sexual beings

Promoting the Sexual Health of Youth

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most comprehensive treaty on children's rights. The convention has been ratified by nearly every country in the world, except for the United States. The convention would fill current gaps in U.S. laws, and provide all children in America with the same robust protections that children in 193 countries are already entitled to.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child provides a framework for thinking about how we can best educate and care for our youth. It calls upon us to provide young people with the information and skills they need to lead healthy, productive, and peaceful lives. These are core principles and goals we should all be able to rally behind. Yet, we have failed for so long to secure a world built on these ideals.

An important piece of realizing such a world includes ensuring young people's health, including their sexual health, and how we prepare them to be healthy adults. For too long, our government has financed and pushed an abstinence-only-until-marriage approach to scare young people into not having sex and to push a social agenda that promotes discrimination against LGBT communities and women. This push has been in full-swing, both domestically and internationally, for more than a decade. We have been disseminating misinformation about birth control, condoms, and the role of sexuality in our lives. And we've been exporting a failed and unjust social policy that leaves young people bereft of the tools and skills they need to avoid unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection and to build supportive relationships and intimate human connections.

that's from the aclu's blog of rights. i saw it and thought, 'this needs to be shared.'

for the record, i don't think abstinence works. it didn't work when i was kid and it doesn't work today.

what works is information shared.

knowledge combats ignorance, knowledge teaches us how to avoid certian situations an how to deal with other ones.


let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'

