Bush places papers in private library

By Natalie Gott

Austin, Texas, Jan. 13— When most Texas governors leave office, they send their documents to the state archives or the state’s largest universities, where the public is free to view them.

But President George W. Bush, who served as governor from 1995 to 2000, chose to house his records in his father’s George Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Texas A&M University, which is administered by the National Archives and Records Commission and not subject to the state’s open records law.

The Texas Public Information Act requires that most documents be produced within 10 days of a request, but the presidential library is not equipped to do that since it also is handling presidential material, said Edward Seidenberg, deputy director of the state library and archives commission.

“The presidential library will attempt to be responsive, but cannot guarantee it will meet the state requirement,” said Susan Cooper, a spokeswoman for the National Archives and Records Commission.

“The turn around time is just too tight,” Cooper said. “Our archivists are already on tight deadlines to meet other requirements.”

For now, the national archive will try to fill requests within 90 days, said Bush’s attorney, Terri Lacy.

The situation frustrates Tom Smith, Texas director of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group.

“These papers belong to the people of the state of Texas, not to George W. Bush,” Smith said. “He can’t hide them or give them away, and putting them in his daddy’s library doesn’t change that one bit.”

Lacy said she did not know why Bush chose the presidential library for his records, but insisted he is “absolutely not” trying to hide them.

“It is not his goal in any fashion to attempt to do something like that,” she said.

The Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas is monitoring the situation.

“The foundation remains steadfast in its belief that all the working papers during Bush’s gubernatorial tenure are public record and subject to the Texas Public Information Act,” said Wanda Garner Cash, the group’s president, and editor and publisher of The Baytown Sun. “Access to records is important because it’s our history and we have those records to verify or deny what went on.”

Texas Attorney General John Cornyn is considering whether the state still has the legal rights to the papers and whether they are subject to the Texas Public Information Act.

Source: Associated Press

Activists claim victory as lab’s investor announces divestment

Little Rock, Arkansas, Jan. 11— Members of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) and animal rights activists worldwide are declaring a victory following yesterday’s announcement by Stephens Inc., the largest investor and primary financier of Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), that it has entered into an agreement to sell all of its stock and debt investments in the lab. HLS and their investors have come under fire from animal rights groups for the lab’s numerous documented cases of animal cruelty. SHAC has asked Stephens to prove it has severed all ties with HLS and reveal the identity of HLS’s new backer.

“We are certainly pleased with Stephens’ announcement,” said SHAC spokesperson Pat Monroe. “But we are speculative as to whether the company has actually quit or if it has merely hidden its role from the public eye. We’ve asked Stephens to prove it has no connection, directly or indirectly, to HLS and to reveal the identity of the lab’s new backer. Until then, pressure will continue to increase against Stephens.”

SHAC has run a relentless campaign against Stephens Inc. since the company extended a $33 million loan to HLS in January 2001, saving the lab from bankruptcy after all its major investors, including Citibank, Merrill Lynch, HSBC, and Charles Schwab, quit when they became targets of the same campaign.

The $33 million bailout package last January was intended to keep the identity of the lender secret. However, animal rights activists discovered Stephens as the backer within a matter of days and have campaigned against Stephens Inc. and its affiliates in the US and abroad since that time.

“If Stephens is still involved, directly or indirectly, they will remain the biggest target of this campaign. If not, we will campaign against the new financier as aggressively as we did Stephens,” said Monroe.

The news of Stephens’ divestment comes one week after the home of Stephens’ company president, Warren Stephens, was severely vandalized by a group claiming to be the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). After the incident, the ALF stated in a communique, “We don’t know how Warren lives with himself, or how he sleeps at night knowing the blood of innocent animals is on his hands. We hope this action has made it even more difficult for him to rest.”

Source: Frontline Information Service

Media abide by Pentagon order forbidding photos of prisoners

New York, New York, Jan. 14— Most major news organizations abided by an order Jan. 11 from Pentagon officials not to transmit images of masked and chained prisoners in Afghanistan shot the previous day.

