TOP STORY
Sanford's trade mission to Argentina contradicted U.S. policy.
When South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford added a stop in Argentina to his trade mission to Brazil last June, the side trip should've raised eyebrows because he was undertaking a trade mission that the U.S. government was unwilling to make.
Although Sanford described the visit in a statement Thursday as "an entirely professional and appropriate business development trip," Argentina has been a financial pariah since it defaulted on its international debt after its decade-long effort to peg its currency to the U.S. dollar collapsed in late 2001. Argentina effectively told its creditors it was their fault that they'd lent to the nation and declined to pay or restructure much of its foreign debt.
Continued on flip.
Meteor Blade’s Green Diary Rescue celebrates Daily Kos eco diarists 6 days a week!
Top Story Continued
Sanford said Thursday that he'd repay South Carolina taxpayers for the $8,000 cost of his trip to Argentina.
The Commerce Department halted high-level trade missions to Argentina after Argentina reneged on its debts. A Commerce Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the matter publicly, confirmed that Sanford's visit contradicted federal policy.
Sanford’s Argentine girlfriend on video.
Mark Sanford's Argentine girlfriend, Maria Belen Chapur, worked as a television journalist. This video, in Spanish, was transmitted live from New York one month after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Chapur's report begins 35 seconds into the video.
POLITICAL NEWS
- House GOP’s Pollster Tests Attacks On Pelosi’s Credibility Over CIA Mess, Finds They’re Working.
The pollster for the House GOP leadership has conducted a poll to determine the effectiveness of one of the GOP’s leading attacks on Nancy Pelosi — that she wasn’t being truthful when she claimed the CIA lied to her about torture.
The poll, which I obtained from a source, found that it may be working. People believe that the CIA didn’t mislead Pelosi by a wide margin, 49%-27%.
- Bush administration leaks bolstered Rick Renzi’s reelection bid.
In the fall of 2006, one day after the Justice Department granted permission to a U.S. attorney to place a wiretap on a Republican congressman suspected of corruption, existence of the investigation was leaked to the press — not only compromising the sensitive criminal probe but tipping the lawmaker off to the wiretap.
Career federal law enforcement officials who worked directly on a probe of former Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) said they believe that word of the investigation was leaked by senior Bush administration political appointees in the Justice Department in an improper and perhaps illegal effort to affect the outcome of an election.
- Rahm Emanuel redefines bipartisanship.
The final legislation on healthcare reform will be bipartisan, though it may not look that way, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel said Thursday.
"The test of bipartisanship is not just how many Republican votes you have," Mr. Emanuel told reporters at a Monitor breakfast. He laid out three tests of bipartisanship:
• The bill contains bipartisan ideas.
• The president has reached out to Republicans.
• The final vote count.
- Bailed-Out Bank Execs Will Get to Keep Golden Parachutes.
Our story came just after the Treasury issued new rules [3] on executive pay for banks that received TARP funds. Those rules prohibit paying an exec just for leaving. At the time, we reported that it was unclear if executive payments made prior to the new guidelines would be affected. Now, after hearing from the Treasury Department, we can report that they will not. The previously promised golden parachutes will be grandfathered in, meaning the banks can pay them out in full.
- GOP Leaders Parting Ways On Key Issues With GOP Rank And File?
Okay, so it may be too early to call this a trend. But it’s increasingly obvious that the GOP Congressional leadership is at risk of being at odds with even Republican rank and file voters on key issues.
Case in point: Cap-and-trade. New poll numbers from The Washington Post show that there’s strong support across the board for a cap-and-trade approach to curbing greenhouse gas emissions. While this approach is currently opposed by Republican leaders, a surprising 60% of liberal and moderate Republicans favor it.
Health care? Check. This week’s New York Times poll found that even 50% of Republicans back a public insurance option as part of health care reform, a position strongly opposed by GOP leaders.
- NPR seeks help identifying lobbyists.
When 22 senators started working over the first health care overhaul bill on June 17, the news cameras were pointed at them -- except for NPR's photographer, who turned his lens on the lobbyists. Whatever bill emerges from Congress will affect one-sixth of the economy, and stakeholders have mobilized. We've begun to identify some of the faces in the hearing room, and we want to keep the process going. Know someone in these photos? Let us know who that someone is -- e-mail dollarpolitics@npr.org or let us know via Twitter @DollarPolitics.