Friday, November 20, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the US Defense Dept announces a death in Iraq, the 'intended' January elections remain murky, a War Hawk is denied a title, another War Hawk refuses to meet with the parent of a child kidnapped in Iraq, Congress explores the wounded, and more. Today the Defense Department issued a release noting "the death of a sailor who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Petty Officer 2nd Class Brian M. Patton, 37, of Freeport, Ill., died Nov. 19 in Kuwait in a non-combat accident." M-NF missed announcing the death (DoD is only supposed to identify the fallen) and the announcement brings to 4363 the number of US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war. "According to the Defense Manpower Data Center, at the Department of Defense, approximately 35,000 service members have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan," explained US House Rep Stephanie Herseth Sandlin yesterday afternoon. She was opening the House Veterans Affairs' Subcommittee on Economic Development's hearing entitled Adaptive Housing Grants. What are Adaptive Housing Grants? The VA explains: "Veterans or servicemembers who have specific service-connected disabilities may be entitled to a grant from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for the purpose of constructing an adapted home or modifying an existing home to meet their adaptive needs. The goals of the Specially Adapted Housing (SAH) Grant Program is to provide a barrier-free living environment that affords the veterans or servicemembers a level of independent living he or she may not normally enjoy." The first panel was composed of Disabled American Veterans' John L. Wilson, Paralyzed Veterans of America's Richard Daley, Blinded Veterans Association's Thomas Zampieri and Homes For Our Troops' John S. Gonsalves. From Daley's opening statement, we'll note this section: The $63,700 currently available using the Specially Adapted Housing grant is a significant help for a veteran to make the needed modifications to their existing home or newly purchased previously owned home. Since it is difficult to find an existing home that can be made totally accessible, some veterans choose to design a new house incorporating accessibility into the plans. Often financial considerations or a convenient living location near family members may preclude designing a new home. In those situations the often monumental task of making the existing structure accessible must be considered. Guidance and information to make modifications for accessibility can be found in the VA's newly issued VA pamphlet 26-13, Handbook for Design: Specially Adapted Housing for Wheelchair Users, which was also reviewed by PVA's Architecture Department before its publication. Many existing homes can be modified to improve access for a wheelchair user and enhance the function of the home. Some basic alterations would include creating an accessible entrance to the home including an accessible route to the entrance door, a level platform that is large enough for maneuvering during door operation, and enlarging entrance doorways. One bathroom would need complete renovation including plumbing arrangements if an accessible roll-in shower is required. The movement of an existing wall may be necessary for a person in a wheelchair to use each fixture of the bathroom, allow room for door operation and general circulation in the bathroom. Similar construction alterations would be required for the kitchen to be accessible and usable, and perhaps alterations to the master bedroom. The current grant amount of $63,700 in many situations would not pay for the entire project of making a home accessible for a wheelchair user. Since the house must be made accessible for the veteran, they would have no other option than to pay for remaining construction costs from personal savings, arrange a loan from a bank, or borrow needed funds from family members. We have been told that more often, than not, this is the situation the veteran faces. That provides a general overview of some needs shared by many disabled veterans. We'll now zero in on an example of one person's needs in particular. Thomas Zampieri: I had an OIF blinded service member that sent me an e-mail about the special housing grant program which I included in my [prepared] testimony because it sort of explains some of the frustration. While he was happy that he got the $10,000 grant in 2007, I actually had to spend $27,000 to do the adapted housing changes that he needed to provide room and space for his computer, the monitors, the scanners, the printers and the magnifiers in order for him to complete his college degree. All of this was great VA adaptive technology that was provided to him as a blind veteran but you have to have a place in order to store it and a way for that equipment to be connected. A lot of the blind veterans have unique, uh, requirements in regards to lighting and electrical work and the current amounts don't cover that. Today Kerry Feltner (The New Hampshire) reports on Nathan Webster's campus lecture "Can't Give This War Away: Three Iraqi Summers of Change and Conflict." Webster is a photo journalist. Feltner spoke with people who attended the lecture. Gretchen Forbes declared, "It's really unusual to get a first-hand report of the war. You'd think by now it would be our duty to have major news organizations over there to write about the war . . . that really surprises me. I feel like it's the media's responsibility." Betty Nordgren declared, "I'm always interested in hearing about the war and the images were great to see, but I think that the news organizations are in trouble if they don't start covering this war more thoroughly." Both women are correct and it's also true that the least covered in any war are the ones with visible wounds. It's apparently too tempting to look away. That's true of the challenged and disabled population in general but especially true of those members of that population whose wounds derive from a war or military conflict. We'll note the following exchange from the hearing. Chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: One of the concerns, I know that, Dr. Zampieri, you have in terms of the updated version -- Well, maybe not a concern. But maybe you could elaborate for us. With the updated version of the handbook, is that helpful for visually impaired veterans. What further provisions would your organizations like to see in-in the handbook? Thomas Zampieri: Yeah, the handbook is helpful. A lot of the modifications in regards to lighting and additional electrical outlets and all those things. And then the -- Chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: You had mentioned that in your oral statement. That you would like to see those types of adaptions added. Thomas Zampieri: Right. Chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: So maybe a comprehensive list of what would be available -- Thomas Zampieri: Okay. Chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: Is that? Thomas Zampieri: Right. And the voice activated types of devices are also, you know, he [John Gonsalves] had mentioned. Especially for blind veterans who now days live alone. All those things add to safety and other things. Chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: And then, Mr. Gonsalves, you had expressed concerns that I think that in terms of some requirements in the grants -- that there are injuries that require some sort of adaptions or its sort of mandatory but to have some additional flexibility in the grants would be helpful. John Gonsalves: Right. Chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: Is that correct? John Gonsalves: Yes, and I think some of that may have been taken I hadn't seen the new VA pamphlet. I-I hadn't seen it before the testimony but one of the things that Homes For Our Troops does now -- and you can kind of tell from one of the pictures that we have here -- we have a soldier who actually, before his house is being built -- this is under the Fully Functioning Kitchens For Mobility. We qualify what kind of adaptations are going to happen in a house based on injury. And I guess it would sort of work the way VA rates disability percentage. We -- At the time a service member gets qualified for SAH, we have enough information at that time. And what Homes For Our Troops has done is we have an adaptation check list. We only have five sets of home plans that we build. And the home, the footprint is always the same. The windows are always the same. The floor plan is always the same. But there's an adaptation check list based on what the soldier needs and that's why I provided some photos in here. It really gives you an idea. Obviously a quadriplegic would need a lifting care system where somebody that has the mobility of their upper arms probably doesn't need it. And I think at the time of being qualified for SAH, basically all of the technology is there. We've built for, I think, every type of injury out there from amputees who are blind to different levels of spinal cord injuries. So we know what's available to put in a home and it would be really great to be out in the front once they qualify. A whole checklist be put together. Chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: I think that that's very helpful and you have some ideas and recommendations that would be helpful and would like you to share those with us, with the VA. I think that with addition to what they've done to update their pamphlet, to have someone who's undertaken the mission that you've undertaken doing this work on the ground would be beneficial in creating those types of checklists. I would also think that it would be somewhat beneficial based on the work that you've done in having these checklists for the different types of injuries that the veteran may have suffered from and how to construct a home suitable to his or her needs as it relates to the overall cost of that. And I know that you agree in addition to TRA that the specially adapted housing grant be increased and again that's sort of the historical analysis that you're providing specific in Exhibit One for that grant. What do you -- do you have a ballpark figure? I mean, knowing again that if we adjust ed it to inflation, it would be up to $170,000. But based on the work you've done and the relative cost of doing that, do you have a ballpark figure? John Gonsalves: Yes. On average, uhm, we've averaged $343,00 for the cost of building a new home. Chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: Okay. So that's even greater than the average new home price. John Gonsalves: Right. But these are 100% fully adapted homes -- Chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: Yes. John Gonsalves: -- which they do cost a little more to build. You need a little extra square footage compared to what the average home that the census bureau uses. [. . .] Chair Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: One last question. Mr -- Dr. Zampiri. Can you explain the difference in changing the Specially Adaptive Housing Grant from 5 - 200 to 20 - 200 with regard to visual impairment? Thoomas Zampieri: Yes. In fact, thank you very much. I was afraid someone didn't notice that. And also I appreciate that Congressman [John] Boozman [Ranking Member] just coincidentally showed up at the right time [laughter from Zampieri and Boozman]. I'm legally blind. I can't drive. A lot of jobs I can't do. My vision is worse than 20/200. And I don't qualify for anything under this program because the requirement is 5/200 which is really just you can't tell if there's a light on. There's no light/dark perception for lack of a better way to describe it. If somebody has 5/200 and they waive their hand in front of your face and you don't see it, you're quote-quote, 'meet this requirement, "totally blind." Our concern is -- and this is growing thing -- a lot of the Traumatic Brain Injured service members who have significant functional impairments, who need extra lighting and all these other things get zip. When I was in Houston and I was first service-connected for my blindness, for example, because of the 20/200 vision, they said no. So I went and I ended up spending not a whole lot but almost $7,000 to do the modifications to my house in Houston because, you know. And so the total number of service members coming back that would be 5/200 is fairly low. In fact, the Navy says there's less than 20 in the last 8 years out at Bethesda. But there are 140 that are enrolled in the VA with this 20/200 and are told "nope" and -- So it's a frustrating thing. And I realize of course that the magic problem is that if you change this section and you open it up to 20/200 as the definition of blindness then of course, you know, the automatic reaction is "Uh-oh. You're going to expand the costs of the program." And-and, I'm always suspicious of that. It's sort of like a few years ago, a couple of years ago when you did the TRA legislation. I'm sure people initially reacted by saying this is going to cost millions and millions and you're going to have all sorts of veterans applying for this. And the experience that I have is it usually isn't that way. People don't apply automatically. But I think Mr. Boozman may have some thoughts about this problem of the vision complications. Ranking Member John Boozman: I appreciate you bringing that up and you make such an important comment -- that probably the VA's the only entity in the world that uses that standard versus the 20/200 standard. As an optometrist, I helped start -- in fact I started the School For The Blind's low vision program in Little Rock. And I would say probably about 90% of the kids in there did not -- would not meet the -- did you say 5/200 was the standard? Yeah, I mean, that's the standard I'm familiar with because nobody uses it. But I would say that if you looked at all the kids in blind schools or schools for the impaired, the vast majority, the vast-vast majority, there's no way that they would meet a 5/200. Most people, and lay people don't understand this but, most people that-that are blind have a lot of usable vision that can be worked with. And it truly does, you know, going in and setting up a kitchen or setting up a house so that a person can easily pour a cup of coffee -- you know, do things, that we just take for granted. Somebody might really struggle with that that did not meet this definition of vision which is so stringent in the VA so I think you make a great point. Thursday's snapshot noted the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia which Kat covered Thursday night. Wednesday's snapshot covered the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing and Kat covered that Wednesday night. Remember the two women in New Hampshire noting the lack of Iraq coverage in the media? On NPR today, The Diane Rehm Show didn't have time for Iraq but it did have time for Nadia Bilbassy to laugh condescendingly at an e-mailer (Tom from Jacksonville, Florida) caller and presumably all Americans before she went on to declare what American tax payer money should be spent on. Nadia scored a double: She managed to (a) be insulting and (b) also pimp opinion passed off as fact. It was not attractive. And it was cute the way she worked every answer back to her own community and issues -- a fact not revealed on the broadcast. I wonder if the Basques in Spain will next be brought on to lobby for an hour without NPR revealing who they are? Her remarks did not approach journalism. But, hey, she got to be rude and insulting and isn't that what NPR is all about? Strangely, Diane's show last week (with a guest host) told people the vote was on track in Iraq. That's now up in the air so you'd think they would have felt the need to do an update. But possibly when one guest keeps talking about 'her people' (but forgetting to inform the listeners of that) there's very little time for anything else. Let's turn to the issue of the elections. Jane Arraf (Christian Science Monitor) reported this afternoon that "the country's top election official said that even if lawmakers resolved all their differences, it would be impossible to hold elections in January" and quoted Independent High Electoral Commission's Faraj al-Haydari stating, "We have already stopped all our work." Arraf reminds that both the "IHEC and the United Nations officials have said they need at least 60 days to prepare a credible election." This morning, the New York Times editorialized on the election issues noting: The Constitution requires the election by the end of January. Election officials had said that the law needed to be done by Oct. 15 to allow enough time to prepare for the voting. Even though Iraq's Parliament overshot that deadline when it approved compromise legislation, the election was expected to take place between Jan. 18 and Jan. 23. But the Presidency Council (composed of the president, a Kurd, and two vice presidents, a Sunni and a Shiite) has the final say. And Mr. Hashimi chose to exercise his veto power and put in doubt Iraq's second national election, a critical test of whether democracy can endure as the United States withdraws its troops. The editorial board thinks the Constitution matters . . . sometimes. Sometimes Iraq's Constitution doesn't matter. It appears the editorial board is concerned with the Constitution only when what they want doesn't happen. Refuse to conduct a national census? The editorial board's okay with that. Refuse to resolve the Kirkuk issue (as the Constitution mandated be done by 2007)? The editorial board's okay with that. It's a funny sort of semi-devotion to the Constitution but then the New York Times is a funny sort of news outlet. Sami Moubayed covers the developments in Iraq at Asia Times notes the argument that the Iraqi refugees will be underrepresented in the Parliament (true even if there wasn't an effort to expand the number of seats and to hand the bulk to Shi'ites). Mouybayad explains, "Frantically [Nouri al-] Maliki responded. On Thursday evening, the Constitutional Court (over which Maliki has plenty of influence) overruled Hashemi's veto, calling it 'unconstitutional'." Let's jump to what's happening and then come back to the 'unconstitutional' assertion. Waleed Ibrahim, Suadad al-Salhy, Aseel Kami, David Alexander, Deepa Babington, Samia Nakhoul and Todd Eastham (Reuters) report, "Instead of addressing Hashemi's demand that the law give more seats to Iraqi refugees and minorities, lawmakers squabbled over whether the veto was legal. They scheduled a session Saturday in which they would vote on whether to reject Hashemi's veto and send the law back for approval by the three-person presidency council without changes, said the speaker of parliament, Ayad al-Samarai." Now back to the "unconstitutional" claim. The reporters go on to address the claims Baha al-Araji was making (see yesterday's snapshot) about the veto being "unconstitutional" and how this is "political wrangling" and MP Saleh al-Mutlaq states, "To my knowledge, the federal court did not say the veto is not constitutional. They are trying to create a real political crisis." Turning to the daily violence. First, a correction. McClatchy was included in yesterday's daily violence and that was Wednesday's daily violence. Not Thursdays. It will not be counted in the weekly total at Third. McClatchy didn't do a violence report on Thursday or, thus far, on Friday. Apparently, there were other things to do. Reuters noted the following violence today a Mosul roadside bombing today which injured a police officer, a Mosul stabbing of "an Egyptian" last night and another civilian shot dead in Mosul last night as well as a Thursday Baghdad bombing which left nine people injured. Moving to Europe where noted War Hawk Tony Blair was delivered some, for him, bad news. As Middle East Online reports, "Former British premier Tony Blair took a blow after being rejected as EU president, mainly due to his stained repuation after supporting and taking part in the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003." There is no joy in the killing fields tonight, Poodle Tony has struck out. Blair is the former British prime minister. His roll dog Gordon Brown is the current one. Leicester Mercury reports Brown is refusing to meet with the father of Peter Moore who was kidnapped along with 4 other British citizens in Iraq back in May 2007. The other four are all dead or thought by the government to be dead. Only Peter Moore is assumed to be alive at this point. But Brown has refused to meet with him and the reason given is that the "designated next of kin" is not Graeme Moore. Though some are shocked by Brown's decision, it should be remembered that Gordon is himself a War Hawk and, as such, may not be able to fake compassion very well and just attempting to do so may wear Gordon Brown out. In which case, he needs to limit the occassions on which he fakes sympathy in public. Yesterday (or last night, for those not on the West Coast), KPFA's Flashpoints Radio spoke with Stephen Funk, Eddie Falcon, Clare Baird and Courage to Resist's Sarah Lazar. Nora Barrows-Freidman was speaking with them about the efforts of Iraq and Afghanistan war resisters to work with Israeli refuseniks. Stephen Funk wrote about this project earlier this month. Stephen is the first known Iraq War resister who self-checked out starting on February 9, 2003 and went public April 1st announcing that he would not deploy. We've noted Stephen Funk here before and will again, but he went public before this site started so we'll note his story in the following excerpt. Nora Barrows-Freidman: We are now joined on the phone by Stephen Funk. He was one of the earliest who refused to serve in the occupation of Iraq. And, Stephen, thank you so much for being with us again on Flashpoints. Stephen Funk: Thanks for having me. Nora Barrows-Freidman: Tell us a little bit about your own history of refusing military service and then what can you say about this international push to dismantle militarism and the specific relationship between the United States and its expanding policies of entrenched occupations in the Middle East and Israel's ongoing and long suffering project of occupation and colonialism? What are the similarities that-that you're seeing there on the ground in Palestine, Israel? And what about the solidarity and the meetings you've been having with Israeli refuseniks? Stephen Funk: I guess, with my own story, I joined the military after 9-11. I voluntarily enlisted in the Marine Corps. I came from a background of activism. I grew up in Seattle, organized for the WTO and I moved to LA and protested against the Democratic National Committee in 2000 and I also spent two months in the Philippines when their president was being impeached -- that was at the same time George W. Bush was being inaugurated for the first time and I was hoping that the same kind of thing could happen in the United States that was happening in the Philipines. But despite that background, I enlisted. I feel -- maybe as an activist, I thought I could be a more reasonable person in Afghanistan and not be like a racist, hot head which is what I thought a lot of people joining at the time -- there was a lot of a fear going on and lot of people joining at the time were very reactionary about 9-11 and, you know that was -- that was where I was coming from. But when I went to the Marine Corps, I went to the violent training and I had to shout "Kill! Kill! Kill!" all the time and, you know, I also had to deal with being queer in the military. And I realize that I didn't want to be violent and I did not want to participate in any war -- especially the Iraq War for political reasons. But then, that I couldn't aim a gun at anybody and pull the trigger and that, ultimately, that is what I would be doing if I stayed in the marines. I had the option -- because I was gay, I had the option to get out under Don't Ask, Don't Tell. And everybody knew I was gay, everybody thought I was gay. It wouldn't have been difficult. But my issue wasn't that I was being oppressed it was that I was being asked to oppress others. And I felt that it would be more honest to get out under conscientious objection. So I started work on that. I went back to San Francisco and participated in the shut down before the war began and kept on protesting and was speaking out anonymously. But then there wasn't very -- despite all of the rallies that were happening every weekend, despite, you know, all of the worldwide mobilizations and all of the people that were in the streets, the media wasn't paying attention to anybody. And I believe the difference between 2003 and the war began, it was as if everybody in the United States agreed with it -- despite the fact that I was living in San Francisco and clearly people were not happy that the war was happening. So I guess I just talked to people and I decided that I would become a public war resister. And I was the first person to do it. And, you know, the next several months, traveling the country -- I was based in New Orleans -- and I traveled the country. I was eventually sent to jail. That was the long story. Eddie Falcon is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and he writes about the current project that he and others are working on here. TV notes, NOW on PBS debuts its latest episode Friday on most PBS stations and this one examines: The Pentagon estimates that as many as one in five American soldiers are coming home from war zones with traumatic brain injuries, many of which require round-the-clock attention. But lost in the reports of these returning soldiers are the stories of family members who often sacrifice everything to care for them. On Friday, November 20 at 8:30 pm (check local listings), NOW reveals how little has been done to help these family caregivers, and reports on dedicated efforts to support them. Washington Week also begins airing on many PBS stations tonight (and throughout the weekend, check local listings) and joining Gwen around the roundtable are John Dickerson (CBS News, Slate), Doyle McManus (Los Angeles Times), David Sanger (New York Times) and Karen Tumulty (Time magazine). Meanwhile Bonnie Erbe will sit down with Avis Jones-Deweever, Page Gardner, and Tara Setmayer to discuss the week's events on PBS' To The Contrary. Check local listings, on many stations, it begins airing tonight. And turning to broadcast TV, Sunday CBS' 60 Minutes offers: The Cost of Dying Many Americans spend their last days in an intensive care unit, subjected to uncomfortable machines or surgeries to prolong their lives at enormous cost. Steve Kroft reports. Watch Video Witness Recently freed after four months of interrogation and torture at the hands of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Newsweek reporter Maziar Bahari tells his story to Bob Simon and writes about his ordeal in the next issue of Newsweek. Cameron's Avatar Morley Safer gets the first broadcast look at how "Titanic" director James Cameron created his $400 million 3D fantasy "Avatar." Watch Video 60 Minutes, Sunday, Nov. 22, at 7 p.m. ET/PT. iraq the christian science monitor jane arraf the new york times the asia times sami moubayed waleed ibrahim suadad al-salhy aseel kami david alexander deepa babington sami nakhoul todd eastham reuters 60 minutes cbs news pbs now on pbs to the contrary bonnie erbe npr the diane rehm show washington week nora barrows friedman flashpoints