But CBS News, which had planned to air footage on its Jan. 11 “Early Show,” then reconsidered, did include grainy clips less than 10 seconds long on the “Evening News.”

CBS News “has evaluated these pictures and made a news judgment to broadcast them in a responsible way, mindful not to jeopardize national security,” spokeswoman Kelli Edwards said.

CNN didn’t air its footage, though it did show images shot Jan. 9 of masked prisoners.

“Restrictions on the press in wartime are nothing new, and the fact is we are on their base and subject to their rules,” said network spokeswoman Megan Mahoney.

Rob Curtis, a photographer for The Army Times who often takes photos for The Associated Press (AP), said he objected to being barred from transmitting photos he had taken of the prisoners’ departure.

“We signed papers that said we would not publish photos that endangered a military operation,” Curtis said. “There are no military implications for these photos, only political.”

The AP is protesting the Pentagon’s action.

“We feel this is an important news event and it is our job to provide coverage of important news events,” said Vincent Alabiso, AP vice president and executive photo editor. “We see no reason that these pictures should be barred from release.”

Photographers and camera crews from CNN, CBS, The Army Times and other organizations were allowed to take pictures of the 20 prisoners in Kandahar as they boarded a C-17 cargo plane for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But the journalists had to agree not to transmit the images until military officials gave permission.

Shortly after the plane left the airport, the organizations were told not to send the images.

A Pentagon spokesman said the decision was made because the Red Cross raised an objection, contending the images would violate international laws on the treatment of prisoners.

Officials at the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva said the organization had not contacted the Pentagon about photographs taken in Afghanistan.

“They may have our stance on the issue in their files, but we did not raise an objection,” said Vincent Lasser, a Red Cross spokesman.

Source: Associated Press

National day of protest called against hearing on “ecoterrorism”

Washington, DC, Jan. 14— A national day of protest has been scheduled in the US for Feb. 12, 2002, the same day former Earth Liberation Front (ELF) spokesperson Craig Rosebraugh has been subpoenaed to testify before a Congressional Subcommittee hearing on “ecoterrorism” in Washington, DC. Protest organizers have made an open call for direct action on or around the date against the meeting and in support of Rosebraugh, the ELF and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF).

Rosebraugh’s supporters say this latest subpoena is part of a long history of harassment that the ELF spokesperson from 1997-2001 has endured simply for passing on anonymous information and for expressing his opinion. Rosebraugh has already faced seven federal grand jury subpoenas and has had his home and businesses raided twice since 1997. Hundreds of items of property valued at thousands of dollars have been stolen from him by federal agents during these raids. For years he has been followed by federal agents and his communications have been monitored. Rosebraugh says he will not cooperate with the Congressional attempts at stopping the ELF.

A witness subpoenaed to a congressional committee is exposed to many of the same risks as someone called before a grand jury. One does not have the right to remain silent and can not take the Fifth Amendment unchallenged. If the witness refuses to answer any question, no matter how objectionable, they can potentially be sentenced to prison for an indefinite length of time.

Unlike the grand jury process, in which a judge ultimately decides if the witness is to be held in contempt of court, Congressional members themselves make the decision in Congressional committees and subcommittees. Since there is no judge or third party involved in the process, members of Congress can decide to hold Rosebraugh for not talking or for simply not answering in a way they find acceptable.

The Earth Liberation Front is an international underground organization that uses direct action in the form of economic sabotage to stop the destruction of the natural environment. Since 1997 in the United States alone, the ELF has caused well over $40 million in damages to entities profiting from the destruction of the environment. To date only a small handful of people have been arrested and charged with any crimes related to the ELF.

Protests are scheduled to take place on Feb. 12 in Washington, DC, Boston, Los Angeles, and Portland.

Source: Frontline Information Service

Arms buildup is a boon to firm run by Bush Sr., big guns

By Mark Fineman

Washington, DC, Jan. 10— Even by Washington standards, the Carlyle Group has some serious clout.

