Necessary News

All you need to know to sound brilliant

It’s His Party And He’ll Call For Equal Rights If He Wants To

• Meet Michael Guest. Guest, a former ambassador and 25-year State Department official, recently left his job at the State Department. And he wasn’t afraid to blister the Department with a withering speech at his going-away party.
• As the NYT put it, Guest “displayed uncommon courage and threw a rhetorical hand-grenade into his own party.”
• Guest — the first openly gay diplomat to be confirmed as ambassador — pulled no punches when it comes to the State Department’s unequal treatment of gay and lesbian foreign service officers.
• Guest: “Most departing ambassadors use these events to talk about their successes. . . But I want to talk about my signal failure, the failure that in fact is causing me to leave the career that I love.’
• Guest: “For the past three years, I’ve urged the Secretary and her senior management team to redress policies that discriminate against gay and lesbian employees. Absolutely nothing has resulted from this. And so I’ve felt compelled to choose between obligations to my partner — who is my family — and service to my country. That anyone should have to make that choice is a stain on the Secretary’s leadership and a shame for this institution and our country.”
• It’s not just gay partners who don’t receive equal rights for equal service from the Department: Guest pointed out elderly parents and adult children living with their parents abroad do not receive the same rights as heterosexual spouses, either.
• What we’re talking about: “Unlike heterosexual spouses, gay partners are not entitled to State Department-provided security training, free medical care at overseas posts, guaranteed evacuation in case of a medical emergency, transportation to overseas posts, or special living allowances when foreign service officers are assigned to places like Iraq, where diplomatic families are not permitted.”

Secretary of State Condi Rice had no comment.

More Violence, More Guns, More Bloodshed In Afghanistan

• Yesterday, as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates visited Afghanistan, we told you how “The U.S. military is seeing early signs that al-Qaida may be stepping up its activities in Afghanistan.” Turns out, we were right. [Mic Check]
• While Gates and other top officials claim they’ve seen no “up-tick” in al-Qaida violence, their actions lead us to believe otherwise. U.S. officials said they now were considering providing arms to local tribes in Afghanistan, along with training, equipment and other support. [AP]
• The strategy of arming local tribes has been modeled after similar “successful” attempts that have been made in Iraqi neighborhoods.
• And can you blame them? A suicide car bomber targeted a NATO convoy in Kabul on Tuesday not long after Gates had passed along the same road, which had been closed to other traffic while Gates was traveling on it. NATO said 22 civilians who were near the blast were wounded.
• According to the Associated Press: “The U.S. military has been pushing the idea that more attention must be paid to tribal leaders in the provinces in both Afghanistan and Iraq, rather than focusing all the attention on buttressing the central governments of those two nations. The thinking is that the locals are closer to the community and their people, and thus can better police their own streets.”
• And then there’s the Taliban. At this point, there’s very little doubt that the Taliban’s been refueled and is on the rise. The opium trade — which accounts for 93% of the world’s supply — has funded militant groups, allowing them to trade drugs for arms and bomb-making supplies.
• This year has been the most violent since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Insurgency-related violence has claimed nearly 6,200 lives, according to a tally of figures from Afghan and Western officials. Meanwhile, the number of attacks has surged, including roadside bombings and suicide assaults.

We smell a ticking time bomb.

President Bush Holds A Presser On Iran

• President Bush held a press conference yesterday in an attempt to deflect criticism that he ignored the National Intelligence Estimate’s conclusions about Iran’s nuclear capabilities to up the anti-Iran rhetoric in the past few months. [NY Times]
• President Bush: “Iran was dangerous, Iran is dangerous, and Iran will be dangerous if they have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”
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• NIE: “We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapon.” and “Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005.”
• President Bush: “I was made aware of the NIE last week. In August, I think it was John — Mike McConnell came in and said, We have some new information. He didn’t tell me what the information was.”
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• Washington Post: Intelligence officials began briefing senior White House officials about their doubts that Iran had nuclear capabilities back in July. [Washington Post]

• REPORTER: “Are you saying at no point while the rhetoric was escalating, as World War III was making it into conversation — at no point, nobody from your intelligence team or your administration was saying, Maybe you want to back it down a little bit?”

  BUSH: “No — I’ve never — nobody ever told me that.”
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• On Monday, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said, “when the President was told that we had some additional information, he was basically told: stand down; needs to be evaluated; we’ll come to you and tell you what we think it means.” [White House]

So, when President Bush was trying to whip up public fears about WW III with Iran, he knew there was new information but just didn’t bother to find out what it was? Hmmmm...

Scientist Behind Stem Cell Breakthrough Wants None Of Bush’s Praise

• He’s not looking for praise. Especially not from Bush. [Washington Post]
• A few months ago, University of Wisconsin professor James Thomson published a paper announcing he had successfully reprogrammed human skin cells to act like human stem cells.
• Why is it significant? Well, it means that scientists can potentially collect and create stem cells without destroying an embryo.
• President Bush expressed his pleasure, believing his strict anti-embryonic stem cell position (in which Bush twice vetoed federal support for the research) to be vindicated. [Washington Post]
• The White House declared victory: “By avoiding techniques that destroy life, while vigorously supporting alternative approaches, President Bush is encouraging scientific advancement within ethical boundaries.”
• Only trouble is, Bush is wrong.
• In a Washington Post editorial, James Thomson and American Association for the Advancement of Science President Alan Leshner write that “At a time when nearly 60 percent of Americans support human embryonic stem cell research, U.S. stem cell policy runs counter to both scientific and public opinion.”
• Even more, Thomson reveals that the work he did with skin cells would have been impossible without research previously done on embryonic stem cells. [Science Progress]
• As Jonathan Moreno writes, Thomson’s research will “jump start the field of regenerative medicine, which many believe to be the most exciting approach to alleviating human maladies since the burst of accomplishments in pharmaceutical discovery after the Second World War.”
• Just don’t let George Bush take credit for it. [Science Progress]

Hurting more than he helps.