katty van-van gets smacked

it is an issue

don't become 'the battered woman of the house'

nancy pelosi's a moron.

new action from now

from now:

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Support NOW's Work |	November 13, 2009	| Tell a Friend

Background All NOW Actions Take action!		TAKE ACTION: Tell Your Senators to Vote Against 'Hyde on Steroids' The Senate may be voting on a "Hyde on steroids" amendment similar to Stupak-Pitts that would prevent millions of women from obtaining insurance coverage for abortion under health care reform. Floor debate begins next week, and senators are being pressured to accept this outrageous evisceration of Roe v. Wade in order to get reform legislation passed. It is not acceptable to achieve health care reform by pushing women back to the back alleys. The Senate must not adopt this House-passed amendment that would expand the Hyde Amendment (which prohibits federal funding of abortion, except in cases of rape, incest and threat to a woman's life). Please tell your senators Stupak-Pitts is not status quo and it is not okay. Please Take Action NOW! Please Take Action NOW! After taking action, please support our work! Background: The Senate will soon begin floor debate on the most important health care legislation (S. 1796) in decades. Women have much to gain from both Senate and House bills, which end insurance industry abuses and extend coverage to millions currently uninsured, but we are not willing to pay for this with an accompanying rollback of women's fundamental and constitutional rights. Several senators who oppose abortion rights are said to be planning to offer an amendment like the sweeping abortion prohibition offered by Reps. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Joseph Pitts (R-Penn.) and adopted by the House on Nov. 7. Reportedly, Sens. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) and Bob Casey (R-Penn.) may offer a version of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment to be attached to the Senate bill. That means, in all likelihood, if the Senate adopts this harmful amendment, it will remain in the final Senate-House conference bill and become law. Alternatively, a modified variation of Stupak-Pitts could be incorporated into the bill. Either way, millions of women lose -- big time. Please Take Action NOW! The Stupak-Pitts amendment explained: The ban on abortion coverage in insurance would apply to both the proposed public option and to private health insurance plans sold in the new regional health insurance exchanges. It is estimated that some 36 million uninsured persons would be purchasing insurance policies through new exchanges and would be eligible for federal affordability subsidies. Health insurers may not sell plans that cover abortion to customers who are paying without a subsidy, if even just one person who is receiving the federal affordability credits (the subsidy) were to purchase a plan. In other words, even if you are paying 100 percent of your insurance costs, abortion coverage would not be available in your plan if anyone with affordability credits joins the same plan. Women may purchase a separate abortion "rider" for coverage, though many doubt that these riders would be offered by the insurance companies. Small companies (fewer than 100 employees) would also likely purchase health insurance through the exchange, but if any of their employees received affordability credits no abortion coverage could be included. Eighty-seven percent of employer-based insurance plans now cover abortion services, but if employers withdraw coverage and send their employees to the health insurance exchanges, those employees would likely lose abortion coverage under these new prohibitions. There may be a modified version of this harmful amendment that is included in the Senate health care reform bill that will be debated next week. We want to make sure that Stupak-Pitts language is not used and that no variation of this harmful amendment is passed. Please send a message to your senators that you oppose any restrictions on insurance coverage of abortion. Thank you for all the work you do for women's rights. Please share this action alert with friends and family. and then
SUPPORT NOW: Support NOW's Work for Equal Rights | Join NOW | Monthly Giving | Catalog | Shop Amazon TAKE ACTION: Get Involved | Find Your Nearest Chapter | Tell a Friend | Learn More

i'm going to repeat, if you gave me money to bet with and told me i could bet on any group to stand tall against the dems caving on reproductive rights, i would bet on now.

naral?

don't make me laugh.

those chicky-baby-boom-booms made fools of themselves, made asses of themselves.

naral needs to give it up.

and i always laugh when i watch the video that c.i. and the gang shot on their cell phones in d.c. i forget if it was the alito confirmation or the roberts 1 but there's naral's original idiot katie mich. and she's sobbing and crying and making a spectacle of herself.

that always makes me laugh and it always underscores how pathetic naral is.

they'd rather cry in the halls of congress than fight the democratic party.

they'd rather play the victim than show any self-respect.

that's the reality.

i'm not saying i'll win by betting on now, but i'm saying that's the best shot i have. they will not cave and cower. the new leader means business and i'd advise you to watch and see how they fight. again, we may not win. but now's ready to fight, they're not going to roll over and smile pretty while women are stabbed in the back and used for political gain.

thank you to c.i. who insisted upon watching my daughter tonight so we could go out with every 1 that was going to the concert (matthew sweet and susanna hoffs).

let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'

Friday, November 13, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, a war cheerleader need to profit from the war gets even messier, McClatchy becomes the first US outlet to speak out in support of the Guardian and press freedom, more lawsuits are filed against KBR and more.

This afternoon, Jenan Hussein and Warren P. Strobel (McClatchy Newspapers) report a satire by Warid Badr Salim in al Mada has led over 150 members of Parliament sign on to suing the newspaper. The reporters note, "The chilling atmosphere for the news media was underscored this week when an Iraqi court fined the London-based Guardian newspaper nearly $87,000, finding that it had defamed Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. An article in the paper in April quoted unnamed Iraqi intelligence officials describing what they said was Maliki's increasingly authoritarian rule. [. . .] Free expression is one of the few benefits that Iraqi count from the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Basic services such as electricity and sewage are still in disrepair, and sectarian violence, while much reduced, is still a daily occurence. The backlash against journalists and curbs on book, cartoons and plays, often for religious reasons, raise questions about what kind of society the United States will leave behind when American troops withdraw from Iraq at the end of 2011." The article in question is Ghaith Abdul-Ahad's "Six years after Saddam Hussein, Nouri al-Maliki tightens his grip on Iraq" (April 30, 2009). Tuesday the court or 'court' rendered their or 'their' verdict.

As Elaine observed Wednesday, "The above topic should have been the front page of every daily paper this morning. Instead everyone turned their heads, averted their eyes and, in doing so, endorsed the assault on the press. If Nouri al-Maliki saw that the entire world would jeer him over these nonsense law suits, you better believe he'd think twice about doing it again. As it is, he's been allowed to attack the press. Let me add: Yet again." And let me add, because I've been waiting to see if this would be the case, that's All Things Media Big and Small. ALL. Get the picture? Thursday the Guardian editorialized, "But the case against the Guardian in Iraq is notable alarming. Despite repeated hearings over several months, the paper was not asked to present written evidence or provide statements from the editor or the reporter invovled. Compensation was apparently awarded for damage to the Iraqi prime minister, even though he was not a party to the legal action. The Iraqi people were promised freedom after the fall of Saddam. They deserve a free press and fair courts, robust enough to stand up to government."

Exactly. And yet where has the media been on this story?

I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together.

See how they run like pigs from a gun, see how they fly.

I'm crying.

-- "I Am The Walrus" (recorded by the Beatles, written by John Lennon, credited to Lennon & McCartney)

Thursday we noted that the Guardian is out there pretty much all alone. No outlet has stepped forward to stand with them. That's disgraceful. And when Nouri's other cases (both pending ones and ones yet to be filed) against news outlets come forward, some of these same outlets are going to want others to stand up for them and stand with them. Why should anyone bother? When none of them can stand up for the press right now, why should anyone later stand up for the cowards?

Thursday night, it turned out I might have been a bit harsh. That's when Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, took a brave stand and stated:

This rulling has to send a shiver up the spin of anyone who hopes for a genuinely democratic Iraq. What the court calls libel is, in most countries, called journalism. Indeed, if a respected journalist like Ghaith Abdul-Ahad can be punished for reporting on concerns about a trend toward authoritarian government, the verdict would seem to lend credence to those very concerns.

What a brave editorial statement from Bill Keller and thank goodness he was not afraid to put that in print in his paper because . . .

Oh, wait.

That didn't appear in the New York Times.

Bill Keller was quoted in Julian Borger's article for the Guardian that posted Thursday ngiht and appeared in Friday's paper. You know what, Bill, I think Guardian readers have some idea about the case. It's readers of the New York Times that might be helped by hearing your comments. But the New York Times has been so very busy on so many other things. Certainly, they're some panty sniffing they're prepared to splash on the front page any day now and pass it off as journalism, right?

There's not a damn thing wrong with Bill Keller's statements. And I'll applaud them . . . when they appear in the New York Times. Instead, it's as though Nouri attacked Guardian at school and Billy stood by and didn't nothing but later that day Billy ran over to Guardian's house and said, "Oh man, that was so wrong. I'm so mad. Man, I could just kick Nouri's ass." Brave statements become less brave when they're not made where it matters.

What the press tried to ignore, groups we spoke to about Iraq after the Tuesday verdict got. They got it instantly. They got that it was about press freedom. They got that it was about Iraq. They understood that a messages were being sent globally. They grasped that one message was that Nouri could get away with what ever he wanted and that he would be emboldened as a result. They also grasped that a message was sent to the Iraqi people to let them know that they were once again on their own and that the world press would look the other way as they did so often under Saddam. Those pulling a blank on what I'm referring to can jog their memories by reading Eason's now infamous NYT column where he whined for forgiveness for CNN's efforts at covering for Saddam in order to have continued access to Iraq.

