Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility: News Releases: "July 20, 2005
Contact: Chas Offutt (202) 265-7337
“DISINFORMATION SYNDROME” AFFLICTS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT — Officials Routinely Rewarded for Lying and Punished for Telling the Truth
Washington, DC — The federal government suffers from a “severe disinformation syndrome” in which agency specialists are pressured to alter reports by managers who are promoted for breaking the law, according to congressional testimony delivered today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As a consequence, scientific and technical papers, particularly within environmental agencies, are routinely censored, altered or manipulated for political purposes.
“The Bush administration obsession with controlling the flow of information means that factual information that does not serve its political agenda rarely sees the light of day,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch who testified today. “Public servants who wish to speak honestly about matters outside officially approved agency talking points are required to cast a profile in courage because their honesty could cost them their jobs.”
...
The PEER testimony outlines a pervasive effort to edit out vital but discordant information across the range of environmental activities:
* Science. PEER and the Union of Concerned Scientists have conducted surveys among federal scientists showing a high degree of political intervention to amend scientific findings;
* Land Management. Federal agencies are routinely issuing documents that do not withstand judicial scrutiny because the documents are at variance with the agency’s own internal data; and
* Public Health. Whistleblowers lack meaningful protections so that professionals who raise concerns are banished or terminated as a result.
A major problem cited by PEER is that Congress extends no meaningful legal protections for executive branch employees who communicate information to oversight committees or individual members. As a consequence, official reports to Congress are often inaccurate, incomplete or untimely.
“If agencies can lie with impunity to Congress, why should they be expected to tell anyone else the truth?” Ruch asked, calling for Congress to put teeth into laws forbidding interference with or retaliation for transmitting information to elected representatives. “Right now, the federal civil service is scared to death.”
Sunday, July 31, 2005
Friday, July 29, 2005
Fedrs decline to press charges of impersonating a Secret Service agent against White House volunteer who forcibly ousted three progressives
Rocky Mountain News: News: "No charges in Denver 3 ouster | By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News | July 29, 2005
Federal prosecutors have declined to press charges of impersonating a Secret Service agent against a White House volunteer who forcibly ousted three people from a speech by President George W. Bush in Denver on March 21.
The announcement was made without explanation today in a letter from the Secret Service to Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar and Reps. Mark Udall and Diana DeGette, all Democrats who had asked for the agency to investigate the incident.
...
Although the three are involved in a political group called the Denver Progressives, they did nothing to interfere with the event and were bounced before the president arrived. They admitted to wearing t-shirts under their clothing that said, "No more lies." They said they considered revealing the t-shirts, but decided not to do so. Later, though they had done nothing disruptive, the unidentified man forced them to leave.
Federal prosecutors have declined to press charges of impersonating a Secret Service agent against a White House volunteer who forcibly ousted three people from a speech by President George W. Bush in Denver on March 21.
The announcement was made without explanation today in a letter from the Secret Service to Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar and Reps. Mark Udall and Diana DeGette, all Democrats who had asked for the agency to investigate the incident.
...
Although the three are involved in a political group called the Denver Progressives, they did nothing to interfere with the event and were bounced before the president arrived. They admitted to wearing t-shirts under their clothing that said, "No more lies." They said they considered revealing the t-shirts, but decided not to do so. Later, though they had done nothing disruptive, the unidentified man forced them to leave.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Pentagon probes use of apparent fake quotes in Iraq news releases
Pentagon probes use of apparent fake quotes in Iraq news releases - Yahoo! News: "Tue Jul 26, 7:17 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Pentagon said it was investigating the use of near-identical quotations from unidentified Iraqis in official news releases that criticized insurgent bombings.
...
Journalists in Iraq first complained Sunday to US authorities in Baghdad about the questionable quotes in the releases.
"If a journalist were to make up a quote or copy a quote or misuse a quote like that, he could lose his job," a reporter told DiRita Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Pentagon said it was investigating the use of near-identical quotations from unidentified Iraqis in official news releases that criticized insurgent bombings.
...
Journalists in Iraq first complained Sunday to US authorities in Baghdad about the questionable quotes in the releases.
