Former White House Counsel Harriet Miers refused on Thursday to appear before the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions about the Bush administration’s decision to fire a group of US attorneys last year. In justifying her decision to ignore a congressional subpoena, Miers cited a Justice Department opinion released this week that asserts broad and unprecedented claims of executive privilege.
The US military has announced plans to end use of the infamous Abu Ghraib prison facility in Iraq, and will turn it over to the Iraqi government within the next several months. The move will do nothing to end the systematic abuse of Iraqi prisoners, which has been most closely associated with, but by no means limited to, the torture carried out at Abu Ghraib.
The pharmaceutical company Merck announced on November 28 that it would lay off 7,000 workers over the next three years, closing down 5 of its 31 production plants. The cuts, half of which will be in the US, represent more than 10 percent of the company’s global workforce. The move is only the latest in a series of announcements of layoffs and wage cutting at major American companies.
General Motors’ plan to eliminate 30,000 hourly jobs by 2008, announced Monday in Detroit, will have devastating consequences for cities in the United States and Canada, and its ripple effects will hit working class communities throughout the two countries. The closure of twelve facilities will reduce the auto maker’s manufacturing jobs in North America by nearly a third.
In the early hours of Friday morning, the House of Representatives passed a budget reconciliation bill that includes cuts of nearly $50 billion over five years, primarily in social programs for the poor. At the same time, Congress is considering extending tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy in the amount of $60 billion-$70 billion over the same period.
The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal has again come forward as the mouthpiece of the most criminal and ruthless sections of the American ruling elite. The newspaper’s lead editorial on November 12, “A ‘Tortured’ Debate,” constitutes an unambiguous defense of torture as an indispensable instrument of American policy.
The Kansas Board of Education voted on November 8 to adopt science standards that seek to undermine the teaching of biological evolution in public schools. The move is the latest in a series of attempts to promote religious conceptions in the public classroom, a violation of the constitutional separation of church and state.
Bonuses on Wall Street are expected to soar this year according to two reports released this week. These bonuses make up the bulk of compensation for top executives and managers of banks and brokerages and are rising as a result of frenzied activity in the hedge funds and mergers and acquisitions markets, as well as sharp increases in energy prices.
Utilizing a provision in the Patriot Act, passed in October 2001, the FBI has employed “national security letters” to spy on tens of thousands of residents, including many who are not suspected of committing any crimes, an article in the Washington Post on November 6 has revealed (“The FBI’s Secret Scrutiny” by Barton Gellman).
Sometimes the intimate collaboration between government and business in the United States is remarkable even to those well schooled in the corruption of American capitalism. Such is the case with the recent agreement between retail giant Wal-Mart and the Labor Department, an agreement that came to light following an audit by the Labor Department’s inspector general.
In the immediate aftermath of the vote on the Iraq constitution, the US military has stepped up its campaign of violence in several cities near the Syrian border. The new wave of killings underscores the cynicism of the claims that the referendum embodied the birth of democracy in Iraq—compliments of US missiles, bombs, bullets and torture chambers.
This week, the major international energy companies announced sharp increases in profits for the third quarter. The energy giants are benefiting from a prolonged period of rising energy costs, exacerbated in September by the effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The record profits are being paid directly from the pockets of millions of Americans, who face increased gasoline prices and the prospect of sharply higher home heating bills during the winter.
On Tuesday, the Washington Post published a front-page article revealing that Vice President Dick Cheney and CIA Director Porter Goss met with Arizona Senator John McCain last week to urge the modification of a Senate provision banning the US government from carrying out “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment” of prisoners in its custody.
Last week US Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt signed off on a Florida plan that will transform the state’s Medicaid program. The new plan, which will come into effect after receiving final approval from the state legislature, will largely privatize the health care program for the poor and elderly. It will also set caps on state expenditures.
On Wednesday, the US Senate rejected a proposal to raise the national minimum wage from its current level of $5.15 per hour. As a result, it is unlikely that the minimum wage will be raised this year, making 2005 the eighth straight year in which the wage has remained unchanged.
Using the cost of Hurricane Katrina reconstruction as a pretext, Congressional Republicans, backed by the Bush administration, continue to push for sharp cuts in social programs.
The Bush administration made clear this week that it will not revoke or delay a law that will make it harder for tens of thousands of working-class Americans to file for bankruptcy. With the support of the White House, Republican congressmen rejected calls from consumer groups and some Democrats to place a moratorium on the bill’s provisions for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
A series of articles over the past week have confirmed that the widespread reports of massive looting, murder and violence in hurricane-devastated New Orleans were either concocted out of whole cloth or grossly exaggerated. In the first several days after New Orleans was inundated, these stories were disseminated by government officials at the federal, state and local level, and trumpeted by the media in banner headlines and lurid TV accounts.
A major court case involving the attack on the teaching of evolution in schools began this week. Eleven parents of children in Dover, Pennsylvania are challenging the decision by the Dover School Board to require biology teachers to question the theory of evolution.
Less than a month after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and parts of Mississippi, and only a few days after Hurricane Rita hit Texas and Louisiana, the Bush administration is using these disasters as a pretext to expand the domestic role of the military, attack social programs, and further enrich a tiny layer of the population.