- Fox News Apologizes for Identifying Sanford as Democrat.
Trace Gallagher, of Fox News' "Live Desk", offered this on-air apology on Thursday afternoon:
"We just want to make a correction to something we put up on the screen during our coverage of the governor's press conference yesterday. We briefly identified Governor Sanford as a Democrat. He is, of course, a Republican and we apologize for getting it wrong."
When does an embattled Republican suddenly become an embattled Democrat? When Fox News is covering him, of course.
But it's also worth adding that this is not the first time the network has misidentified a GOPer in the midst of acknowledging misconduct. When former congressman Mark Foley admitted to having problems with alcoholism -- after reports that he had behaved inappropriately with congressional pages -- Fox News also identified him as a Democrat.
WAR NEWS
- Former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein bluffed about WMDs fearing Iranian arsenal, secret FBI files show.
Saddam Hussein feared Iran's arsenal more than a U.S. attack, and even considered asking ex-President George W. Bush "to protect" Iraq from its neighbor, once secret FBI files show.
The FBI interrogations of the toppled tyrant - codename "Desert Spider" - were declassified after a Freedom of Information Act request.
The records show Saddam happily boasted of duping the world about stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. And he consistently denied cooperating with Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda.
- Airstrike report edited to save "U.S. command in Afghanistan the embarrassment of having to admit that earlier claims blaming the massive civilian deaths on the "Taliban" were fraudulent."
By covering up the most damaging facts surrounding the incident, the rewritten public version of report succeeded in avoiding media stories on the contradiction between the report and the previous arguments made by the U.S. command.
The declassified "executive summary" of the report on the bombing issued last Friday admitted that mistakes had been made in the use of airpower in that incident. However, it omitted key details which would have revealed the self-serving character of the U.S. command’s previous claims blaming the "Taliban" – the term used for all insurgents fighting U.S. forces - for the civilian deaths from the airstrikes.
- Baghdad market bomb kills scores. (video at link)
Nearly 70 people have been killed by a bomb blast in the eastern Sadr City area of Baghdad, Iraqi officials say.
Police said the device went off in a market place in the predominantly Shia area of the Iraqi capital.
More than 130 people were also reported to have been injured in the blast, one of the worst in Iraq this year.
It comes less than a week before US soldiers pull out of all Iraqi cities, a move the US said would not be affected by a recent surge in violence.
WORLD NEWS
- US cancels Netanyahu meet over settlements: report.
Washington called off a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the US Middle East envoy because of Israel's refusal to halt settlement growth, an Israeli newspaper said.
The mass-selling Yediot Aharonot, quoting an unnamed Israeli official, said that Washington issued a "stern" message to Netanyahu to halt all settlement activity on occupied Palestinian land, including so-called "natural growth" within existing settlements.
"Once you've finished the homework we gave you on stopping construction in the settlements, let us know. Until then, there's no point in having (US Middle East envoy George) Mitchell fly to Paris to meet you," the official said.
- US general: Prepare for terrorist tactics from North Korea.
American forces may have to focus the counterinsurgency skills they have gained in Iraq and Afghanistan on the threat posed by North Korea.
The American general leading US forces in South Korea told the South Korean military this week that "our enemies" are beefing up their guerilla warfare capabilities and would likely use improvised explosive devices and similar tactics if a ground war broke out.
Gen. Walter "Skip" Sharp said that means the South Korean military should prepare by conducting as much realistic training as possible – likely with the aid of the US.
...Few experts envision an all-out ground war on the Korean peninsula. Yet they believe that countries taking on the US or its allies, if they are at a clear military disadvantage, are likely to begin to adapt the kinds of insurgent tactics effective in Afghanistan and Iraq.
- Iran doctor blames militia for killing Neda.
AN Iranian doctor who claims he tried to save Neda Agha-Soltan, whose death during election protests made her an opposition icon, said today she was apparently shot by a member of the Islamic Basij militia.
Arash Hejazi, who is studying at a university in the south of England, told the BBC that the crowd identified the man they believed was the shooter shortly after the young woman died from a gunshot wound to the chest.
...The protesters thought the gunshot had come from a rooftop nearby, but later saw a member of the Basij militia on a motorcycle. They stopped him and disarmed him, the doctor said.
"He was shouting, 'I didn't want to kill her'. I heard him," Hejazi said.