"If a journalist were to make up a quote or copy a quote or misuse a quote like that, he could lose his job," a reporter told DiRita Tuesday.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Estate Tax Myths: numbers [of farmers and owners of small businesses] that owed estate tax were paltry
Estate Tax Myths: "Sunday, July 24, 2005; Page B06
ONE OF THE chief arguments of those seeking permanent repeal of the estate tax is that it cruelly penalizes farmers and owners of small businesses whose heirs are forced to sell off their holdings to pay the tax. 'In order to make sure our farms stay within our farming families, we need to get rid of the death tax once and for all,' President Bush proclaimed in a speech last month to the Future Farmers of America."
...
A new study by the Congressional Budget Office examined estate tax returns filed by farmers and owners of small businesses in 1999 and 2000. The numbers that owed estate tax, the CBO found, were paltry, and the number without enough cash on hand to pay the bill even punier: In 2000, for example, just 1,659 farm estates had taxes due, of which 138 didn't report enough liquid assets to cover their tax liability. ... But members of Congress debating the issue now ought to look at the facts assembled by the CBO -- not the misinformation peddled by those maneuvering to make repeal permanent.
ONE OF THE chief arguments of those seeking permanent repeal of the estate tax is that it cruelly penalizes farmers and owners of small businesses whose heirs are forced to sell off their holdings to pay the tax. 'In order to make sure our farms stay within our farming families, we need to get rid of the death tax once and for all,' President Bush proclaimed in a speech last month to the Future Farmers of America."
...
A new study by the Congressional Budget Office examined estate tax returns filed by farmers and owners of small businesses in 1999 and 2000. The numbers that owed estate tax, the CBO found, were paltry, and the number without enough cash on hand to pay the bill even punier: In 2000, for example, just 1,659 farm estates had taxes due, of which 138 didn't report enough liquid assets to cover their tax liability. ... But members of Congress debating the issue now ought to look at the facts assembled by the CBO -- not the misinformation peddled by those maneuvering to make repeal permanent.
Friday, July 22, 2005
56% say "[news] stories and reports are often inaccurate,"
David Domke: There's No Shield Against Public Anger: "July 22, 2005 | The American Press and Credibility | By DAVID DOMKE
...
A recent Pew Research Center poll shows U.S. press credibility at historic lows. In early June, 56% of randomly sampled U.S. adults said that "[news] stories and reports are often inaccurate," an increase from 34% of the public who held this view in 1985. Similarly, 72% of Americans today say news organizations "tend to favor one side" when covering political and social issues, up from 53% two decades ago. And 75% of Americans said news organizations' reporting is most concerned about "attracting the biggest audience," while only 19% said it was "keeping the public informed."
...
The desire for pro-American news produces this outcome: when news content is critical of U.S. actions, many Americans become angry with the press, rather than the government. In other words, the public becomes likely to shoot the messenger. It would help if the news media stopped providing ammunition.
...
A recent Pew Research Center poll shows U.S. press credibility at historic lows. In early June, 56% of randomly sampled U.S. adults said that "[news] stories and reports are often inaccurate," an increase from 34% of the public who held this view in 1985. Similarly, 72% of Americans today say news organizations "tend to favor one side" when covering political and social issues, up from 53% two decades ago. And 75% of Americans said news organizations' reporting is most concerned about "attracting the biggest audience," while only 19% said it was "keeping the public informed."
...
The desire for pro-American news produces this outcome: when news content is critical of U.S. actions, many Americans become angry with the press, rather than the government. In other words, the public becomes likely to shoot the messenger. It would help if the news media stopped providing ammunition.
Thursday, July 21, 2005
Iraq: The War We Are Not Being Shown: It’s like a pair of blinders has been removed
Iraq: The War We Are Not Being Shown Huffington Post | 07.20.2005 Arianna Huffington
My vacation has been remarkably eye-opening. Now, when travelers say things like that, they usually are talking about being introduced to new cultures, different foods, singular settings… but in my case, I’m talking about war. Specifically, how shockingly different the coverage of the war in Iraq is here in Europe compared to what we get back home.