This is not a minor issue but outside of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Chris Floyd and one or two others, find anyone commenting on it outside of the Guardian. Imagine what it must be like to be the average Iraqi right now. Following the start of the illegal war, you might have had some internet access and some access to satellite TV and you could see the press get lively (too lively for Paul Bremer who launched an attack on Falluja largely because he didn't like a cartoon -- no, it wasn't of his butt, the newspaper wasn't a broadsheet). And now you've seen the US install exile puppet Nouri al-Maliki. And you've seen him crack down on the internet and satellite channels. You've seen him run Al Jazeera out of the country. Now you're seeing him go after a Western outlet (the Guardian) and trash the work of Iraqi journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad. And you look around to see that world press you hear so much of. That brave, strong, independent, call out the tyranny where ever it is press. And you see silence. From the East to the West, you see silence.

And slowly it sinks in that today's thug is going to get away with the same things the previous one did because your life isn't very important on the world stage. And let's get real damn honest, that's why Iraqis suffered in silence all those years. They suffered in silence because they were less important -- to the world press -- than their leader. They suffered because the press wanted to curry favor with Saddam. And now the same world press is sending the message -- with few exceptions (count McClatchy now as one exception) -- that they will cover for Nouri because freedoms and the people of Iraq are unimportant.

That is the message being sent and you better believe that is the message being received.

Amy Goodman couldn't give us that today or yesterday or the day before. In fact, Goody missed Iraq a lot this week but Ava and I will tackle that at Third on Sunday. Mad Maddy Rothschild likes to pretend he gives a damn about the free press (in 2008, he liked to pretend he was a Democrat, this year he finally outed himself publicly as a Socialist so maybe in 2010 he'll reveal that he really doesn't give a damn about the press?). But for all of his bluster, Mad Maddy didn't have time to defend the Guardian. And then there's The Nation. Did John Nichols losing his daily paper mean that he lost interest in the press? Apparently because he's tossing more sop out about Sarah Palin. But then John Nichols HATES women. Is there any woman he hasn't attacked this decade? This is the man, please remember, who attacked Barbra Streisand, BARBRA STREISAND, for the Iraq War. That was Barbra's fault. Now not in the mind of any sane person, but as you read his attack on Barbra, you knew you weren't dealing with a sane person. (The basic 'logic' of his argument was that Barbra donated her money -- HER money -- as she saw fit to Democratic politicians and not as John Nichols felt she should donate HER money. Therefore, Barbra was responsible for the Iraq War.) At some point, Panhandle Media's going to have to have to start offering group therapy for all these misogynists but in the meantime, we all suffer because they can't address what really matters. Another swipe at Palin or advocating a free press? Nichols goes with another slam at Palin.

The topic wasn't discussed on the second hour of NPR's The Diane Rehm Show today, but guest host Susan Page and panelists Karen DeYoung (Washington Post), Roy Gutman (McClatchy Newspapers) and David E. Sanger (New York Times) did discuss other Iraq issues.

Susan Page: Roy Gutman, I know that you were reporting from Iraq last month. This week we hear that Iraq's Parliament finally has approved a law for its election in January. There had been a kind of stalemate before that.

Roy Gutman: Well there had been and it was a very damaging stalemate. If they hadn't approved the law by this point then you begin to have to predict the country going downhill rather quickly. Uhm, had they approved it a month ago, you could have said Iraq is almost heading towards a normalcy despite all of the violence. This kind of muddled middle that took a long time to decide actually is nevertheless huge progress. This election, uh, is in a way is going to create a new Parliament. There will be what they call open lists -- every parliamentarian or every person running for a seat uh will be named before the elections so it's possible for people to find out who they are and rather they have dual citizenship. You know I heard while I was there that as many as 70% of the Iraqi -- of the current Iraqi Parliament has dual citizenship. Many of them Iranian-Iraqi dual citizenship. So that-that part will end and it looks like -- they have an independent election commission, they run elections that I think, in comparison with Afghanistan, certainly in comparison with Iran, are going to look good, very clean. It's possible that this election could make a real big difference.

Susan Page: Karen, this week we found out that top executives at Blackwater, the private military company, okayed bribes for Iraqi officials. Why were they going to bribe them?

Karen DeYoung: This was in connection to the late 2007 attacks in Baghdad for which I believe five Blackwater employees who were working for the State Department have been charged. 17 Iraqis were killed. At a time when it was not clear which way the Iraq government was going to go in terms of prosecuting them, preventing them from leaving the country. This was reportedly Blackwater's attempt to influence those decisions and also the decision whether Blackwater whose-whose income is derived from -- has been derived from -- huge contracts in Iraq would be continued to allow -- be allowed to work there.

Susan Page: Alright. Yes, Roy?

Roy Gutman: One of the -- one of the most incredible things about the American war in Iraq is that we relied on outside contractors to the extent that we did. I heard the figure while I was there of -- from American military -- that there was as many as 170,000 contractors, maybe even more than that, to 140,000 troops. I think that -- obviously it drove up the cost -- but it was the idea of outsourcing the war obviously to people like Blackwater to do all the functions that would normally be carried out by the military. It's a hell of a way to run a war. It's -- maybe it's the modern way of war but I think that the Bush administration in a way into thinking that it was only 140,000, only 160,000, in fact the numbers were far, far higher.

Karen DeYoung: I-I think that's true and the bulk of the contractors certainly work for the Defense Department. [Clears throat.] Excuse me. The bulk of the controversy has been over-over personal security contractors working for the State Department and that's what -- that's what Blackwater was doing. This is a problem as policy becomes a sort of civil-military hybrid where we're trying to do reconstruction in a war zone, we're trying to boost the civilian components of our efforts in places like-like Iraq and in Afghanistan. And now the question is always: Who is going to protect these people? Is this the proper role for the military, is this something that we want soldiers to do? The State Department doesn't want soldiers to do it and so you're going to have this problem increasingly going on.

Susan Page: Do private military contractors continue to play as big a role during the Obama administration as they did during the Bush administration, David?

David E. Sanger: Well certainly as the war has moved to Afghanistan and as our attention is focused to Afghanistan -- we still have more troops in Iraq today than we have in Afghanistan -- something you could lose sight of --

Karen DeYoung: Twice as many.

David E. Sanger: -- picking up -- picking up the newspaper. Yeah. That may not be true six months from now but it certainly is true now. Uh, I don't believe that there are as many contractors at work in the Afghan theater. But it's a very different kind of situation. The exception to this, again, is the personal security forces including around the embassies.

Roy Gutman: But you know when you enter the American Embassy in Baghdad, you get first questioned by Peruvians who are contractors. I-I think the traditional role of the marines as being the guard for embassies is actually a good one. And I think the idea of contracting that out, however necessary it was during the war because there simply weren't enough troops of any force to do it -- is a real question. I don't see -- and the State Department didn't master having these private contractors. They-they lost control of them again and again and again. There not able to manage them, frankly. And, uh, the whole embassy. You go to this embassy, it's an immense thing really. It was built kind of for a pro-counsel's role. And you have to ask: 'Why did we do this in the middle of the war?'

Susan Page: Roy, Roy, I don't understand. So this security at the US Embassy in Baghdad is Peruvian?

Roy Gutman: The first line.

Karen DeYoung: The outer parameter.

Roy Gutman: The outer parameter.

Susan Page: And who's employing the Peruvians to provide the security?

Roy Gutman: Uh, I don't know. Maybe it's Triple Canopy. I forget the name of the contractor.

Susan Page: But it's a contractor working for the US government?

Roy Gutman: Oh yeah.

Susan Page: Huh. Alright. That surprises me.

Roy Gutman: In fact, going into -- into what is now the International Zone, the former Green Zone, you get queried by Ugandans, Uruguayans, Peruvians are there. It's-it's like a small United Nations. Most of them being ill paid. And go to any of the bases, the American bases, the first lines and the second lines of-of checkpoints are all run by non-Americans.

Afghanistan is not our focus ("Iraq snapshot") but since it was mentioned above, we'll note that the Democratic Policy Committee (Democratic members of the Senate and Senator Byron Dorgan chairs the committee) has released a new report on Afghanistan "Our Best Chance for Success in Afghanistan: Getting the Strategy Right First."

Meanwhile James Bone (Times of London) reports on the problems for an adivsor to the KRG: "A prominent former United Nations official was forced to defend himself yesterday against accusations that he used his influence in Iraq to enrich himself. Peter Galbraith, 58, a former US ambassador who recently quit as deputy head of the UN mission in Kabul, struck a potentially lucrative oil deal in Iraqi Kurdistan which could reportedly earn him $100 million (£60 million). He helped the Kurds to negotiate provisions in the 2005 Iraqi Constitution that gave them control over new oil finds on their territory." Peter Galbraith is denying any wrong doing. He repeated his denials in Melissa Block's interview which aired on yesterday's All Things Considered:

Melissa Block: Ambassador Galbraith, you've been on our program many times before, you've published many op-eds, you've written books. Why not disclose your business ties before this? Put this out in the open if it is so-so benign as you say.

Peter Galbraith: It's obviously quite common for people to be in government, to be in private business. And it is the nature of private business that the precise arrangements are often confidential. And, indeed, some of my arrangements were subject to confidentiality agreements. But I did disclose that I was in business and that I had corporate clients in Iraq. So I think that people did know that I had these interests.

Melissa Block: Ambassador Galbraith, do you see how this business connection, your connection with the oil company, would fuel the anger that US interests in Iraq are purely about oil and about profit?

Peter Galbraith: I -- uh, well I can understand that there will be politicians that will want to use that as part of their debate with the Kurds but, uh, frankly, I was a private citizen at the time, I had no role in the US -- with the US government. The US government did not, in any way, facilitate any of my visits to Iraq. Uh, so, I was like many other former government officials who have become private citizens and who, uh, in -- generally the practice do not disclose what clients they may have in their business activities.

While he was happy to share his notions of discosure to Melissa Block yesterday, others attempted to address his lack of disclosure. Noting that he's written columns on the Kurdistan issues for the New York Times since 2004 (when his relationship with DNO began), an "Editor's Note" in today's paper (published online yesterday) concludes:

Like other writers for the Op-Ed page, Mr. Galbraith signed a contract that obligated him to disclose his financial interests in the subjects of his articles. Had editors been aware of Mr. Galbraith's financial stake, the Op-Ed page would have insisted on disclosure or not published his articles.