What Goes Down At Guantanamo

• Another manual for the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay has surfaced, this time from March 2004.
• Remember the last one? [MicCheck]
• Here are the lowlights of the March 2004 manual of Gitmo’s “Standard Operating Procedures": [Washington Post]
• Cut it off: The way soldiers remove the clothing of detainees when they first arrive at Guantanamo.
• Confiscate it: What guards do if they “find a detainee’s plastic foam cup with writing on it.”
• Offer toilet paper: How guards reward well behaved prisoners.
• Use dogs: How guards intimidate and cajole prisoners into cooperation.
• Don’t talk about the wrong things: The manual forbids guards from discussing “current world events or history with detainees, or within earshot of detainees, that could upset or influence detainee actions or attitudes, such as the situation in the Middle East, the destruction of the Space Shuttle, or information concerning terrorist groups or personnel.”
• When detainees first arrive, they undergo a “behavior management plan.”
• The purpose? “to enhance and exploit the disorientation and disorganization felt by a newly arrived detainee in the interrogation process...It concentrates on isolating the detainee and fostering dependence of the detainee on his interrogator.”

America’s dirty laundry.

Good News, Bad News

The Senate yesterday took on the unfair lending practices of credit card companies. A Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held a hearing yesterday to investigate whether credit card companies raise rates on consumers without warning or explanation. [CBS News]

Good News: Giants like Citigroup, Chase and Capital One they will discontinue the practice or secretly jacking rates for arbitrary reasons.

Bad News: Congress is lecturing credit card companies on responsible spending. Congress.

Quote Of The Day

Sherri: “[The Greeks] had Christians ‘cause they threw them to the lions.”

Whoopi: “I think this might predate that. I think this might predate that.”

Sherri: “I don’t think anything predated Christians.”

Joy: “No, no, no. The Greeks came first. Then the Romans, then the Christians.

Sherri: “Jesus came first. Before them.”

— The View’s Sherri “The World Is Flat” Shepherd, not getting the whole “B.C.” thing during a conversation about a Greek philosopher.

Speed Round

AUDIO: HATE RADIO

In October, right-wing radio host Michael Savage went on an anti-Muslim tirade on his show. Now, advertisers are pulling the plug, but Savage is still on the air. We smell a double-standard.

[Think Progress]

AUDIO: MEANWHILE, BACK AT FOX...

Fox legal analyst (and we’re using that term loosely) Trish Deangelis says that Savage’s comments were taken out of context, and that he’s got much respect for Islam. We’re talking about the same Michael Savage, Right?

AUDIO: AMEN

Congressman Rahm Emmanuel (D-Ill.) shows the White House the back of his hand after President Bush’s press conference.

WHAT, NO MEDAL OF FREEDOM?

Two government officials in charge of overseeing Blackwater’s contracts in Iraq are going to receive a bonus worth tens of thousands of dollars for their “outstanding performance.” [ABC Blotter]

OJ DID IT

SCOTUS Justice Antonin Scalia hands down his decision: OJ was guilty. [The Swamp]

150 MILLION

The number of people living in coastal cities who will face flooding due to global warming by 2070. Climate Change: French for “MOVE.” [Reuters]

WALK IT OUT

Washington, DC ranked #1 among all metropolitan areas for walkability. MicCheck says, “Eat it, Tampa, Florida!” (#30) [CNN]

RANDOM SCREENINGS

Remember the British MP, who happened to be Muslim, who was stopped in October in DullesAirport and whose carry-on luggage was checked for explosive material? Yeah, this is kind of like that, only with the ACLU’s expert on racial profiling. Oops. [MICCHECK] [AP]

LOST

When you live on a creepy, volcanic island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, as part of the “most isolated community in the world,” you’re bound to run into some mysterious viruses every once in awhile. [BBC]

CHILDRENS DO LEARN

US students rank 17th in science and 24th in math (out of 30!) in the latest international testing. There was also a reading portion, but the US results were thrown out because the tests were printed incorrectly. Sad part: The kids can’t read so they didn’t seem to notice. [WP]

THE COST OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Two Ohio college students robbed a bank to pay their tuition. MicCheck felt for them ‘til we read about how they made off with $130,000. [CINCINNATI ENQUIRER]

“ON A DAILY BASIS”

The frequency with which VP Dick Cheney advocates for military strikes against Iran, according to a BBC report. [BBC]

YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED. ALL OF YOU.

Britney Spears topped Yahoo searches in 2007. [AP]

COPPER STATE EQUALITY

“Arizona is poised to join more than a dozen states that offer health and other benefits to domestic partners of state employees, gay or straight.” [AZ State]

THE PLEDGE

This year’s story about some guy going to court to try to remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance is brought to you by Michael Newdow, a doctor/lawyer in Sacramento. [CBS News]

BAD, BAD BACON

Eleven workers at a pork processing plant in Minnesota are suddenly suffering from neurological ailments. We’re in a pork panic. [CBS News]

SIGNS OF THE APOCALYPSE

Lou Dobbs will be getting a three-hour long, daily radio show. Happy holidays. [Think Progress]

AND IN OTHER NEWS...

The Senate approves a trade deal with Peru. [NY Times]

ROVE IN THE DOGHOUSE

Contempt vote against Rove set for Thursday. [Think Progress]

IT’S RUPERT MURDOCH’S WORLD

Rupert Murdoch buys God. Or, Beliefnet. [Think Progress]