House vote against torture delayed - must be Dems' fault
The New York Times' Eric Schmitt reported Friday:

The House Republican leadership has delayed a vote on a proposed ban against cruel and degrading treatment of prisoners in American custody, and Democrats say the move is an effort to spare Vice President Dick Cheney an embarrassing defeat."

The measure would have sent clear instructions to the House conference committee to accept the Senate's McCain amendment language banning cruel, inhuman, or degrading (CID) treatment of prisoners by Americans abroad -- a loophole the Bush administration and its allies are fighting bitterly to preserve:

The White House has threatened to veto any bill containing the provision, saying it would restrict the president's ability to fight terrorism and protect the country.

The White House, in negotiations led by Mr. Cheney, is insisting that the Central Intelligence Agency be exempted from the proposed ban.

Schmitt reports that House Speaker Dennis Hastert has temporarily foiled Democrats by not formally appointing house conferees to the Defense appropriations negotiations, and adds that 15 House Republicans wrote Representative C. W. Bill Young, the head of the Appropriations committee, in support of the McCain provision. The GOP honor roll includes Representatives Michael N. Castle of Delaware; Christopher Shays, Nancy L. Johnson and Rob Simmons of Connecticut; James T. Walsh, Sherwood Boehlert and John R. Kuhl Jr. of New York; Joe Schwartz and Vernon J. Ehlers of Michigan; Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania; Wayne T. Gilchrest of Maryland; Tom Petri of Wisconsin; Ron Paul of Texas; Jim Leach of Iowa; and Jeb Bradley of New Hampshire; they deserve the thanks of all of us, Democrats, Republicans and otherwise.

It's hardly the most important thing here, but Hastert's stalling tactics are merely the latest item to make the conclusion of the Washington Post's "Rebellion against Abuse" lead editorial on Thursday seem particularly obtuse. The Post is to be commended for its consistent editorial stance against torture and its close cousin CID, and even more for Dana Priest's and others' reporting on the issue. But the Post's ongoing need to balance the great scales of objectivity at all costs led it into the following statement on Thursday:

Yet the advocates of decency and common sense seem to have meager support from the Democratic Party. Senate Democrats staged a legislative stunt on Tuesday intended to reopen -- once again -- the debate on prewar intelligence about Iraq. They have taken no such dramatic stand against the CIA's abuses of foreign prisoners; on a conference committee considering Mr. McCain's amendment, Democratic support has been faltering. While Democrats grandstand about a war debate that took place three years ago, the Bush administration's champions of torture are quietly working to preserve policies whose reversal ought to be an urgent priority.

Let's see: a Republican administration plays fast and loose with U.S. law, international treaty obligations, and basic morality; every one of the nine votes against the McCain measure came from a Republican -- and a high-scoring "Christian" Coalition Republican at that; Bush's Republican allies in the Senate threatened to gut the McCain measure in conference; likely House GOP conferees on the matter are on record against the measure; as noted above, Bush threatens to veto the measure if passed; both the 2000 and 2004 Democratic presidential candidates have repeatedly and vociferously condemned torture as an instrument of U.S. policy; the ranking Senate Armed Services committee member, Carl Levin, is pushing for an independent commission to investigate all allegations of torture and inhuman treatment, and the policies that allowed or encouraged that; this, too, is threatened with a veto.

And out of all this, the Post concocts a denunciation of Democrats on the issue of torture. And that's leaving aside the matter of their position on Reid's so-called "stunt," which seemed to me like a perfectly valid way of drawing attention to (ahem) GOP foot-dragging on investigating the politicization of WMD intelligence before the war. There's no three year statute of limitations on figuring out how the country was conned into thinking WMD were a clear and present danger when they weren't -- and when that appears to have been fairly clear to many people inside the Bush administration at the time.

"So-called liberal media" indeed -- with "friends" like this, who needs enemies. Of course, one or the other Senate Democrats in the conference committee may need a spinal implant to continue supporting the McCain amendment. And of course, it's not at all the job of the Post to be a friend to the Democratic Party. But neither is it to construct a flimsy and frankly idiotic partisan attack like Thursday's editorial. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:29:00 AM -- |  

 
Department of followups, Wal-Mart edition
Keeping up with the Walton empire is at least a part time job these days. Below are links to a few Wal-Mart posts of mine, followed by miniposts about recent relevant news items.

