The Flashlight, June 22-29, 2007
THE FLASHLIGHT, June 22-29, 2007
US Politics
6-24 NY Times. Frank Rich said that the new US strategy of arming Sunni tribes in Anbar Province is a sign that it considers the Maliki government as irrelevant.
6-24. NBC Face the Nation. Proponents of immigration said that economic growth is producing 400,000 new unskilled jobs a year. But opponents of the immigration bill say that illegal immigration lowers the wages of American workers, and increases the tax burden of educating their children and other services.
6-25 CNN, 70-80% of the Republican base opposed the immigration bill. They feared that the generous provisions of the bill would lead to a mass invasion of illegal immigrants into the US.
6-28 CNN. The immigration bill was roundly defeated.
Senator Richard Lugar, a conservative Republican and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the surge policy in Iraq is a failure and that the US should redeploy its troops elsewhere in the Middle East. He said no one expected the Maliki government to meet US benchmarks. He said it would be a mistake to wait until September to change US policy because of rising public opposition to the war. Commentators said that the Republicans now fear that if the US does not evacuate Iraq, the voters will force them to evacuate the Senate.
CNN 6-26. A new Gallup poll indicates that 71% of Americans oppose continuing the Iraq War. Over 90% of Democrats oppose it.
Senator George Voinovich, R., Ohio, agreed with Senator Lugar.
Congress Challenges Cheney
The Washington Post published a four-day series on Vice President Cheney this week. Among other things they discovered that Cheney has a man-sized safe in his office. He has access to all the secrets of the executive branch. He has more power than any vice-president in American history ever had.
PBS 6-27. Henry Waxman, chair of the House committee for oversight of the executive branch, sent Cheney a subpoena to turn over information about which documents he had classified as secret. Cheney refused, saying the law does not apply to him because he is not entirely a member of the Executive Branch, being the presiding officer of the Senate. This outraged many in Congress.
Chicago Tribune 6-28. Rep. Rahm Emmanuel said that the House is considering a proposal to stop funding the Vice President’s official home [the Naval Observatory] and his White House office, while retaining funding of his office in the Capitol. That would amount to a reduction of $4.8 million in Cheney’s funding.
PBS 6-27. Waxman warned that there had been no Congressional oversight of the executive branch for twelve years, and that this was dangerous. It created a serious risk of executive mistakes and of leaked information.
PBS 6-28. The Senate Judiciary Committee, headed by Patrick Leahy D. also subpoenaed Cheney’s office in its investigation of the NSA policy of wiretapping without warrants. A federal judge has called this unconstitutional. Leahy accused Cheney of “stonewalling of the worst kind.”
Washington Post 6-29. The White House rejected the subpoenas from Congress on grounds of executive privilege.
Iraq
Az-Zaman. 6-23. Americans are building a big base in Kurdistan, which the Kurds welcome. They say they want the Americans to maintain a presence in Iraq.
NYTimes 6-26 and Az-Zaman 6-25. A suicide bomber in the Mansour Hotel in Baghdad killed 12 (Az-Zaman said 41), including four Sunni sheikhs from Anbar who were cooperating with the Americans, and two other sheikhs from Diwaniya. The sheikhs from Anbar blamed the Maliki government, which was responsible for security in the luxury hotel.
Az-Zaman 6-26. A group of Shiite militiamen are in control of Basra and pay no more homage to the politicians supposedly in charge. The Maliki government is rated as having little chance of regaining control of Basra. Iran is supplying the militias with money, arms and training. The militias control the income from oil production and from the use of the docks for foreign trade.
The Israel-Palestine Conflict
The Economist, 6-23. Lead editorial. “The Arab world has long been criss-crossed by feuds and rivalries. But if there is one point on which Arabs have agreed for more than half a century: it is the justice of the Palestinian cause…
“The Palestinians’ principal grievance is not economic. What they chiefly want is an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank as well as Gaza so that they can enjoy an independent national existence in both places. And in this respect the West Bank is a tougher problem than Gaza, because it remains speckled by Israeli settlements and throttled by checkpoints.
.
“What America must now prove is that its moderate Arab allies, far from being traitors, can actually deliver desirable results. In the case of Palestine, Mr. Abbas and his new prime minister have to show not only that they can govern cleanly but also that they can get Israel to start dismantling outposts and leaving the West Bank”
Science
Guardian 9-27. Zahi Hawass, leading Egyptian archaeologist, identified the mummy of Hatshepsut, Egypt’s great woman pharaoh who ruled 1473-1458 b.c.e. After she died her son, who became pharaoh, tried to remove all traces of her, including the identification of her sarcophagus. But the archaeologist found a tooth from the mummy in a little box with her hieroglyphic ID.