President George W. Bush’s father works for Carlyle; so does former Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci, whose close friend Donald H. Rumsfeld now runs the Pentagon; and so does a stellar cast of retired generals and Cabinet secretaries, including former Secretary of State James A. Baker III.

And even by Wall Street standards, the Carlyle Group has some serious money: $12.5 billion in investments at last count. The Washington-based private equity firm, which advises and invests for wealthy clients and institutions, has shown returns of more than 34% through the last decade, particularly through timely defense and aerospace investments. So when President Bush declared war on terrorism in September, few were better poised than Carlyle to know how and when to make money.

It’s the first time the president of the United States’ father is on the payroll of one of the largest US defense contractors. Between Baker and Carlucci, not to mention dear old dad, the relationship of the president with this particular company is as tight and close as, well, anyone can imagine.

According to Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity, on a single day last month Carlyle earned $237 million selling shares in United Defense Industries, the Army’s fifth-largest contractor. The stock offering was well timed: Carlyle officials say they decided to take the company public only after the Sept. 11 attacks. The stock sale cashed in on increased congressional support for hefty defense spending, including one of United Defense’s cornerstone weapon programs.

Carlyle’s windfall is a result of astute business decisions, excellent connections, strategic lobbying, good timing and a bit of luck. It is also a prime example of how defense contractors got well in a hurry after the Sept. 11 attacks, in a year when the Bush administration was already planning steep hikes in defense spending.

The ties that bind the president’s family and close advisors to Carlyle have helped draw the confidence of its investors — and the criticism of outsiders.

Carlyle spokesman Chris Ullman said that neither the company nor its managers, directors and advisors have ever personally lobbied for the Crusader or other government contracts now in the hands of United Defense and other Carlyle subsidiaries and investments.

Of Carlucci, Carlyle’s board chairman, and his friendship with the current Defense secretary, Ullman said: “I assure you he doesn’t lobby. That’s the last thing he’d do. You’d have to know Carlucci to know he’d never do that, and you’d have to know Rumsfeld to know it wouldn’t matter.”

But even if Carlyle and Carlucci don’t lobby, their subsidiaries and majority-owned companies do. And documents on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Election Commission (FEC), the Defense Department and Congress show that they do so heavily, strategically and persistently.

By any standard, the Carlyle Group has the right address. Its suite of offices is on Pennsylvania Avenue midway between the White House and Congress — a 15-minute walk to each.

It was founded as a small private-equity firm in 1987 by David M. Rubenstein, a young lawyer who had worked as an aide in Jimmy Carter’s White House, and two investment specialists.

In 1989, Carlucci retired as Ronald Reagan’s Defense secretary and joined Carlyle. Soon after, the company aggressively went after defense and aerospace investments, a specialty for Carlucci and the other former government officials who followed him into Carlyle.

Their investment strategies paid off, not only in defense acquisitions and sales but also in a wide array of corporations. Carlyle’s portfolio quickly grew into the billions of dollars as pension funds and wealthy businessmen and families, including royal sheiks in the Persian Gulf, invested with the firm.

As its reputation grew, so did the group’s star-studded management roster. It added former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. John M. Shalikashvili; Arthur Levitt, the long-serving former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission; former British Prime Minister John Major; former Secretary of State Baker; and former President Bush.

Even the company owned by Osama bin Laden’s estranged billionaire family in Saudi Arabia was among Carlyle’s clients — a mere $2-million investment that Carlyle said it bought out after Sept. 11 “for image reasons,” Ullman said. He declined to say whether the bin Ladens made a profit.

Carlyle bought Arlington, Virginia-based United Defense in October of 1997 for $850 million. The year after Carlyle bought it, United Defense lost $122 million on $1.2 billion in revenue. But under Carlyle’s ownership, United Defense turned around; last year, it reported a net profit of $18.8 million.

Critical to that turnaround was the future of the Crusader artillery system.