Time shaving: a shameful pattern of corporate theft, April 4, 2004 --- Excerpt from an interview released in mid-October with Weldon Nicholson, a 17-year Wal-Mart veteran and General Manager for a Sam's Club outlet, in "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price":

I've seen managers go in when someone worked 41, 42 hours, and change it to 40 hours. I never directly authorized anybody to do that, but I turned my back whenever I saw someone do that.. and that's just as bad.

If i was a devil's advocate, I'd say, nobody made you do those things, no one told you to do those things. Well if that's true then why have I worked with all these people all these years and they all think like me, and feel like me, and feel the same pressures, and are doing the same things?

People are transferring from other states and I'd catch them shaving payroll. Now, you think that was an isolated incident...it might be, if it was one of your managers doing it. But if you have eight and they are all talking about doing it, all coming from different district managers, different states, different stores. How would they all know about it, and know how to do it?

I'm not the only one who did it. I've seen every manager except for one general manager do it.

You can watch the interview, or simply buy the movie.


If you can't guard the henhouse, join the foxes, February 18, 2005 --- Steve Greenhouse of the New York Times reports ("Labor Dept. Is Rebuked Over Pact With Wal-Mart", 11/2/05):

The Labor Department's inspector general strongly criticized department officials yesterday for 'serious breakdowns' in procedures involving an agreement promising Wal-Mart Stores 15 days' notice before labor investigators would inspect its stores for child labor violations.

The report by the inspector general faulted department officials for making 'significant concessions' to Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retailer, without obtaining anything in return. The report also criticized department officials for letting Wal-Mart lawyers write substantial parts of the settlement and for leaving the department's own legal division out of the settlement process.

I first read about this news via Gary Farber, who points out (with regret) that for all the talk of rebuke, the inspector found nothing illegal about the agreement. Wal-Mart made the same point (with satisfaction).

The 2/18 "newsrack" post noted a dispute between Congressman Miller and the Department of Labor's (DOL) Victoria Lipnic about whether the agreement was limited to child labor inspections. While the DOL's Employment Standards Administration (ESA) continues to dispute the finding, the Inspector General's office (OIG) considered their view and rejected it: "We continue to maintain that the plain language of the advance notification clause applies to any potential violation, not just child labor violations." So ESA got rolled, and no wonder: "Lack of a formal process for developing agreements with employers resulted in Wal-Mart attorneys authoring key provisions of the Wal-Mart agreement."

The OIG is not rescinding the agreement, but believes it has instituted oversight mechanisms that will prevent such poor agreements in the future. Let's hope that includes firing the people at ESA who were responsible for this one.


Wal-Mart union-busts Canadian outlet, February 14, 2005 --- New York Times, 9/20/05: Quebec panel rejects Wal-Mart store closing:

The labor relations board in Quebec has rejected Wal-Mart Canada's assertion that it closed a unionized store in that province for economic reasons, saying there was evidence the store might reopen.

In a decision released late last week, the board said had not found the closing of the store in Jonquière, Quebec, in April to be "real, genuine and definitive" under the province's law. The decision means the company could be fined and compensation ordered for about 190 former employees.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 8:55:00 AM -- |  

 
"Democrats" for Wal-Mart

The phone rings, and a 20-something woman answers. 'Turn on Fox,' she yells, running up to the TV with a notepad. 'This could be important.'

A scene from a campaign war room? Well, sort of. It is a war room inside the headquarters of Wal-Mart, the giant discount retailer that hopes to sell a new, improved image to reluctant consumers. [...]

To keep up with its critics, Wal-Mart "has to run a campaign," said Robert McAdam, a former political strategist at the Tobacco Institute who now oversees Wal-Mart's corporate communications. "It's simply nonsense for us to let some of these attacks go without a response."

So far, so unremarkable. "Billion dollar corporation leaves little to chance" would be a less interesting headline than A New Weapon for Wal-Mart: A War Room, by Michael Barbaro in the New York Times. What's interesting is who -- besides former Reagan chief of staff Michael Deaver -- staff the war room, which tries to summon up some campaign style buzz with its "Action Alley" moniker.

Because also in there shilling for the Waltons are Lesley Dach, "one of Bill Clinton's media consultants" and "outside adviser to President Clinton during the impeachment battle," and Jonathan Adashek, "director of national delegate strategy for John Kerry."

All are working for Edelman ("Pioneer Thinking"), a public relations firm that boasts

We were the first firm to apply public relations to building consumer brands. We invented the media tour; created litigation and environmental PR; were the first to use a toll-free consumer hotline, and the first to employ the Web in crisis management.