The New York Times is stating Peter Galbraith didn't disclose to them and that, had they known about the deal, they would have either not published his columns on Iraq or required that he disclose those interests -- those financial interests. Please note that Melissa Block conducted a lengthy interview with him (over four minutes) and those are only excerpts above. Peter Galbraith continues to maintain he has done nothing illegal, wrong or unethical. Chris Floyd (Empire Burlesque) weighs in:

The New York Times is shocked -- shocked! -- to find personal enrichment of American elites at the heart of the rape and gutting of Iraq. Who could possibly have ever foreseen such a scenario as the Times revealed on Thursday, describing how "influential American adviser" Peter Galbraith helped "ram through" highly controversial provisions in the constitution that the occupying force and its collaborators imposed -- provisions that could put more than $100 million in Galbraith's pocket.

Of course, Galbraith's war-profiteering machinations are hardly unique; the roll call of "advisers" and officials and other insiders feasting on Iraqi corpseflesh is longer than the Mississippi, and considerably more muddy. Just this week, the Financial Times noted that another gaggle of occupation geese, "including Zalmay Khalilzad, former US ambassador to Baghdad, and Jay Garner," the first appointed satrap of the conquered land, are now cashing in on their blood-soaked connections in Iraq.

Chris Garofolo (Brattleboro Reformer) notes that Galbraith was speaking at an event at the Brattleboro Centre Congregational Church last night when the issue was raised and he said of the New York Times article (by James Glanz and Walter Gibbs ), "I actually find the article quite, well, it is full of innuendo. If you read the facts [with the implications and innuendo], I find [it] offensive. [. . .] The article argues, or suggests, that somehow I had a conflict, hmm, it doesn't say it, but there's innuendo there. That there's a conflict of interest because I advised the Kurds on the constitution at the same time I had business interests, including a contract with a Norewegian oil company DNO, in which I assisted them to make investments in the oil industry." Garofolo also notes that Peter Gailbraith supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

From greed to the violence it led to . . .

Bombings?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad sticky bombing (no one wounded or killed apparently)

Shootings?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 13-year-old Iraqi Christian male shot dead in Mosul. AFP notes the shooting but says the male was 16-years-old and was Rami Katchik who "had been hosing down the entrance to his family home when the shooting occurred." Iran's Press TV drops back to yesterday to note "a man working for a weaving factory in Mosul" shot dead yesterday."

Corpses?

Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 corpse (20-year-old man) discovered in Mosul.

Turning to the United States, Jake Armstrong (Pasadena Weekly) notes "lawsuits in 32 states have been filed against Halliburton, KBR and other military contractors over so-called 'burn pits' the companies allegedly used in Iraq to burn everything from human body parts to tires, the Associated Press reported Tuesday." Ed Treleven (Wisconsin State Journal) reports Iraq War veteran Michael Foth and Afghanistan War veteran Brett Mazzara have filed against KBR: "The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Madison, brings to 34 the number of similar lawsuits pending across the United States, said Susan Burke, a Washington, D.C., lawyer representing the soldiers, including Mazzara and Foth. A first wave of lawsuits filed earlier this year have been merged for pretrial proceedings in Greenbelt, MD., she said." Lisa Guerriero (MetroWest Daily News) reports on Iraq War veteran Jeffery Cox (we've noted his lawsuit against KBR already this week). O fthe KBR burn pit he was exposed to, Cox notes, "This is not your little leaf fire. This is 10 acres or greater." On the health issues relating from exposure to the burn pits, Cox observes, "It's widespread. A lot of people have some type pulmonary issue. It's the Agent Orange of the Iraq war." Meanwhile the Houston Chronicle offers the editorial "Invisible wounds: Returning soldiers with mental health problems are ill-served by their country" which includes this: "It's also ironic that the same legislators who sign off on billions to wage wars -- conservatively estimated at almost $700 billion to date for Iraq and Afghanistan -- are often loath to invest even modest sums for the care of the soldiers wounded in those wars."

Meanwhile, KBR and others can profit off the war but telling the truth? Apparently not allowed in the United States. Valerie Plame is a former CIA agent. Former not by choice. She was outed by the Bully Boy Bush administration in an attempt to get back at and attack her husband, former diplomat Joe Wilson. The CIA sent Wilson on a fact-finding mission to Niger ahead of the Iraq War to determine whether or not Saddam Hussein was seeking or had sought yellow cake uranium (which would allow him to make deadly, nuclear bombs). Wilson's investigation determined no attempt had been made. Despite that, the administration (including Bully Boy Bush) began publicly making statements to the contrary. Wilson originally corrected the issue with some members of the press. When he came out publicly in the New York Times with "What I Didn't Find In Africa" (July 6, 2003), the administration began working to attack him and using adminstration friends in the press. These friends would include Matt Cooper who keeps trying to crawl out from under his rock despite the fact that he's never, NEVER, gotten honest about his part in this or his covering for so many in the administration and for Karl Rove. Robert Novak (now dead) was the one who finally outed her. (As John R. MacArthur has noted, there's nothing wrong with outing CIA agents -- with the press doing it. It is, however, a different story for the government to out you. Valerie Plame worked for the United States government as an undercover agent and her cover was blown by the Executive Branch of the federal government. That is wrong, that is a problem.) David Kravets (Wired) reports that here efforts to go public with details (non national security details) such as the time of her employment are being withheld (despite them already being part of the Congressional record) and other petty measures are taking place. Why? A judge decided but never forget that a judge decided (wrongly, my opinion) only due to the fact that the Barack Obama administration decided to fight Plame on this. Yes, Barack is yet again proving to be Bush III. So two administrations have now disgraced themselves in the manner in which they've treated Valerie Plame.

TV notes. NOW on PBS begins broadcasting on many PBS stations tonight (check local listings) and this week's show

What exactly is going on with the economy? Stocks are up and big bonuses are back, but while they're throwing parties on Wall Street, there's pain on Main Street. One out of every six workers is unemployed or underemployed, according to government statistics - the highest figure since the Great Depression.
This week NOW gets answers and insight from Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren, who's been heading up the congressional panel overseeing how the bailout money is being spent. NOW Senior Correspondent Maria Hinojosa talks with Warren about how we got to this point, and where we go from here.
What will it take to put both bankers and American businesses on the same road to recovery?

Washington Week also begins airing tonight (and throughout the weekend) on many PBS stations. Joining Gwen around the table this week are Peter Baker (New York Times), Naftali Bendavid (Wall St. Journal), John Dickerson (CBS News and Slate) and Ton Gjelten (NPR). Meanwhile Bonnie Erbe will sit down with Bernadine Healy, Melinda Henneberger, Star Parker and Patricia Sosa to discuss the week's events on PBS' To The Contrary. Check local listings, on many stations, it begins airing tonight. And turning to broadcast TV, Sunday CBS' 60 Minutes offers:

The Deadliest Weapon
Byron Pitts and 60 Minutes cameras spend two days on the road with a bomb-hunting unit in Afghanistan as they encounter one deadly bomb after another. | Watch Video

---

B. Rex
Lesley Stahl meets the inspiration for the lead character in the classic film "Jurassic Park" and reports on how famed dinosaur hunter Jack Horner is shaking up the paleontology world. | Watch Video

---

Resurrecting Eden In Southern Iraq, where many biblical scholars place the Garden of Eden, Scott Pelley finds a water world where the "Marsh Arabs" are making a comeback after Saddam nearly destroyed the "cradle of civilization." | Watch Video

---

60 Minutes, Sunday, Nov. 15, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

iraq

mcclatchy newspapers

jenan hussein
warren p. strobel

the guardian
julian borger
mark tran

the diane rehms show
susan page
npr

roy gutman

karen deyoung
the washington post

the new york times

david e. sanger

all things considered
melissa block
the new york times

the houston chronicle
the pasadena weekly
jake armstrong
ed treleven
lisa guerriero

sahar issa

60 minutes
cbs news
pbs
to the contrary
bonnie erbe
washington week

some stand strong, some don't

Anti-Choice Law a Non-Starter for Schakowsky

Last weekend feminist activists watched in distress as, one by one, 240 members of Congress, many of whom were Democrats, voted to pass the Stupak Amendment, which severely interferes with a woman's right to choose. If the Stupak Amendment is included in the final version of the health care reform bill, it will: prevent women receiving tax subsidies from using their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion; prevent women participating in the public health insurance exchange from using 100 percent of their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion; and make it next to impossible for low-income women to obtain an abortion.

The Democratic leadership might have decided to compromise women's rights in order to push through the health care bill, but women whose lives are directly affected by Stupak's draconian measures will not stay silent.

Just this Monday, activists from NOW and the Feminist Majority gathered to express their discontent by staging a rally in front of the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. I was there and am happy to report that the rally was a smashing success. There were about 30 of us altogether -- an impressive number considering we only had 24 hours to organize the event. We proudly marched around the block, letting our voices be heard, so that our representatives would know how ardently we disapprove of their actions. All of the activists present had great energy, and everyone around us was definitely paying attention.

As we walked, other women stopped to cheer us on and state their displeasure with the Stupak Amendment. Quite a few of them asked for our NOW stickers, so we gladly passed them out.

Our rally also attracted a couple of anti-choice protestors. One of them followed us around, shouting at us from a megaphone. His intent was clear: he was trying to intimidate us, to make us go away. However, his megaphone proved to be no match for the combined power of our voices, and we easily drowned him out.

NOW encourages you to join us and other activists Monday, Nov. 16 and 23, from 12:00 noon to 1:00 pm in front of the Russell Senate Office Building. This is a great opportunity to network with your fellow women's rights activists and get some fresh air while you're at it.

Women are 51 percent of the population, yet we are continuously subjected to discriminatory laws. It is time we let our politicians know that their disregard for reproductive health care is unacceptable and that we will not idly stand by and watch as our rights are being taken away.

Headlines blaring, “Abortion an Obstacle to Health-Care Bill,” got it backward. And the biggest obstacle was President Obama’s approach, which meshed all too well with Speaker Pelosi’s: they are both so averse to feather-ruffling that one wonders why they entered the rough and tumble of politics in the first place. No amount of Rahm Emmanuel’s mean-guy interference could have kept this chicken’s eggs from breaking, let alone its feathers in place.

Smart as he is, why didn’t Obama know that when you start from a position of compromise, you'll end up with a fragment of what you wanted, if that? The public option is too weak to exercise serious cost-cutting control. And now women have been sacrificed, like so much detritus, even though we are 51 percent of the population and (in case they haven't noticed) 60 percent of Democratic voters. In response, I’m seeing the most intense wave of anger building among women voters of all ages since the Senate’s 1991 trashing of Anita Hill culminated in the 1992 “Year of the Woman”.

they finally cancelled it

bet on now

NOW Opposes Health Care Bill That Strips Millions of Women of Abortion Access
Says Bill Obliterates Women's Fundamental Right to Choose

Statement of NOW President Terry O'Neill

November 8, 2009

NOW's officers pose with activists at the protest held November 9, 2009 in Washington, D.C. over the Stupak Amendment. For more on how you can help or contribute to the cause, click here

The House of Representatives has dealt the worst blow to women's fundamental right to self-determination in order to buy a few votes for reform of the profit-driven health insurance industry. We must protect the rights we fought for in Roe v. Wade. We cannot and will not support a health care bill that strips millions of women of their existing access to abortion.