United Defense had started work on the Crusader in 1994. The system was, and is, considered the most advanced and lethal artillery on the globe.

It’s also the heaviest. At 110 tons, the Crusader was deemed far too heavy for the rapidly deployable Army that will be needed to fight the sudden and remote conflicts America will face, according to a Pentagon-appointed National Defense Panel that sharply criticized the Crusader in December 1997.

That report fed into what is now the lead edge in post-Cold War Pentagon planning: To transform the US armed forces into a slim, trim fighting force that can move halfway around the globe in a matter of hours and fight in conditions like the Afghan campaign.

And the Crusader, the panel concluded, was anything but mobile.

“Crusader was the gleam in somebody’s eye in the later years of the Cold War,” said Andrew Krepinevich, executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington and a member of the 1997 Defense Panel.

But Krepinevich, who has testified against the Crusader on Capitol Hill in the years since that report, added: “For something so heavy and hard to move as Crusader, it certainly has been a hard target to hit on the Hill. They’ve done a remarkable job in keeping it alive.”

Here’s how:

About the time the Carlyle Group bought United Defense, the United Defense Employees Political Action Committee (PAC) registered with the FEC. Since then, that committee has contributed more than $300,000 to several dozen legislators who have been key supporters of the Crusader and other Pentagon weapon systems that United Defense supplies.

In many cases, the legislators who received the money have other interests in pushing United Defense’s agenda: jobs and commerce in their home states or districts.

Such contributions are business as usual in the industry; larger defense contractors lavish even greater sums on their congressional supporters, FEC records show. Carlyle denies it played any role in creating United Defense’s PAC.

United Defense spokesman Doug Coffey said the contributions are “not anything that would be out of the norm.” The PAC’s creation, he said, was timed not to the Crusader project but to the fact that United Defense became an independent corporation allowed to make such contributions only after Carlyle bought it.

In addition to making its case on Capitol Hill, United Defense sought to answer Pentagon worries. The company redesigned the Crusader — and in record time. Its engineers took 20 tons off the system’s weight, making it light enough to rapidly deploy two of them on a C-17 transport aircraft.

The Army also cut its order to 480 from more than 1,100 Crusader systems, reducing the program’s overall cost to a projected $11 billion. And ever since, a succession of Army chiefs of staff have argued passionately for the program as an essential, leading-edge tool for its battlefield readiness in the 21st century.

Krepinevich and others remain unconvinced. Given that future conflicts more likely will resemble Afghanistan than the Gulf War, he said: “over time, Crusader becomes less and less attractive ... Nobody wants to fight the American military out in the open anyway.”

Krepinevich concluded that the system nonetheless has survived because “there’s a high level of support by United Defense, No. 1; No. 2, by the [congressional] members whose constituents are affected by the health of United Defense. Then, you’ve got the Army. This kind of artillery system pacifies the traditional culture of the Army while it is transitioning to a lighter, more modern force.

“And there simply isn’t the same kind of intensity on Capitol Hill to cancel projects like Crusader, especially in times of bigger defense budgets,” Krepinevich.

Source: Los Angeles Times

Dissecting the domestic anti-abortion terrorist network

By Frederick Clarkson

Jan. 7— Admitted anti-abortion “terrorist” Clayton Waagner, arrested last month by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, might remain a footnote in the White House’s war on terror. But should the Department of Justice decide to treat Waagner — the man who has admitted to sending hundreds of anthrax threats to clinics and abortion rights organizations in October and November — as more than just a lone nut case, and rather as part of a domestic terrorist network, that could all change quickly.

And if the Justice Department decides to pursue this network with the same zeal with which it has pursued foreign terrorist networks in this country, it could expose a network that spreads broadly from the far-right fringe to right-wing politics. Even, indirectly, to the US Attorney General himself.