But the protesters did not know what to do with the man so let him go, but not before taking his identity cards and taking his photo.
- Neda Soltan's family 'forced out of home' by Iranian authorities: "Parents of young woman shot dead near protests are banned from mourning and funeral is cancelled, neighbours say."
The Iranian authorities have ordered the family of Neda Agha Soltan out of their Tehran home after shocking images of her death were circulated around the world.
Neighbours said that her family no longer lives in the four-floor apartment building on Meshkini Street, in eastern Tehran, having been forced to move since she was killed. The police did not hand the body back to her family, her funeral was cancelled, she was buried without letting her family know and the government banned mourning ceremonies at mosques, the neighbours said.
- Iranians mourn slain woman as power struggle continues.
Defying an official ban, hundreds of people held a graveside tribute Thursday for the woman who's become a symbol of the Iranian opposition after she was killed while protesting the country's disputed election.
Witnesses said the crowd gathered around 5 p.m. Thursday at the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery, an hour's drive south of Tehran, for a memorial service for Neda Agha-Soltan, the 26-year-old woman who allegedly was shot dead by a member of the pro-government Basij militia during a massive protest in the capital on June 20.
- Family of British-Greek journalist plea for Iran release.
The parents of a British-Greek journalist detained in Iran appealed for his release today insisting that their son was not a spy.
Iason Athanasiadis, also known as Jason Fowden, was arrested at Imam Khomeini Airport in Tehran at the end of last week on charges of "underground activities". He had been about to fly out of the country after covering the election and its violent aftermath for The Washington Times.
Mr Fowden is the latest victim of a state-ordered media blackout that has seen dozens of journalists taken into custody and many more expelled.
- Ahmadinejad Tells Obama Not to Interfere in Iran.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned President Obama on Thursday to "avoid interfering" in Iranian affairs, and the opposition said security forces arrested 70 academics overnight after using clubs and tear gas Wednesday to break up demonstrations over the disputed June 12 elections.
"Do you want to speak with this tone? If that is your stance then what is left to talk about?" Ahmadinejad said of Obama, who during a news conference Tuesday criticized Iran's crackdown on protesters who have alleged fraud and demanded that the elections be annulled.
Accusing Obama of acting like his predecessor, George W. Bush, Ahmadinejad said: "I hope you avoid interfering in Iran's affairs and express your regret in a way that the Iranian nation is informed of it." His remarks were translated by Reuters news service.
- Kenya poised to intervene in Somalia.
With troops massed on the Somali border and heavy artillery being moved into position, Kenya appears ready to join – if necessary – the Ethiopians in an armed intervention in Somalia.
...Islamist militias in Somalia have specifically threatened to launch terrorist attacks in Nairobi if Kenya sends in its troops, and Kenya's rather lax security apparatus is thought by many security experts to be inadequate to meet the challenge.
- Pakistan PM urges Obama aide to halt drone strikes.
Pakistan's prime minister Thursday told Washington's visiting top security adviser that the United States must halt drone attacks on its soil, after they killed dozens of people in the northwest.
...Two US drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal South Waziristan district on Tuesday reportedly killed about 50 people as suspected Taliban militants gathered for a funeral, military and administration officials have said.
- Tehran 'like a war zone' as ayatollah refuses to back down on election.
The opposition website Rooz Online carried what it said was an interview with a man the government had shipped in to Tehran to quell the demonstrations. He said he was being paid 2m rial (£122) to assault protesters with a heavy wooden stave, and that other volunteers, most of them from far-flung provinces, were being kept in hostel accommodation, reportedly in east Tehran.
With the independent media banned from covering street protests, the reports could not be verified.
- Worldwide production of heroin and cocaine falling, says UN drug chief.
Drug use should be treated more as an illness than a crime, the head of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime said today as the body's annual report announced a worldwide decline in the production of cocaine and heroin.
ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS
TORTURE AND PROSECUTION NEWS
- Obama Signs Potentially Unconstitutional Bill Prohibiting Release of Gitmo Prisoners in U.S..
As expected, yesterday President Obama signed a supplemental appropriations bill that prohibits the release of Guantanamo detainees into the United States, and restricts the president’s ability to release them to other countries without Congressional approval.
The little-noticed provision raises constitutional questions about who has the power to control the release of detainees — the president, Congress or the courts?