It’s like a pair of blinders has been removed and I’m suddenly seeing for myself what I’ve long known to be the case: just how sanitized a version of the war the American mainstream media are delivering, and how little of even this cleaned-up coverage we get.
Take Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s lovefest visit to Tehran on Sunday, where he laid a wreath on the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini and hailed what he called “a new chapter in brotherly ties” between Iran and Iraq. Now, by all rights, this should have been a major story in the U.S. Here you have the leader of the new government we’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars creating in Iraq making very nice with the terror-funding and nuke-building mullahs in Iran. So this is what our soldiers are putting their lives on the line for -- 1,770 killed so far -- a budding alliance between fundamentalist theocracies? (And yesterday’s news about the Iraqi constitution being based on fundamentalist Islamic principles, including curtailing women’s rights only confirms these fears) Surely that’s front page news, right? Not in America.
In fact, the historic visit was barely covered in the mainstream American press. The only major U.S. newspaper to report it was the Washington Post -- and its story was on page A-21. A-21?! The consequences of this lack of coverage are enormous. As the blogger Billmon at Whiskey Bar nailed it:
“How would the folks back home feel if they knew their sons and daughters were getting limbs blown off so that Iraqi politicians could jaunt off to Tehran and say warm and fuzzy things about the crazy old man who gave us the Iranian hostage crisis? And what kind of surrealist cover story would the GOP propaganda machine come up with to convince the Fox News audience that fighting and dying to keep Khomeini lovers in power is really a good thing?”
Another example of this lack of proper coverage -- and of the media’s bizarre priorities -- came when the Iraq Body Count dossier on civilian casualties in Iraq that HuffPost’s Jane Wells blogged about was released. Despite the vitally important information it contained, the Washington Post story on it ran on page A-18, the LA Times’ on page A-12, and the New York Times’ on A-8 . Thirty-seven percent of all non-combatant deaths were caused by US led coalition forces -- compared to 9% caused by insurgents -- and in the nation’s capital it runs on A-18.
My vacation has been remarkably eye-opening. Now, when travelers say things like that, they usually are talking about being introduced to new cultures, different foods, singular settings… but in my case, I’m talking about war. Specifically, how shockingly different the coverage of the war in Iraq is here in Europe compared to what we get back home.
It’s like a pair of blinders has been removed and I’m suddenly seeing for myself what I’ve long known to be the case: just how sanitized a version of the war the American mainstream media are delivering, and how little of even this cleaned-up coverage we get.
Take Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s lovefest visit to Tehran on Sunday, where he laid a wreath on the tomb of Ayatollah Khomeini and hailed what he called “a new chapter in brotherly ties” between Iran and Iraq. Now, by all rights, this should have been a major story in the U.S. Here you have the leader of the new government we’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars creating in Iraq making very nice with the terror-funding and nuke-building mullahs in Iran. So this is what our soldiers are putting their lives on the line for -- 1,770 killed so far -- a budding alliance between fundamentalist theocracies? (And yesterday’s news about the Iraqi constitution being based on fundamentalist Islamic principles, including curtailing women’s rights only confirms these fears) Surely that’s front page news, right? Not in America.
In fact, the historic visit was barely covered in the mainstream American press. The only major U.S. newspaper to report it was the Washington Post -- and its story was on page A-21. A-21?! The consequences of this lack of coverage are enormous. As the blogger Billmon at Whiskey Bar nailed it:
“How would the folks back home feel if they knew their sons and daughters were getting limbs blown off so that Iraqi politicians could jaunt off to Tehran and say warm and fuzzy things about the crazy old man who gave us the Iranian hostage crisis? And what kind of surrealist cover story would the GOP propaganda machine come up with to convince the Fox News audience that fighting and dying to keep Khomeini lovers in power is really a good thing?”
Another example of this lack of proper coverage -- and of the media’s bizarre priorities -- came when the Iraq Body Count dossier on civilian casualties in Iraq that HuffPost’s Jane Wells blogged about was released. Despite the vitally important information it contained, the Washington Post story on it ran on page A-18, the LA Times’ on page A-12, and the New York Times’ on A-8 . Thirty-seven percent of all non-combatant deaths were caused by US led coalition forces -- compared to 9% caused by insurgents -- and in the nation’s capital it runs on A-18.