Waagner signed his anthrax hoax letters “Army of God” — after the violent anti-abortion group he affiliates with. An Army of God adjunct called Prisoners of Christ, meanwhile, gets part of its cash flow from an Oklahoma City company called AmeriVision, which fashions itself as a Christian right version of the liberal Working Assets long-distance phone service. AmeriVision — using the brand name “LifeLine” — “provides 10 percent of our long distance revenues to thousands of organizations that support family values — all part of our Christian commitment of helping others,” according to its Web site. LifeLine’s client list reads like a who’s who of the Christian right: American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, Christian Broadcasting Network, the Christian Coalition, Gun Owners of America and the National Right to Life Committee. For several years LifeLine also partnered with the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.

AmeriVision says it has donated over $50 million to its “partners” in the 10 years of its existence. One of those partners is Prisoners of Christ — whose address is a private postal box four blocks from the White House.

During the time of his announcement for president, then-Sen. John Ashcroft was the Christian right’s favorite contender. To help finance his campaign, Ashcroft made a pilgrimage to Oklahoma City, where he addressed a group of AmeriVision executives at the Oklahoma City Marriott Hotel on Nov. 11, 1997, according to an account in the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Campaign finance reports reveal that top AmeriVision executives kicked at least $26,500 into Ashcroft’s Spirit of America political action committee PAC within days of the candidate’s personal pitch for funds.

Should President Bush’s executive order from mid-October placing “terrorist sanctions” be applied to companies that do business with organizations with ties to domestic terrorists — as with the 62 individuals and businesses whose assets were frozen because of their alleged ties to foreign terrorists — it is conceivable that not only Army of God but, through its connections, AmeriVision could be a target as well. And Ashcroft would find himself in the awkward position of trying to investigate one of his own campaign contributors.

Embarrassment caused by financial contributors is not a new problem for politicians, of course. But contributions from groups with ties to any form of terrorism, of course, are a whole different story. And foes of Army of God — and Ashcroft, who has largely given a cold shoulder to abortion rights groups since taking office — are more than eager to promote Waagner and the group as serious domestic threats.

“This is the first time that these anthrax threat letters have been classified as domestic terrorism,” says Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation, whose members had received over 80 anthrax threats by mail prior to Waagner’s crime spree. “I think there has been a very big change in the way these crimes are being viewed.”

“But,” she says, “until we start looking at these individuals as part of a network that thinks it appropriate to murder people to accomplish their political objectives, we are doomed to looking at individual crimes after they are already committed.”

Working Assets, meanwhile, has mounted its own letter-writing campaign to get the Justice Department to designate the Army of God as a terrorist group. “By even cautious standards,” writes Working Assets president Michael Kieschnick, “the Army of God is clearly a terrorist organization and should be treated as such by the Department of Justice.”

Kieschnick points out that if his campaign succeeds, it would mean that it would be specifically against the law to fund or materially support the Army of God (and, by connection, Prisoners of Christ), just as it would any other terrorist group. Banks and other financial institutions would be obliged to block funds designated for the Army of God and report their actions to the Department of the Treasury.

But many of these groups receive their money directly, and not just through the conservative Christian phone service. Visitors to the Prisoners of Christ Web site are urged to sign up with LifeLine. An announcement next to the ad for LifeLine also urges that checks “for general prisoner needs” should be sent to the White Rose Fund, care of one of the leading institutions in the Army of God network: the Reformation Lutheran Church in Bowie, Maryland.

This church, headed by convicted clinic bomber Rev. Michael Bray, is best known for playing host to a Prisoners of Christ fund-raiser — the annual White Rose Banquet — a name misappropriated from a short-lived World War II-era anti-Nazi resistance group. Convicted anti-abortion felons and their most vocal supporters publicly gather every year on the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade to celebrate their victories and raise funds for their imprisoned martyrs. This year’s event has been announced on the Army of God Web site. Typically about 100 veterans of militant and violent anti-abortion activism gather to network, to raise funds, and to taunt the abortion rights groups and law enforcement agencies that monitor the event closely. Bray, for example, described the attendees at the 1997 banquet as an “august cadre of conspirators.”