That's just the beginning. Today we're on a mission: to make public relations the lead discipline in the communications mix, because only public relations has the immediacy and transparency to build credibility and trust.

For a sense where "Action Alley" may be headed next, read on in Edelman's "Welcome" page:

...We enlist today's most credible spokespersons - average people, friends and families, everyday employees, as well as recognized experts - to build brands from the bottom up. We engage micro-media - bloggers and online conversationalists - who appoint themselves leaders of a category and passionately communicate their real understanding of it.

Well, if you can string together a sentence, there's a blogger out there willing to write it, so I have no doubt Edelman will eventually find some to parrot whatever excuses it can make for the behemoth from Bentonville. It's more disappointing, and more politically actionable, that there are high level Democrats willing to join veteran liars from Big Tobacco, the Reagan administration, and the Bush 2004 campaign to do so.

I doubt it's because they had to do it to feed their families. So let's assume they're wholehearted Wal-Mart fans, and make "Wal-Mart" a flashing, red eyesore in the C.V.s of Mr. Dach, Mr. Adashek, and their firm. It's ironic that Dach, who was thanked for helping with a "Speak Truth to Power" event, or Adashek, who has been part of planning East Timor's independence celebration and the nomination of John Kerry, would associate themselves with a campaign to whitewash the reputation of a unionbusting, health care shirking, employee cheating firm like Wal-Mart.


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EDIT, 8/7/06: "unionbusting" and "employee cheating" links added. posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:40:00 AM -- |  

 
Two weekend quotes on Libby
A little late, but a couple of weekend quotes caught my eye. Both were in the Saturday Washington Post article "A New Moment of Truth For a White House in Crisis" (Dan Balz, Juliet Eilperin). First, Republican Tom Davis:

House Government Reform Committee Chairman Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) was stinging, saying he was "very disappointed in Libby, and the White House, and the vice president and the president."

"They should have taken care of this a long time ago," Davis said in an interview. "They should have done their own investigation. They're going to get very little sympathy on Capitol Hill, at least from me. . . . They brought this on themselves."

That "should have taken care of this... done their own investigation" looks good if you've not followed this story until now -- but disingenuous if you have. Libby spoke with Cheney about Plame days before he leaked Plame's job description; Bush called Rove on the carpet after the leak made the headlines -- but essentially about getting caught, not being part of the leak machine. You can like the Sopranos or hate them, but it's silly to ask them to investigate themselves, it's just not going to happen. And as for "taking care of this" -- well, the way they like to do that is what got them into trouble in the first place.

The other quote was from former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta:

Noting that Clinton's approval ratings remained above 60 percent throughout the impeachment battle, while Bush's are in the low 40s, Podesta said, 'When Clinton said, 'I'm going back to do my work,' people cheered,' Podesta said. 'When Bush says, 'I'm going to do the job I've been doing,' people say, 'Oh, no.'

posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:10:00 AM -- |  

 
Good for a grin
Onion Radio News imagines a Bush Katrina speech as a modest proposal to New Orleans residents:

...Join the armed forces, and fight for freedom in Iraq. ... When the War on Terror is won, and you come home from your multiple tours of duty, New Orleans may once again be inhabitable.

WW II as online game: Pearl Harbor to Operation Barbarossa:

T0J0: lol o no america im comin 4 u
Roosevelt: wtf! thats bullsh1t u fags im gunna kick ur asses
T0JO: not without ur harbors u wont! lol
Roosevelt: u little biotch ill get u
Hitler[AoE]: wtf
Hitler[AoE]: america hax, u had depression and now u got a huge fockin army
Hitler[AoE]: thats bullsh1t u hacker
Churchill: lol no more france for u hitler
Hitler[AoE]: tojo help me!
T0J0: wtf u want me to do, im on the other side of the world retard
Hitler[AoE]: fine ill clear you a path
Stalin: WTF u arsshoel! WE HAD A FoCKIN TRUCE
Hitler[AoE]: i changed my mind lol

Again, the Onion: Fire truck! Fire truck! Fire truck!

Run! Run to the window as fast as your giant legs can carry you!

Medium Lobster 1, Michael Kinsley 0:

Scandals should be accessible and easy to follow for all of us - even for someone like Mr. Kinsley, who was an editor of The New Republic and remains easily distracted by shiny things.

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NOTES: Katrina speech via Mark Kleiman, WW2 via Stryker the digitalwarfighter, fire truck via Bitch, Ph.D., medium lobster via Avedon Carol. posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:00:00 PM -- |