Birth control and abortion are integral aspects of women's health care needs. Health care reform should not be a vehicle to obliterate a woman's fundamental right to choose.

The Stupak Amendment goes far beyond the abusive Hyde Amendment, which has denied federal funding of abortion since 1976. The Stupak Amendment, if incorporated into the final version of health insurance reform legislation, will:

• Prevent women receiving tax subsidies from using their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;
• Prevent women participating in the public health insurance exchange, administered by private insurance companies, from using 100 percent of their own money to purchase private insurance that covers abortion;
• Prevent low-income women from accessing abortion entirely, in many cases.

NOW calls on the Senate to pass a health care bill that respects women's constitutionally protected right to abortion and calls on President Obama to refuse to sign any health care bill that restricts women's access to affordable, quality reproductive health care.

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barack's big mess

that's Isaiah's latest The World Today Just Nuts "That Barack" and it's wonderful.

okay, america got screwed by the house on saturday. women even more so because our health matters even less to the house of represenatives. so i'm not in a good mood and maybe i'm misunderstanding the story i'm about to highlight.

but we know it's going to be mandated - every 1 must purchase insurance. on top of that, they're going to pump up the rates?

this is from anna wilde mathews (wall st. journal):

In the House bill, the ratio can only be as much as 2 to 1, meaning older people could pay no more than twice what the youngest customers are charged. Senate Democrats, who haven't yet unveiled the bill that will go to the floor there, will have to decide whether to echo the House's ratio or use a different one. Lobbyists say one possibility might be 3 to 1, the average of two earlier Senate bills. Currently, the range isn't capped in most states and older people may pay five or six times as much.
It's tough to project the exact impact of the new age ratio because the bills contain other provisions affecting premiums.

well let me offer a prediction. if you tell the insurance companies that they can charge older people only twice what the younger people pay, they're going to raise the amount that they charge young people.

what?

you say they wouldn't do that because young people would say, 'forget you, i'm not buying insurance' then?

you forget, barack's mandating it. meaning every 1 has to buy it and those who don't get fined.

that's it for me, i'm really ticked off about the house. i didn't support (and don't) obama's gift to the insurance companies but how telling that to 'shore up' support, women had to yet again be tossed overboard.

let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'