Last year’s banquet featured a blatant appeal from convicted arsonist Dennis Malvesi. He thanked those who helped him — without naming names – and called on others to assist those “on the lam, from the lock gluer to the bomber [to] arsonists and snipers.”

The funds raised at the White Rose Banquet are ostensibly for the Prisoners of Christ, which also provides financial support to the most notorious anti-abortion criminals and criminal suspects currently behind bars. The highlight of each year’s banquet is an auction featuring relics of terrorist acts and handicrafts by convicted felons.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the banquet is that it is visible proof that there exists more than just a loose association of individuals or small groups utilizing the name of Army of God. “Nothing secret about that meeting anymore,” observes Tracy Sefl, a sociologist at the University of Illinois who has studied the nexus of these groups. It’s so obvious, she says, that the White Rose Banquet might as well be called the “annual above-ground meeting of the Army of God.”

Frederick Clarkson has reported on the religious right for 15 years. He is the author of “Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy” (Common Courage Press, 1997). Source: Salon.com

Senator revives proposed bill to punish ‘eco-terrorists’

By Don Hopey

Pennsylvania, Jan. 7— A Pennsylvania state senator representing counties around the Allegheny National Forest said he will introduce an “eco-terrorism bill” aimed at making environmental advocates pay if their protests disrupt that area’s timber business.

Although environmental activists said the bill is an attempt to intimidate them by tarring legitimate protests as terrorism, state Sen. Joseph Scarnati, R-Brockway, said his intention is to support the timber industry in northwestern Pennsylvania and ensure its long-term survival.

“This bill has been a long time coming, as preservationists and preservationist groups have continually caused harm to businesses, as well as people in an effort to express their misinformed ideas,” Scarnati said in a news release.

Those convicted of environmental terrorism — defined by the bill as threatening to commit or causing “a crime of violence dangerous to human life or destructive to property or business practices for the primary purpose of expressing a perspective on an environmental cause” — would have to pay restitution equal to the economic loss of the business affected by the protest action.

Scarnati cited no instances of violence or destruction of property perpetrated by environmental activists.

“He cited none because there are none. This is just another attempt in the wake of Sept. 11 to exploit the whole idea of what a terrorist is for political gain,” said Jim Kleissler of the Allegheny Defense Project, a group that has mounted several legal challenges to national forest timber sales and oil and gas well leases.

“This is pointless legislation. All the crimes Scarnati describes in his bill are already punished by law. This is just an attempt to label environmentalists as terrorists for the benefit of his political supporters in industry.”

The Jefferson County senator said he introduced the bill now because of increasing controversies over timbering and oil and gas well drilling in Pennsylvania’s only national forest.

As an example of the kinds of situations where his bill could be applied, Scarnati cited an October 1998 demonstration at Willamette Industries’ Keystone Chipping Mill in Lantz Corners, McKean County, on the eastern edge of the national forest. About 30 people opposed to the mill’s use of trees from public forests blocked log haulers trying to make deliveries to the chip mill, which supplies wood chips to composite wood product producers and paper mills.

Some of the protesters chained themselves to the mill gate or a 30-foot tower they erected in the roadway before voluntarily dispersing at midday. Police arrested two demonstrators, charging them with misdemeanor disorderly conduct and trespassing.

A spokesman for Willamette said at the time that although the demonstrators prevented access by loaded logging trucks to the chip mill, they didn’t affect operations at the company’s paper mill.

Scarnati, a first-term senator, has consistently supported the timber industry. Last year during discussions on an appropriations bill, he threatened to withhold money from the University of Pittsburgh because law professor Tom Buchele, working after hours as a private attorney, represented the Allegheny Defense Project in a case challenging a timber sale by the national forest. Scarnati also sponsored an amendment to an appropriations bill that prohibited use of state money by Pitt’s Environmental Law Clinic, where Buchele is the director.

