authority over the Justice Department and Voting Rights Act, the Committee is in the position to answer all the questions raised in the article. As they conduct hearings into renewing the Voting Rights Act, Chairman Sensenbrenner and Ranking Democrat Conyers should resolve to get to the bottom of this disturbing report."
"Third, their certification of the Texas redistricting plan may have misled the three-judge panel into upholding it almost two years in the belief that no such certification would have been possible unless it had first withstood the legal and analytical scrutiny of the department's election law experts. Had the panel known that career lawyers in fact concluded the plan violated the law and thus should not be approved, it is entirely conceivable the panel would have rejected the plan."
The lead trial lawyer in the government's landmark lawsuit against the tobacco industry has quit the case and left the Justice Department, a move that comes at a particularly sensitive time when the companies and the department could still negotiate a settlement.
Sharon Eubanks, who had aggressively pursued the racketeering case against the tobacco industry, was withdrawing effective Thursday, the government said in a one-sentence filing in U.S. District Court.
Eubanks said her supervisors' failure to support her work on the tobacco case influenced her decision to retire after 22 years with the department.
Her withdrawal follows a stunning reversal in June in which the Justice Department disregarded the recommendations of its own witness -- Dr. Michael Fiore -- and reduced the amount it was demanding from the tobacco industry for smoking cessation programs to $10 billion. Fiore had proposed $130 billion.
After strong criticism from Democrats, the department is investigating whether political appointees inappropriately pressured the trial team to slash the proposed penalty against the companies.
"The political appointees to whom I report made this an easy decision," Eubanks told The Washington Post. She said her work on the tobacco case has been professionally rewarding but her politically- appointed bosses "have been somewhat less than supportive of the team's efforts," the newspaper reported on Thursday.
posted by bda at 5:26 PM
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posted by bda at 11:13 AM
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