Monday, November 9, 2009. Chaos and violence continue, the US military announces multiple deaths, two British soldiers testify about an Iraqi being beat to death in British custody, the election law passes, a US soldier is kicked out of the military for the 'crime' of his sexuality, and more. Today the US military announced: "Contingency Operating Base Speicher, Iraq – Two U.S. Army pilots were killed when a helicopter experienced a hard landing in Salah ad Din Province, Nov.8. The names of the deceased are being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense. The names of service members are announced through the U.S. Department of Defense official website [. . .]The announcements are made on the Web site no earlier than 24 hours after notification of the service member's primary next of kin. The incident is under investigation." And they announced: "AL ANBAR PROVINCE, Iraq – A Marine attached to Multi National Force – West died as the result of a non-combat related incident here Nov. 8. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense. [. . .] The incident is under investigation." The announcements bring the number of US service members killed in Iraq since the start of the illegal war to 4362. In other reported violence . . . Bombings? Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Baghdad sticky bombing which left one person wounded, a Mosul explosion ("thermal charge") which left ten people injured, and a Falluja roadside bombing which wounded four people. Shootings? Sahar Issa (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 1 person shot dead in Mosul today and Hadi Laiybi ("Sadrist leader") was shot dead "on his doorstep" in Mosul last night. Back in July, Robert Fisk (Independent of London) wrote, "I first heard about Baha Mousa from his family. He was working as a hotel receptionist in Basra when British troops surrounded the building and arrested seven men. They were taken to a British barracks, hooded and beaten. Two days later, as his weeping father recalled for me, Mousa was dead. His family was given $3,000 in compensation and rejected a further $5,000. What they wanted was justice. His father had been appointed a police officer by the British authorities themselves. He was wearing two pistols on his hips. He was 'our man', and we killed his son." There is an ongoing inquiry into Baha's death taking place in England. We last noted it in the October 6th snapshot. The Right Honorable Sir William Gage brought today's proceedings to order, Today we are going to start the second half of the evidence in Module 2, which as I think I said before we broke off two weeks ago, we very much hoped would be complete by the time we come to our break at Christmas, the last day of which I think is 18 December. Just one other matter I want to mention. Today we have two witnesses giving evidence, the second of which is Mr. Reader. He will give evidence by videolink from Manchsester as I think you now all know." It seemed rather business as usual; however, later testimony made it a dramatic day for the inquiry. That was especially true of the second witness, Garry Reader. But not just him. Gerald Elias: Mr Aspinall, I am not going to dwell on this at any stage, although I will come back to it very briefly, but it is right to say, isn't it, that in the months and years that followed the events that this Inquiry is concerned with, you were not at all times as helpful as you might have been. Gareth Aspinall: Can you please elaborate more on that? Gerald Elias: Well from time to time you told lies, didn't you, in the past, when asked questions about these events? Gareth Aspinall: No, I have told no lies whatsoever. If there's anything that have been missed out on my statements it's purely because I have not been able to remember. Gerald Elias: Is that true? Gareth Aspinall: Yes, that's true. Uh, actually it wasn't. As Aspinall would admit later, he gave false statements early on. He was worried, he said, what might happen to them. Punishment for Baha's deaht? No, future promotions, that sort of thing. "At that point," he declared, "I wasn't worried and I don't think any of the other lads was worried about being blamed. We had nothing to be worried about on that bit. What we was worried about was our own positions, as I have just said, and our futures within the army of telling the truth on what happened. [. . .] We talked about it. We was worried. We was worried what would happen if we told the truth. As I've said, that's why we stalled." He would cite Cpl Donald Payne -- being intimidated by him -- as one reason they did not supply the facts at the start of the investigation into Baha's death. Dropping back to the September 19, 2006 snapshot: From the Bully Boy to another war war criminal -- in England, Corporal Donald Payne pleaded guilty "to inhumanely treating civilians detained in Iraq between Sept 13 and Sept 16 2003 in Basra, Iraq" (Telegraph of London). The Guardian notes that Payne ("one of seven British troops who went on trial today facing charges linked to the death of an Iraqi civilian") was pleading guilty to chrages that "relate to the death of Baha Musa, 26, an Iraqi civilian in Basra". Jeremey Lovell (Reuters) reports that Musa is said to have had "93 injuries on his body, including a broken nose and ribs" and that "another detainee was so badly beaten that he nearly died of kidney failure." The first witness, Gareth Aspinall, described seeing Payne abusing the prisoners. Gareth Aspinall: When I walked in there [interrogation], I remember seeing a number of detainees stood up and receiving punches off Mr Payne to the lower back area. Gerald Elias: The number of detainees, were they hooded? Gareth Aspinall: I can't remember. Gerald Elias: Were they plasticuffed? Gareth Aspinall: I can't 100 per cent say for certain, but I believe they would have been. But I can't remember if they was. Gerald Elias: If you said, as you did in your statement of 10 October, that they were hooded, that would have been the position, would it? Gareth Aspinall: Sorry, what? What do you mean? Gerald Elias: If you said it on 10 October in your statement -- Gareth Aspinall: Yes. Gerald Elias: -- that when you went into the TDF all the detainees were hooded, that would have been true? Gareth Aspinall: Yes, if that's what I said in my statement at the time. This continues with more descriptions of the beating. Gerald Elias: Did there appear to be any reason for Mr Payne to be doing this? Gareth Aspinall: No. He just seemed very angry. Gerald Elias: He seemed angry? What gave you the impression he was angry? Gareth Aspinall: I don't know. His posture, his -- you can tell when someone looks angry. Gerald Elias: Was he shouting? Gareth Aspinall: I think he was, yes. Gerald Elias: And the punches that he was throwing, describe those to us? Gareth Aspinall: There was -- they looked like full-on punches where he was bringing his arm back and, basically like a boxer, hitting them in the lower back area. Gerald Elias: Full-on punches. Gareth Aspinall: Well, they were quite -- they looked quite hard. I wouldn't like to have received one, put it that way. He said the victims being beaten "yelled out in pain. Held their side." And he and the others didn't object. He offered an explanation of why. Gareth Aspinall: Maybe because we felt, you know, what do we do here? What do we do in this situation? You know, was we to turn around, run out of the room and go straight to the ops room and report it to the commanding officer? Gerald Elias: Well, why not? Gareth Aspinall: Because we didn't know whether this is what happened in war. We was very young. He testified that abuse was not limited to Sunday and continued on Monday when they were put in stress position and the punches continued. Gerald Elias: On this Monday, you did see, didn't you, what I think came to be known as the choir, or the chorus? Gareth Aspinall: Yes, I did. Gerald Elias: Tell us what it was. Gareth Aspinall: It's where the detainees were made to stand up, and Mr Payne, he would go about each individual detainee and he would poke them -- Gerald Elias: You are just dropping your voice a little bit. Gareth Aspinall: Sorry. He would -- all the detainees would be stood up and he would move about the room poking them, just basically with his finger, and they would -- each and every one of them would scream out in pain. And he'd take turns in doing it to different ones, and he thought -- he developed this and he thought it was funny. The first time I saw it, I'll openly admit I did chuckle, but then as the day progressed and it started to wear me down and I really felt for the detainees. I felt it was a bit out of order that -- it was difficult to watch. Gerald Elias: You say that Mr Payne would poke with a finger? Gareth Aspinall: Yes. Gerald Elias: Which part of the body? Gareth Aspinall: Round the lower back area. Gerald Elias: The same area to which he had been punching? Gareth Aspinall: Yes. Yes. Gerald Elias: What response would that produce from the detainee? Gareth Aspinall: They'd scream in pain. Monday night, he testified, he heard screaming and assumed Payne was doing his usual abuse. Suddenly a stretcher was called for an he saw Baha carried out on it. Payne quickly came outside and instructed, "If anyone asks, he banged his head." The second witness, Garry Reader, also spoke of 'instructions' given. Payne and Rogers told him that "s**t rolls downhill" and that if the truth got it, those under Payne and Rogers would be held responsible. Gerald Elias: Now, the events of Monday evening, and what we know to be the incident that involved the detainee Baha Mousa, what was the first thing that you knew of something happening in relation to Baha Mousa? Garry Reader: I entered the TDF via the right room door and seen Mr Baha Mousa standing there with his plasticuffs -- with his sandbag removed. I immediately shouted out, Private Cooper reacted -- Gerald Elias: Private Cooper was already in the room, was he? Garry Reader: I think he was, yes. Gerald Elias: Mm-hmm. Garry Reader: I can't be 100 per cent certain, but immediately following was Corporal Payne. He come from the left doorway. They both grabbed hold of Mr Baha. There was a struggle and they were trying to get him into the central room where I seen both Private Cooper and Private -- Corporal Payne use physical force to get Mr Baha Mousa into the room. Outside of vision, I heard screaming, Baha Mousa, shouting of Corporal Payne and Private Cooper to words of, "Get on the f**king floor, get down, get down". At this point I went outside. I think I spoke to Private Graham -- Gerald Elias: Pausing there for a moment. Before you go outside, one or two aspects of what you described. After you saw Baha Mousa, you say, without plasticuffs and with a hood off his head, you -- Garry Reader: I don't think -- I can't remember if his plasticuffs were on or not, but I know his sandbag was removed from his head. Gerald Elias: I understand, all right. You shouted, Cooper goes to -- to him, is that right, first? Garry Reader: Yes. Gerald Elias: Where did Mr Payne come from? Garry Reader: Come from the left door. Gerald Elias: Along the passageway? Garry Reader: Yes. Gerald Elias: The two of them, you said, I think, forceflly then put Baha Mousa into the middle room? Garry Reader: That's correct. Gerald Elias: What do you mean by "forcefully"? Garry Reader: Dragging him, kicking him and punchin ghim. Gerald Elias: Which was doing what? Garry Reader: Both were kicking, punching and dragging. Gerald Elias: Were you able to see where the kicks or the punches from both landed? Garry Reader: Various regions of his body, his legs, arms, generally all round his body, really. They weren't specific areas that they were aiming for. Gerald Elias: He was taken out of your sight, as I understand it, into the middle room? Garry Reader: That's correct. Gerald Elias: Had you seen him in the middle room earlier in the day? Garry Reader: Not that I can recall, no. Gerald Elias: Once he had gone out of your sight, you heard the shouting that you talked about? Garry Reader: Yes. Gerald Elias: Then I gather you went outside. Garry Reader: Yes. Gerald Elias: Why did you go outside at that point. Garry Reader: Didn't want to be there. Gerald Elias: Because? Garry Reader: It was wrong. Gerald Elias: What did you think was wrong? Garry Reader: The way they was treated. Gerald Elias: I'm sorry? The way . . .? Garry Reader: He was treated. Approximately ten minutes later, he went back inside the building. Gerald Elias: What happened when you went back in? Garry Reader: (inaudible) talked to Baha Mousa. I shouted at him, got no response. Gerald Elias: So you went into the middle room, did you? Garry Reader: Yes. Gerald Elias: Where was Baha Mousa when you went into the middle room, in what position? Garry Reader: Slumped up against the wall with his head down. Sandbag was on his head and his plasticuffs behind his -- his hands were plasticuffed behind his back. Gerald Elias: Forgive me, it is a little difficult to hear you. Did you say you shouted at him or to him? Garry Reader: To him. Gerald Elias: Why did you go in and shout to him? Garry Reader: To make sure he was all right. Gerald Elias: Why did you think he might not be all right? Garry Reader: He had just had a good kicking. Gerald Elias: You say you got no response? Garry Reader: No. Gerald Elias: So what did you do then. Garry Reader: I noticed he wasn't moving. Took his sandbag off his head and his eyes were rolled back into the back of his head. Immediately lay him down, shouted someone to get me a knife because I couldn't lie him down properly because his hands were behind his back, and started first aid, CPR. Gerald Elias: Did someone get you a knife? Garry Reader: Yes, someone got me a knife to cut his plasticuffs. Gerald Elias: And you cut them, did you? Garry Reader: Yes. Gerald Elias: Did you then put him down on the ground? Garry Reader: Yes. Gerald Elias: On his back, on his side, or what? Garry Reader: On his back. Gerald Elias: What did you do then? Garry Reader: Immediately started CPR. Gerald Elias: Were you able to resuscitate him? Garry Reader: No. Gerald Elias: I think we know that a medic or medics did come, did they? Garry Reader: Evenutally a medic come. He took over the repetitions and I took over -- I just continued with the breaths for a while until the stretcher came. Gerald Elias: Then he was taken away on a stretcher, was he? Garry Reader: Yes. Gerald Elias: But in the time that you were working with Baha Mousa, you got no sign, did you, of resuscitation or life? Garry Reader: No. Two witnesses testifying today as to how the 26-year-old Baha ended up dead while in British custody. Sunday the Iraqi Parliament finally passed an election law. In the US, the White House issued this statement from Vice President Joe Biden who's been taxed with being the adminstration's lead on Iraq: "I congratulate Iraqi political leaders on today's passage of amendments to the Iraq elections law. Today's vote by the members of the Council of Representatives will allow for parliamentary elections in January 2010, as mandated under the Iraqi constitution. I commend the Council of Representatives for coming to agreement on the various difficult issues of considerable importance to Iraqis. I also extend my appreciation to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq for its important role in providing technical advice. These elections will be a critical step forward in advancing national unity and forming an inclusive government. Our committment and friendship to Iraq remain strong." For those who don't grasp why Joe Biden got placed in charge, look at some of the remarks made by President Barack Obama and US Ambassador to Iraq Chris Hill which take the vote and turn it into "USA! USA! USA!" (Example, Los Angeles Times' Liz Sly quotes Hill declaring of the 'significance' of the law passed, "We can achieve the January time frame and the responsible draw-down as expected.") Kori Schake (Foreign Policy) takes issues with some of Obama and Hill's public statements and observes, "This denigrates the importance of Iraq's achievement for Iraqis." Schake doesn't include Gen Ray Odierno in that list and that's too bad. Not because Odierno deserves to be included -- thus far he doesn't. But because it's rather telling when, for example, an ambassador (allegedly trained in diplomacy) is outshined by a military general on the issue of diplomacy. (Click here for the 'joint'-statement from Hill and Odierno that Odierno's people wrote. If Hill let Odierno write all his remarks, he might not taste shoe leather so often.) Adrian Blomfield (Telegraph of London) observes, "Yet it is doubtful that Iraq's notoriously fractious parliament would have stepped back from disaster unless it had not been bludgeoned into submission by direct pressure from the United States." Again, not the image for a diplomat. Neither is hair askew, yelling in the halls. But let's get to that. Alsumaria wonders, "Did Hill pressure Iraq MPs on election law?" Mohammed Jamjoon and Jomana Karadsheh (CNN) report MP Mahmoud Othman has accused US embassy employees of being "counterproductive" lead Hill to whine, "I wasn't trying to impose any solution. I wasn't wagging my finger and lecturing people about anything. I was trying to be helpful." "GO UPSTAIRS AND VOTE!" Helpful? Timothy Williams and Sa'ad Izzi (New York Times) report: "'Go upstairs and vote!' he [Hill] shouted at a pair of slow-moving lawmakers as they climbed a set of stairs to the chamber before the session." The National charts Hill's behaivor Sunday as he "pleaded, intimidated and herdered the MPS into casting their vote." What a little bully and, typical Chris Hill move, so late after the deadline. **Thursday, Sammy Ketz (AFP) quoted election commission head Faraj al-Haidari stating, "We can no longer organise elections on January 16 -- that would have been difficult even if we had received the law today. Whether they retain the old electoral law, amend it or adopt an entirely new one is a matter for members of parliament but we are the ones who will have to implement their decisions according to the timetable. We hope that MPs will resolve their dilemma but we are not going to sacrifice international norms and criteria -- we're obliged to respect the rules so that these elections are transparent." And you might think that would lead some of the reporters/saps to be less gullible (isn't skepticism supposed to be a hallmark of reporting?) but it didn't. The Associated Press, at least, began to have fun with their headlines and may have been the only US outlet to voice skepticism of anything passing last week. 90 days. Today, when the cry is (yet again) that the Parliament will pass something, is November 8th. The election commission says they need 90 days to prepare for the elections -- that's printing ballots, staffing polls, security planning, etc. [AFP reported that Faraj al-Haidari, head of the country's Independent High Electoral Commission, declared on Al-Sharquiay TV Tuesday, "The electoral commission held talks with the United Nations on Tuesday to discuss the timetable. We must receive the law in the next two days, otherwise we will be unable to hold the election on the scheduled date of January 16. There is material relating to the election, and international companies need time to print it. Fifteen thousand polling stations have to be made ready for the election, as do 50,000 personnel."] So what's the earliest that national elections, if the law is passed today, could take place? November has 30 days and today's the 8th. That leaves 22. December has 31 days. 31 + 22 + 53. 