Scarnati lists 11 cosponsors for Senate Bill 1257, including Sens. Mary Jo White, R-Butler; Gerald LaValle, D-Rochester; Sean Logan, D-Monroeville; Jay Costa Jr., D-Forest Hills; and Jane Orie, R-McCandless.

Costa said yesterday he hasn’t reviewed the entire bill but thought it was aimed at holding terrorists financially responsible for intentional damages done to natural resources like water supplies. He said he is reluctant to support restitution for economic losses and may reconsider his endorsement of the legislation.

“I didn’t link it to the protests at the Allegheny National Forest. I signed on to the concept of ‘eco-terrorism’ where individuals or groups intentionally destroy a property, contaminate a river or reservoir or cause harm to an individual,” Costa said. “The fact that the bill is geared toward possibly stifling free speech on environmental issues is not what I envisioned.”

Scarnati said he will press for quick passage of the bill, before the Senate’s summer recess at the end of June.

Source: Post-Gazette

Bush donors prepare another wish list

By Jim Vandehei and Tom Hamburger

Washington, DC, Jan. 8— President Bush’s big-business donors, who reaped handsome returns on their political investments in 2001, are hoping for continued dividends this year. Corporate lobbyists are looking to Bush to press Congress for tax breaks on depreciation expenses and new protections from lawsuits, and to resist any health-care changes that could raise costs for employers.

Business interests also expect Bush to move administratively to relax workplace and environmental rules.

“All spinning aside, there is general feeling George W. Bush has been a great president for the business community,” says Dirk Van Dongen, president of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors trade group and a top Bush fund-raiser.

John Castellani of the Business Roundtable predicts Bush will continue to be “very responsive” to corporate requests leading up to the midterm elections this fall.

Top administration officials, led by political adviser Karl Rove, have been meeting with industry lobbyists in recent weeks seeking input on the president’s 2002 agenda. Monday, Rove huddled with Bush economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey and a group of business lobbyists to discuss corporate-tax cuts, according to participants.

Business interests have given Bush millions of reasons to listen: Corporations and corporate officials provided Bush’s presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee with the majority of its money for the 2000 election.

Since then, corporations have pumped tens of millions more dollars into the RNC and party campaign coffers controlled by the president.

While labor unions and trial lawyers have shown similar allegiance to Democrats, the GOP, under Bush, has seized a commanding advantage in fund raising, thanks in large part to big corporations.

During the first half of 2001, the RNC raised more than twice as much as the Democratic National Committee (DNC): $143 million compared with $70 million.

Democrats plan to make Bush’s relationship with corporate donors the centerpiece of the party’s strategy for the November elections, according to Democratic strategists. They believe Bush and the GOP are vulnerable to attacks that their policies favor companies at the expense of workers.

This line of attack failed to dent Bush’s popularity late last year. Still, Democrats contend that as the war in Afghanistan winds down, the public will become increasingly frustrated with what they see as the president’s pro-business policies.

The White House denies that business interests — or their political fundraising — drive Bush’s policies.

“The president’s agenda is driven by what’s best for the American people,” White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan says.

Regardless of what happens in the year ahead, Democrats say the president has provided them with plenty of ammunition during his first year in office. He overturned worker-safety rules, rejected an international global-warming treaty, and rolled back numerous pro-labor laws backed by former President Clinton.

Many of the business community’s top priorities likely will fall victim to election-year politicking and a tight federal budget, but here is a quick look at what companies will ask for in the new year.

Tax breaks: Corporate lobbyists continue to press for tax breaks in a variety of shapes and sizes. They want Bush to strike a quick deal on an economic-stimulus package; the version passed by the House would provide relief from the corporate alternative-minimum tax and a 30% bonus right off for new capital investments.

AMR Corp., parent of American Airlines and several chemicals companies, will push for legislation to write off more of their operating losses, dating back to 2000. The National Federation of Independent Businesses, which represents many of Bush’s small-business donors, is seeking a tax break for people who work from home, perhaps as large as $2,000 a person.