Friday, July 15, 2005
Comcast Corporation has been automatically deleting email sent to Comcast customers with the text "www.afterdowningstreet.org" in the body of the emai
THE BRAD BLOG: "COMCAST KILLS EMAIL FROM 'AFTERDOWNINGSTREET' COALITION!": "7/15/2005 @ 3:10pm PT...
...
The BRAD BLOG has learned that cable company and Internet service provider, Comcast Corporation has been automatically deleting email sent to Comcast customers with the text "www.afterdowningstreet.org" in the body of the email.
AfterDowningStreet.org ("ADS") is the citizen's coalition advocacy group organized to raise awareness of the leaked British memos and minutes referred to as the "Downing Street Documents". Those documents, first reported by Michael Smith of the Sunday Times suggest that the Bush Administration had determined to topple Saddam Hussein by military means and planned to "fix" the facts and intelligence around the policy" at least eight months prior to receiving authorization of the U.S. Congress to wage war in Iraq. At the same time, George W. Bush and administration officials were routinely telling both Congress and the American people that no tactical decisions had yet been made regarding regime change in Iraq.
...
The BRAD BLOG has been able to independently confirm that email sent to two different Comcast customers with the text "www.afterdowningstreet.org" in the body of the mail, is not currently reaching those customers as expected. Though messages with only "afterdowningstreet.org" are, in fact, able to get through to those same customers without a problem.
...
The BRAD BLOG has learned that cable company and Internet service provider, Comcast Corporation has been automatically deleting email sent to Comcast customers with the text "www.afterdowningstreet.org" in the body of the email.
AfterDowningStreet.org ("ADS") is the citizen's coalition advocacy group organized to raise awareness of the leaked British memos and minutes referred to as the "Downing Street Documents". Those documents, first reported by Michael Smith of the Sunday Times suggest that the Bush Administration had determined to topple Saddam Hussein by military means and planned to "fix" the facts and intelligence around the policy" at least eight months prior to receiving authorization of the U.S. Congress to wage war in Iraq. At the same time, George W. Bush and administration officials were routinely telling both Congress and the American people that no tactical decisions had yet been made regarding regime change in Iraq.
...
The BRAD BLOG has been able to independently confirm that email sent to two different Comcast customers with the text "www.afterdowningstreet.org" in the body of the mail, is not currently reaching those customers as expected. Though messages with only "afterdowningstreet.org" are, in fact, able to get through to those same customers without a problem.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Knight Ridder's Baghdad Chief Replies to Criticismof war coverage as 'bad' for focusing on the negative
Knight Ridder's Baghdad Chief Replies to Criticism From Back Home: "By Greg Mitchell | (July 13, 2005)
Early this week, Mark Yost, an editorial writer at Knight Ridder's St. Paul Pioneer Press, wrote a column that sharply criticized Iraq war coverage as 'bad' for focusing on the negative. Today, another Knight Ridder writer who may actually know what's going on in Baghdad, penned a reply.
...
Knight Ridder's Baghdad bureau chief, Hannah Allam, has read Mark Yost's column. Her response, from the front, says it far better than I could.
***
From Hannah Allam:
It saddens me to read Mark Yost's editorial in the Pioneer Press, the Knight Ridder paper that hired me as a rookie reporter and taught me valuable lessons in life and journalism during the four years I spent there before heading to Iraq.
I invite Mr. Yost to spend a week in our Baghdad bureau, where he can see our Iraqi staff members' toothbrushes lined up in the bathroom because they have no running water at home. I frequently find them camping out in the office overnight because electricity is still only sporadic in their sweltering neighborhoods, despite what I'm sure are the best-intentioned efforts of people like his Marine buddy working on the electrical grid.
Mr. Yost could have come with me today as I visited one of my own military buddies, who like most officers doesn't leave the protected Green Zone compound except by helicopter or massive convoy. The Army official picked me up in his air-conditioned Explorer, took me to Burger King for lunch and showed me photos of the family he misses so terribly. The official is a great guy, and like so many other soldiers, it's not politics that blind him from seeing the real Iraq. The compound's maze of tall blast wall and miles of concertina wire obscure the view, too.