90 - 53? 37. Sadly, January only has 31 days. Which means for the elections to be considered legitimate (the UN and the elections committee have both voiced that rushing the process would de-legitimize the results), the earliest elections could be held would be February 6th.** All of the above between the "**" is from what we wrote for Third yesterday before the vote. "We" would be Dallas, "The Third Estate Sunday Review's Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, and Ava, Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Betty of Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man, C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review, Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills), Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz), Trina of Trina's Kitchen, Ruth of Ruth's Report, Wally of The Daily Jot, Isaiah of The World Today Just Nuts, Marcia of SICKOFITRDLZ, Stan of Oh Boy It Never Ends and Ann of Ann's Mega Dub." The thing comes too late for elections to be held in January and seen as legitimate. They can be held and rushed but they won't be seen as legitimate. It's a fact that the American media repeatedly and intentionally overlooked yesterday and today because when the White House wants to sell a talking point, like good little Dan Rathers, the press says, "You just tell me where, sir." So damn pathetic. While they played dumb (all their life), Juan Cole (Indybay IMC) points out that, "Nevertheless, al-Zaman reports that the Iraqi High Commission says that this law was enacted too late to hold the election on time. He is requesting a 3-month delay, to April 16. This delay would affect Americans, since the US military is being kept in Iraq at this point primarily so that it can lock down the country for 3 days to allow voters to go to the polls without being blown up." This morning, AP's reported the electoral commission is stating the election will be held January 21st. Sunday Jake Tapper (ABC News) and Carol E. Lee (Politico -- text and audio) reported on the vote. Today Mu Xuequan (Xinhua) reports the law requires voters be presented with an open list (listing names of candidates as opposed to a 'closed' list which would have only listed political party), that Iraq's "18 provinces will be considered a single electorate" and that the 2009 voter registration roll would be used in Kirkuk . . . but for a full year, the vote can be thrown into question as a result of a committee being placed over complaints-- which appears to be true of all 18 provinces: "If the committee finds irregularities of five percent in any province, then the voting will be abolished and will be held again later." Of the law, Ranj Alaaldin (Guardian) observes: President Obama may hail the new law and the elections as an important "milestone" but it is important to maintain perspective, and history should teach him to use the word warily. The Iraqi parliament still remains incapable of solving the main issues despite the countless milestones we have had in the past, and even in this instance it took pressure from external forces including the Americans, British and Turks before the election law was passed. America's scheduled withdrawal is therefore by no means a certainty. Furthermore, it is difficult to dismiss the problems the "special review" mechanism might bring about in a place as sensitive and hotly disputed as Kirkuk, which could have its future status influenced to some degree by the outcome of the elections. The Kirkuk issue continues to be recklessly kicked down the road only for it to later explode into a violent and irreparable conflict. The last point is picked up by Ryan Lucas (AP) who quotes Gulf Research Center's Mustafa Alani stating, "Because there was pressure to pass the law and have the election, they are just pushing this issue under the carpet. I don't see a clear solution to this problem." Staying with the topic of elections, the most recent installment of Inside Iraq (Al Jazeera) began broadcasting Friday. Joining host Jasim Azzawi for this week's episode were Ghassan Atiyyah (Iraqi Foundation for Development and Democracy) and Fareed Sabri (Iraqi Islamic Party) and the topics included the new Iraqi National Movement -- a political bloc led by Ayad Allawi and Saleh al-Mutlaq. Jasim Azzawi: Fareed Sabri, this new alliance was supposed to include several other blocs and several other parties instead it's limited to just two politicians. Was it the differences in politics as well as in orientation that prevented the others from joining this new movement. Fareed Sabri: Well I think there is a kind of differences between the two main blocs headed by Ayad Allawi and Saleh al-Mutlaq. They wanted really to get the-the main share of the new Iraq -- of the new Iraqi politics after the elections. They wanted really to exclude Tariq al-Hashimi [Iraq's Sunni vice president], to exclude Raffie al-Issawi [also Sunni and currently the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq] from the new bloc. And I think I've heard from some sources, they're saying that neighboring Iraqi countries have stressed on Saleh al-Mutlaq not to include other forces within this new alliances. I think the -- I mean, talking about the alliance between Saleh al-Mutlaq and Ayad Allawi, it really represents the-the old Ba'athist regime in New Iraq. Jasim Azzawi: Is it the old Ba'athist regime, Ghassan Atiyyah, or are they trying to appeal to Iraqi nationalism and in particular to the seculars and to the liberals? Ghassan Atiyyah: The fact that they call themselves "National," or whatever it is, actually now the mantle of sectarianism or religion is being taken off and they are wearing, in general, anew the mantle of nationalism. Even the Shia Islamic Council now they call them "National," even al-Maliki is "National," everyone is calling "National." But this is a response to the discontent of the Iraqi people who are really disgusted with the sectarian movement because they didn't get any much of this. Now to your question, al-Mutlaq and Allawi, actually, they are the odd couples -- the odd couples. They are different in every aspect. Don't tell me they are in this. Each one of them things in their own way. And now I will tell you the position. There was a hectic movement among secular, liberal Iraqis -- I was part of this effort -- to bring all these forces together mainly because Iraqis seen the way it is, highly paralyzed between Shia sectarianism, Sunni sectarianism and the Kurds. What is needed is a fourth force, a force which could play a role of balancing act between this. Without this force, we will be actually repeating the 2005 scene -- namely, Sunni, Shia Kurd. Jasim Azzawi: Yes. Ghassan Atiyyah: But there was an attempt to create this but actually Allawi and Mutlaq pre-empted this effort by declaring this position and refusing to cooperate with others -- Jasim Azzawi: Yes Ghassan Atiyyah: -- on an equal basis. And this is the sad sad of the story. Jasim Azzawi: They kept the door open, Sabri, for others to join them. You mentioned the Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, the former deputy prime minister Raffie al-Issawi and they're also thinking perhaps Adnan al-Dulaimi, the Accord Front, might join them [. . .] That might not happen simply because some of the coalitions, they have one person running on that ticket -- for instance, the Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for the State of Law. As for the Iraqi National Coalition headed by Ammar al-Hakim Adil Abdul-Mahdi [Shi'ite vice president of Iraq]. With this new alliance, the one we are talking about, Ayad Allawi as well as Saleh al-Mutlaq, they don't have a single fore runner for them, not at this moment at least. Is that the difference between the two men? Both of them, they want to be leaders? Fareed Sabri: Exactly. That's what happened. See we talked with Ayad Allawi and we tried to join forces with him and with Saleh al-Mutlaq. But I think the main statement -- the main objection of Allawi is he wants to take all credit and he wants to be a prime minister. I mean the jostling of position -- I mean between Ayad Allawi and Saleh al-Mutlaq is who wants -- who will be the next prime minister. This is a problem. I think when you talk about being patriot, being patriot is not just a slogan you carry. It's what you did. Like for example, Ayad Allawi and Saleh al-Mutlaq, the past three years, they never attended Parliament. You never saw them in Parliament. You never saw them defending the Iraqi people. We've just seen them on the TV stations and see them on the press conferences. I quite agree with Dr. Atiyyah when he said that there is a move towards national unity or national parties based on secular and national sentiments. But the problem is it's only skin deep and it's only happening within the Sunni community. I mean the Shia and the Kurds are still sectarian and theu will -- the constituents will -- select their represenatives on sectarian bases while the Sunnis will be divided and I think this will backfire on the Sunni community after the elections because they will elect lists where there's Sunni and Shia -- like Ayad Allawi and Saleh al-Mutlaq -- while the Shia and the Kurds will elect only Shia and Kurdish representatives in the next Parliament Jasim Azzawi: Yes, Ghassan Atiyyah, for thirty-five years, Iraq was headed by a strong man called Saddam Hussein. Everybody knew him and everybody said, 'You know this guy loves the limelight. He's a prima donna.' Looking at the Iraqi politicians, there isn't much difference between them and Saddam Hussein, is there? Ghassan Atiyyah: Well at the time, there was only one Saddam Hussein but now we have tens of Saddam Husseins though in minature Saddam Hussein. Unfortunately, most of these parties -- with an exception or two parties -- they are a one man show. Jasim Azzawi: You mean they don't have a grassroots support? No, no. They might have some support here and there but for all the party is one person. And with the exception of maybe the Communist Party and the Islamic Party -- they have conferences, they have this -- and even the Dahwa Party has it -- but once the leadership differs, you see the loser will split rather than accept. Ibrahim al-Jaafari left the party and created his ownwing against al-Maliki. Similarly with Islamic Party, when al-Hashimi failed to win the leadership instead of abiding by the rules of the democratic rule, he split the party, tried to have his own faction. We don't have yet the tradition of the democratic parties and democracy without democrat is nonsense -- it doesn't appear. And today what we had happen really, I'm talking from direct contact with these people, we find that those politicians are really thinking in terms 'Who will be having the upper hand?' They don't accept work as team work. They don't accept collective leadership. This was put on the table with the secular and liberal forces. I tell you a story, I will take a minute. I talked with one of the entities who claimed to be a liberal-secular. I said to him, "Why don't you join forces with others? Then we create a big bloc because without a big bloc of liberals in the Parliament there is no -- there will be no effective change in Iraqi future because you need this bloc." He said, "I have my own party. I am the charasmatic leader, I am the strong one and they are welcome to join me and accept me as their leader. And if this is not enough, I have thiry-millions-dollars to spend. Can they match me." The plan is to note another excerpt in a snapshot later this week. Last week, The Economist offered their look at some of the political parties in Iraq: The most obviously sectarian leftover is the biggest Kurdish block. One of its two main components, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Iraq's national president, Jalal Talabani, has split and may even disappear. Even if the Kurds' enviable discipline in parliament holds up, their role as kingmakers may be over. After a rule change, the chamber can now approve the next president with half the votes rather than two-thirds as before, thus weakening the Kurds' bargaining power. The biggest Sunni block in the outgoing parliament, the Iraqi Accord Front, better known by its Arabic name, Tawafuq, is doing even worse. At provincial elections earlier this year its voters fled in droves. By comparison, the last remaining Shia block, the Iraqi National Alliance, is likely to do quite well at the polls for the simple reason that more than 60% of the voters are Shias. Yet, it has no obvious candidate for prime minister and its members have an array of ideologies. Being a Shia is their only glue. When two of the alliance's parties, the Sadrists (followers of a cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr) and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, recently held their own informal primaries, a first for Iraq, the event was widely seen as a sign of weakness, with bigwigs trying to rally unenthusiastic troops. On the other hand, the leaders of three non-sectarian alliances are making more of a buzz on the street. The prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, a Shia, hopes to build on the success of his State-of-Law block that did well in the provincial elections. He has fewer Sunni partners than he had hoped. But the incumbent's powers of patronage should give him a good start. His main rivals are two brand-new alliances. One is led by Iyad Allawi, a keenly secular Shia and former Baathist who was a prime minister after the fall of Saddam Hussein. He has teamed up with Saleh al-Mutlaq, a stalwart Sunni member of parliament, to form the Iraqi National Movement. Tariq al-Hashemi, a Sunni who is the country's joint vice-president, may join them, though he was previously a leading figure in the Accord Front. The National Movement's main rival is a group called Unity led by Jawad al-Bolani, the interior minister, a secular Shia, along with Ahmed abu Risha, who leads a Sunni movement called the Awakening that helped pacify the province of Anbar, to the west of Baghdad, which was a hotbed of insurgents. Both alliances have strong links with the military and security services. Unity's leaders are close to the police, whereas the National Movement is notably hostile to Iran, which many Iraqis blame for sponsoring insurgents. In other news, MidHudsonNews is reporting that that Iraq War veteran Nathanel Bodon, currently stationed in Baghdad, will be discharged for the 'crime' of being gay: "The Army found out about Bodon when a fellow soldier found his blog with a picture of him kissing a former boyfriend and tipped off the Army brass." Bodon's quoted stating, "I think it's discriminatory and my personal life as far as my sexuality has no bearing on who I am as a soldier, so it shouldn't even be an issue." iraq robert fisk jake tapper xinhua mu xuequan cnn mohammed jamjoom jomana karadsheh the los angeles times liz sly timothy williams the new york times ranj alaaldin the guardian the telegraph of london adrian bloomfield the economist midhudsonnews