Lawyers representing Guantanamo detainees are already calling the law an unconstitutional suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, as SCOTUSblog notes today.
- Ex-detainees allege Bagram abuse. (video at link)
Many allegations of ill-treatment appear repeatedly in the interviews: physical abuse, the use of stress positions, excessive heat or cold, unbearably loud noise, being forced to remove clothes in front of female soldiers.
In four cases detainees were threatened with death at gunpoint.
- Five Decades of US Behavioral Scientists Implicated in Torture.
A couple of recent articles have highlighted the unseemly fact that some past presidents of the American Psychological Association (APA), the foremost professional organization for psychologists in the United States, if not the world, had links to the use of torture, or at least to military research into coercive interrogations.
An article by Jane Mayer in the recent New Yorker on CIA Director Leon Panetta noted in passing the participation of a former APA president Joseph Matarazzo on the governing staff of the Mitchell, Jessen & Associates (MJA) torture firm. First identified as one of the "governing people" of MJA by Bill Morlin in a Spokesman Review article in August 2007, Matarazzo is now known to have also been CIA, as noted in an article by Physicians for Human Rights Campaign Against Torture director, Nathaniel Raymond
- U.S. Policies Criticized by U.N. Rights Watchdog.
The United Nations' top human rights advocate, Navanethem Pillay, on Wednesday appealed to the Obama administration to release Guantanamo Bay inmates or try them in a court of law, and said officials who authorized the use of "torture" must be held accountable.
In her most detailed statement on U.S. detention policy, the South African lawyer criticized President Obama's plan to hold some terrorism suspects in detention indefinitely without a trial. She also called for a probe of officials involved in the Bush administration's harsh interrogation program.
"People who order or inflict torture cannot be exonerated, and the roles of certain lawyers, as well as doctors who have attended torture sessions, should also be scrutinized," Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement dedicated to victims of torture.
NATIONAL NEWS
- Another recession casualty: Recent college graduates.
[D]uring the first four months of 2009, less than half of the nation's 4 million college graduates age 25 and under were working in jobs that required a college degree. That's down from 54 percent for same period last year.Research has shown that college graduates who take jobs below their education level not only earn less, but also can take years to match the earnings of graduates who land career-track employment upon graduation.
These so called "mal-employed" workers also compound the unemployment problem by taking jobs that non-college graduates and even high school students are often qualified to hold.
The problem of "mal-employment" — working outside one's field of education, training and choice — has increased sharply for young college grads since the recession began and all signs suggest the trend will continue for the foreseeable future.
- New jobless claims rise unexpectedly to 627,000.
The number of people filing new jobless claims jumped unexpectedly last week, and the total unemployment benefit rolls rose to more than 6.7 million.
The Labor Department data released today show jobs remain scarce even as the economy shows some signs of recovering from the longest recession since World War II.
...Several states reported more claims than expected from teachers, cafeteria workers and other school employees, a department analyst said.
- Proposed cuts would allow a Madoff to avoid prison in California, Cooley says.
Los Angeles County’s top prosecutor has warned that a budget proposal by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger would so weaken court sentencing guidelines that if a swindler such as Bernard Madoff were to be brought to justice in California he would not face state prison time.
In a letter obtained by The Times, District Attorney Steve Cooley has asked Schwarzenegger to abandon his proposal to change state sentencing guidelines so certain felonies such as fraud or grand theft, known in justice circles as "wobblers," would be prosecuted as misdemeanors.
- New York to Pay Women to Give Eggs for Stem Cell Research.
New York has become the first state to allow taxpayer-funded researchers to pay women for giving their eggs for embryonic stem cell research, a move welcomed by many scientists but condemned by critics who fear it will lead to the exploitation of vulnerable women.
The Empire State Stem Cell Board, which decides how to spend $600 million in state funding for stem cell studies, will allow researchers to compensate women up to $10,000 for the time, discomfort and expenses associated with donating eggs for experiments.
- US students hope to bring Twitterature to the masses.
Fans of the classics will either be delighted or appalled to learn that the New York-branch of Penguin books has commissioned a new volume that will put great works through the Twitter mangle. The volume has a working title that will make the nerve ends of purists jangle: Twitterature.
In it, the authors will squish the jewels of world literature - they mention Dante, Shakespeare, Stendhal, Joyce and JK Rowling - into 20 tweets or less - that is 20 sentences each with fewer than 140 characters.