Mr. Yost can listen to our bureau's morning planning meetings, where we orchestrate a trip to buy bottled water (the tap water is contaminated, when it works) as if we're plotting a military operation. I wonder whether he prefers riding in the first car -- the most exposed to shrapnel and bullets -- or the chase car, which is designed to act as a buffer between us and potential kidnappers.
Perhaps Mr. Yost would be moved by our office's tribute wall to Yasser Salihee, our brave and wonderful colleague, who at age 30 joined the ranks of Iraqi civilians shot to death by American soldiers. Mr. Yost would have appreciated one of Yasser's last stories -- a rare good-news piece about humanitarian aid reaching the holy city of Najaf.
Mr. Yost's contention that 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces are stable is pure fantasy. On his visit to Baghdhad, he can check that by chatting with our resident British security consultant, who every day receives a province-by-province breakdown of the roadside bombs, ambushes, assassinations and other violence throughout the country.
If Baghdad is too far for Mr. Yost to travel (and I don't blame him, given the treacherous airport road to reach our fortress-like hotel), why not just head to Oklahoma? There, he can meet my former Iraqi translator, Ban Adil, and her young son. They're rebuilding their lives under political asylum after insurgents in Baghdad followed Ban's family home one night and gunned down her 4-year-old daughter, her husband and her elderly mother in law.
Freshly painted schools and a new desalination plant might add up to "mission accomplished" for some people. Too bad Ban's daughter never got to enjoy those fruits of her liberation.
Early this week, Mark Yost, an editorial writer at Knight Ridder's St. Paul Pioneer Press, wrote a column that sharply criticized Iraq war coverage as 'bad' for focusing on the negative. Today, another Knight Ridder writer who may actually know what's going on in Baghdad, penned a reply.
...
Knight Ridder's Baghdad bureau chief, Hannah Allam, has read Mark Yost's column. Her response, from the front, says it far better than I could.
***
From Hannah Allam:
It saddens me to read Mark Yost's editorial in the Pioneer Press, the Knight Ridder paper that hired me as a rookie reporter and taught me valuable lessons in life and journalism during the four years I spent there before heading to Iraq.
I invite Mr. Yost to spend a week in our Baghdad bureau, where he can see our Iraqi staff members' toothbrushes lined up in the bathroom because they have no running water at home. I frequently find them camping out in the office overnight because electricity is still only sporadic in their sweltering neighborhoods, despite what I'm sure are the best-intentioned efforts of people like his Marine buddy working on the electrical grid.
Mr. Yost could have come with me today as I visited one of my own military buddies, who like most officers doesn't leave the protected Green Zone compound except by helicopter or massive convoy. The Army official picked me up in his air-conditioned Explorer, took me to Burger King for lunch and showed me photos of the family he misses so terribly. The official is a great guy, and like so many other soldiers, it's not politics that blind him from seeing the real Iraq. The compound's maze of tall blast wall and miles of concertina wire obscure the view, too.
Mr. Yost can listen to our bureau's morning planning meetings, where we orchestrate a trip to buy bottled water (the tap water is contaminated, when it works) as if we're plotting a military operation. I wonder whether he prefers riding in the first car -- the most exposed to shrapnel and bullets -- or the chase car, which is designed to act as a buffer between us and potential kidnappers.
Perhaps Mr. Yost would be moved by our office's tribute wall to Yasser Salihee, our brave and wonderful colleague, who at age 30 joined the ranks of Iraqi civilians shot to death by American soldiers. Mr. Yost would have appreciated one of Yasser's last stories -- a rare good-news piece about humanitarian aid reaching the holy city of Najaf.
Mr. Yost's contention that 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces are stable is pure fantasy. On his visit to Baghdhad, he can check that by chatting with our resident British security consultant, who every day receives a province-by-province breakdown of the roadside bombs, ambushes, assassinations and other violence throughout the country.