US Politics
6-24 NY Times. Frank Rich said that the new US strategy of arming Sunni tribes in Anbar Province is a sign that it considers the Maliki government as irrelevant.
6-24. NBC Face the Nation. Proponents of immigration said that economic growth is producing 400,000 new unskilled jobs a year. But opponents of the immigration bill say that illegal immigration lowers the wages of American workers, and increases the tax burden of educating their children and other services.
6-25 CNN, 70-80% of the Republican base opposed the immigration bill. They feared that the generous provisions of the bill would lead to a mass invasion of illegal immigrants into the US.
6-28 CNN. The immigration bill was roundly defeated.
Senator Richard Lugar, a conservative Republican and member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the surge policy in Iraq is a failure and that the US should redeploy its troops elsewhere in the Middle East. He said no one expected the Maliki government to meet US benchmarks. He said it would be a mistake to wait until September to change US policy because of rising public opposition to the war. Commentators said that the Republicans now fear that if the US does not evacuate Iraq, the voters will force them to evacuate the Senate.
CNN 6-26. A new Gallup poll indicates that 71% of Americans oppose continuing the Iraq War. Over 90% of Democrats oppose it.
Senator George Voinovich, R., Ohio, agreed with Senator Lugar.
Congress Challenges Cheney
The Washington Post published a four-day series on Vice President Cheney this week. Among other things they discovered that Cheney has a man-sized safe in his office. He has access to all the secrets of the executive branch. He has more power than any vice-president in American history ever had.
PBS 6-27. Henry Waxman, chair of the House committee for oversight of the executive branch, sent Cheney a subpoena to turn over information about which documents he had classified as secret. Cheney refused, saying the law does not apply to him because he is not entirely a member of the Executive Branch, being the presiding officer of the Senate. This outraged many in Congress.
Chicago Tribune 6-28. Rep. Rahm Emmanuel said that the House is considering a proposal to stop funding the Vice President’s official home [the Naval Observatory] and his White House office, while retaining funding of his office in the Capitol. That would amount to a reduction of $4.8 million in Cheney’s funding.
PBS 6-27. Waxman warned that there had been no Congressional oversight of the executive branch for twelve years, and that this was dangerous. It created a serious risk of executive mistakes and of leaked information.
PBS 6-28. The Senate Judiciary Committee, headed by Patrick Leahy D. also subpoenaed Cheney’s office in its investigation of the NSA policy of wiretapping without warrants. A federal judge has called this unconstitutional. Leahy accused Cheney of “stonewalling of the worst kind.”
Washington Post 6-29. The White House rejected the subpoenas from Congress on grounds of executive privilege.
Iraq
Az-Zaman. 6-23. Americans are building a big base in Kurdistan, which the Kurds welcome. They say they want the Americans to maintain a presence in Iraq.
NYTimes 6-26 and Az-Zaman 6-25. A suicide bomber in the Mansour Hotel in Baghdad killed 12 (Az-Zaman said 41), including four Sunni sheikhs from Anbar who were cooperating with the Americans, and two other sheikhs from Diwaniya. The sheikhs from Anbar blamed the Maliki government, which was responsible for security in the luxury hotel.
Az-Zaman 6-26. A group of Shiite militiamen are in control of Basra and pay no more homage to the politicians supposedly in charge. The Maliki government is rated as having little chance of regaining control of Basra. Iran is supplying the militias with money, arms and training. The militias control the income from oil production and from the use of the docks for foreign trade.
The Israel-Palestine Conflict
The Economist, 6-23. Lead editorial. “The Arab world has long been criss-crossed by feuds and rivalries. But if there is one point on which Arabs have agreed for more than half a century: it is the justice of the Palestinian cause…
“The Palestinians’ principal grievance is not economic. What they chiefly want is an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank as well as Gaza so that they can enjoy an independent national existence in both places. And in this respect the West Bank is a tougher problem than Gaza, because it remains speckled by Israeli settlements and throttled by checkpoints.
.
“What America must now prove is that its moderate Arab allies, far from being traitors, can actually deliver desirable results. In the case of Palestine, Mr. Abbas and his new prime minister have to show not only that they can govern cleanly but also that they can get Israel to start dismantling outposts and leaving the West Bank”
Science
Guardian 9-27. Zahi Hawass, leading Egyptian archaeologist, identified the mummy of Hatshepsut, Egypt’s great woman pharaoh who ruled 1473-1458 b.c.e. After she died her son, who became pharaoh, tried to remove all traces of her, including the identification of her sarcophagus. But the archaeologist found a tooth from the mummy in a little box with her hieroglyphic ID.
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