If Baghdad is too far for Mr. Yost to travel (and I don't blame him, given the treacherous airport road to reach our fortress-like hotel), why not just head to Oklahoma? There, he can meet my former Iraqi translator, Ban Adil, and her young son. They're rebuilding their lives under political asylum after insurgents in Baghdad followed Ban's family home one night and gunned down her 4-year-old daughter, her husband and her elderly mother in law.
Freshly painted schools and a new desalination plant might add up to "mission accomplished" for some people. Too bad Ban's daughter never got to enjoy those fruits of her liberation.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
CNN, ABC offered unchallenged legal analysis on Plame leak from Novak's partisan friends
CNN, ABC offered unchallenged legal analysis on ... [Media Matters for America]: "CNN, ABC offered unchallenged legal analysis on Plame leak from Novak's partisan friends
Reporting on White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove's alleged involvement in the leaking of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, CNN and ABC News presented unchallenged legal analysis from Victoria Toensing and Joseph E. DiGenova, respectively, both of whom defended Rove and were identified only as a 'legal analyst' and a 'former US attorney.' Toensing and DiGenova, however, are partisan Republicans and personal friends of CNN host and columnist Robert D. Novak, who originally outed Plame in July 2003.
DiGenova and Toensing are married and are the founding partners of DiGenova & Toensing LLP, a Washington law firm. Toensing was President Reagan's deputy assistant attorney general and chief counsel to former Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ). DiGenova has been described as a "confidant" of independent counsel Kenneth Starr during the Monica Lewinsky investigation [The Baltimore Sun, 9/21/00] and as "a former federal prosecutor now working for House Republicans" [The Washington Post, 2/23/98]. In 1998, Toensing and DiGenova angered House Democrats by repeatedly discussing the Lewinsky investigation in the media while under contract with the House Committee on Education and the Workforce to investigate the Teamsters union [The Washington Post, 2/13/98]. Toensing and DiGenova have a well-documented personal relationship with Novak. ...
Reporting on White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove's alleged involvement in the leaking of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, CNN and ABC News presented unchallenged legal analysis from Victoria Toensing and Joseph E. DiGenova, respectively, both of whom defended Rove and were identified only as a 'legal analyst' and a 'former US attorney.' Toensing and DiGenova, however, are partisan Republicans and personal friends of CNN host and columnist Robert D. Novak, who originally outed Plame in July 2003.
DiGenova and Toensing are married and are the founding partners of DiGenova & Toensing LLP, a Washington law firm. Toensing was President Reagan's deputy assistant attorney general and chief counsel to former Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-AZ). DiGenova has been described as a "confidant" of independent counsel Kenneth Starr during the Monica Lewinsky investigation [The Baltimore Sun, 9/21/00] and as "a former federal prosecutor now working for House Republicans" [The Washington Post, 2/23/98]. In 1998, Toensing and DiGenova angered House Democrats by repeatedly discussing the Lewinsky investigation in the media while under contract with the House Committee on Education and the Workforce to investigate the Teamsters union [The Washington Post, 2/13/98]. Toensing and DiGenova have a well-documented personal relationship with Novak. ...
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Once again a scientific report has been recast for the sake of political expediency and used as the basis for a federal rule that puts industry profit
Science Fiction: "July 5, 2005 latimes.com :EDITORIAL | Science Fiction
The altering of reports to fit policies is dismaying.
Once again a scientific report has been recast for the sake of political expediency and used as the basis for a federal rule that puts industry profit over the health of people and the environment. If that sounds familiar, it's because it has been happening regularly throughout President Bush's tenure.
In the most recent case, a government biologist and hydrologist complained that their findings on how cattle grazing damages wildlands were rewritten to produce contrary conclusions. A 'significant adverse impact' on wildlife, for instance, somehow became 'beneficial to animals.' Then the Bush administration announced that based on these rosy findings, it would relax rules that limit grazing on public lands.
The Bush administration's efforts to undermine, ignore and edit scientific findings add up to something even more dismaying than the resulting poor public policy. It's bad enough to push an ill-considered idea — such as increasing budgets for abstinence-only sex education — despite studies that show the idea doesn't work. Even more disheartening is the rewriting and deletion of scientific truth. It damages the scientific disciplines that have held the rational pursuit of truth above all else and, in that pursuit, have produced technical and medical marvels. This country already faces unprecedented challenges to its scientific supremacy from India, China and Singapore. It's not going to help the nation's scientific prestige to downgrade the work U.S. experts do.
The grazing case follows revelations weeks earlier that a former lobbyist for the oil industry, while working for the White House, tinkered with government reports on climate change to make global warming appear a more dubious and trivial phenomenon. ...
The altering of reports to fit policies is dismaying.
Once again a scientific report has been recast for the sake of political expediency and used as the basis for a federal rule that puts industry profit over the health of people and the environment. If that sounds familiar, it's because it has been happening regularly throughout President Bush's tenure.
In the most recent case, a government biologist and hydrologist complained that their findings on how cattle grazing damages wildlands were rewritten to produce contrary conclusions. A 'significant adverse impact' on wildlife, for instance, somehow became 'beneficial to animals.' Then the Bush administration announced that based on these rosy findings, it would relax rules that limit grazing on public lands.
The Bush administration's efforts to undermine, ignore and edit scientific findings add up to something even more dismaying than the resulting poor public policy. It's bad enough to push an ill-considered idea — such as increasing budgets for abstinence-only sex education — despite studies that show the idea doesn't work. Even more disheartening is the rewriting and deletion of scientific truth. It damages the scientific disciplines that have held the rational pursuit of truth above all else and, in that pursuit, have produced technical and medical marvels. This country already faces unprecedented challenges to its scientific supremacy from India, China and Singapore. It's not going to help the nation's scientific prestige to downgrade the work U.S. experts do.
The grazing case follows revelations weeks earlier that a former lobbyist for the oil industry, while working for the White House, tinkered with government reports on climate change to make global warming appear a more dubious and trivial phenomenon. ...
Saturday, July 02, 2005
Demands that Fox News remove C. Boyden Gray as a Supreme Court analyst: spent many hours raising millions to confirm Bush judicial nominees
David Brock to Fox: Drop Gray as Supreme Court ... [Media Matters for America]: "July 1, 2005 |
Roger Ailes
Chairman and CEO
Fox News Channel
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10036
Dear Mr. Ailes:
I am writing to demand that Fox News Channel remove C. Boyden Gray from his position as a Supreme Court analyst. Gray's involvement as a leading player in the coming Supreme Court nomination battle makes him an inappropriate choice to serve as an analyst for Fox News, and Fox's failure to disclose Gray's conflict of interest to its viewers only compounds the problem.
In its initial coverage of the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Fox News featured extended commentary by Gray, identifying him only as a 'Fox Supreme Court Analyst.' But this does not fully inform Fox News viewers of Gray's involvement in the Supreme Court fight.
Gray is founder and chairman of the Committee for Justice, a group formed to advance the confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominees. In a May 24 profile of Gray, The Washington Post reported: 'Every Monday morning for months, veteran Washington lawyer C. Boyden Gray has plotted strategy via a conference call with the heads of groups that want to ease the confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominees. He has also spent many hours raising millions of dollars for the cause.'"
Roger Ailes
Chairman and CEO
Fox News Channel
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10036
Dear Mr. Ailes:
I am writing to demand that Fox News Channel remove C. Boyden Gray from his position as a Supreme Court analyst. Gray's involvement as a leading player in the coming Supreme Court nomination battle makes him an inappropriate choice to serve as an analyst for Fox News, and Fox's failure to disclose Gray's conflict of interest to its viewers only compounds the problem.
In its initial coverage of the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Fox News featured extended commentary by Gray, identifying him only as a 'Fox Supreme Court Analyst.' But this does not fully inform Fox News viewers of Gray's involvement in the Supreme Court fight.
Gray is founder and chairman of the Committee for Justice, a group formed to advance the confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominees. In a May 24 profile of Gray, The Washington Post reported: 'Every Monday morning for months, veteran Washington lawyer C. Boyden Gray has plotted strategy via a conference call with the heads of groups that want to ease the confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominees. He has also spent many hours raising millions of dollars for the cause.'"
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