Health care: Pfizer Inc., the president’s biggest donor from the pharmaceuticals industry, and other companies are promoting a market-based drug benefit for seniors. They have encouraged the president to consider including the idea in his State of the Union speech this month. Drug makers oppose any price controls or Democrat-backed solutions that would limit their market share or profit potential, according to industry lobbyists.

White House officials said the president is prepared to fight for “a market-based remedy”. Industry officials also look to expand the number of people eligible to use and contribute to medical-savings accounts.

Tort-Law curbs: Health insurers will be among those urging Bush to limit lawsuits on several fronts. Many big corporations are also renewing their campaign to limit suits filed against health-maintenance organizations, a crucial tenet in final negotiations over a pending patients’ bill of rights.

Energy: Southern Co., of Atlanta, and other utilities are pressing Bush to clarify the Clinton administration’s “new source review” rules that require installation of new pollution-control equipment when plants are upgraded. Southern and other energy companies will continue to push for a new energy policy, rich in tax breaks and regulatory relief. Bush plans to repackage his energy policy as a crucial component of national security, in hopes of getting Senate Democratic leaders to drop their opposition.

Regulatory: United Parcel Service Inc., of Atlanta, and others are lobbying the Labor Department to come out with worker-safety guidelines, instead of strict regulations favored by many Democrats. Administration officials said Bush is leaning toward business-backed guidelines and likely will unveil them in the next few weeks. Source: Wall Street Journal

Bush makes controversial appointments during Senate recess

Compiled by Eamon Martin

Washington, DC, Jan. 11— Circumventing Senate opposition, President Bush signed recess appointments Friday for conservatives Otto Reich as the chief US diplomat in Latin America and Eugene Scalia as the top lawyer for the Labor Department.

The White House gave Congress formal notification of the long-discussed appointments and then announced the president’s decision without comment.

Because Bush exercised his authority while Congress was in recess, Reich, a Cuban-American, and Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, will be allowed to serve until Congress recesses again at the end of the year.

Conservatives applauded Bush for bypassing the Senate.

Thomas L. Jipping, director of the Center for Law & Democracy, said that Senate Democrats played “vindictive partisan games” with the nominations, and so “the president is forced to use his recess appointment powers in situations that America’s founders did not intend.”

Congressional leaders opposed to the pair called Bush’s decision regrettable.

“I continue to believe that Mr. Scalia is not the right person for this important Labor Department position. His record and experience do not reflect a commitment to the rights of America’s workers,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachussetts.

And Christopher Dodd, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that refused to give Reich a hearing, issued a statement calling him a lame duck.

“There are many difficulties in the region (Latin America) and it is unfortunate that US foreign policy in the region is being sacrificed for a narrow domestic political agenda,” said Dodd (D-Conn.).

Reich, who emigrated from Cuba to the United States in 1960 at the age of 15, is chiefly known for his role in the mid-1980s as the head of the State Department’s Office of Latin American Public Diplomacy, which was set up and run by the White House primarily as a mechanism for boosting the Nicaraguan contra cause in the United States.

In 1987, the General Accounting Office (GAO), Congress’ investigative arm, described the unit’s operations as “prohibited, covert propaganda activities” that included writing and disseminating columns and other material in the name of contra leaders for publication in US newspapers.

At one point, five intelligence experts from the Army’s psychological operations unit, as well as veteran Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers, were working with Reich on propaganda and related activities -- all of which was banned under US law, according to another Congressional report.

He also was known in media circles for his angry and bullying calls to editors to complain about reporting which reflected negatively on the contras. At one point, he accused National Public Radio (NPR) here of acting like “Radio Havana on the Potomac”, a reference to the river that separates Washington, DC from the neighboring state of Virginia.

At the end of his tenure, however, Reich was rewarded with the ambassadorship to Venezuela -- just as the Iran-contra investigation was gaining momentum.

While his three-year tenure in Caracas was less controversial, subsequently declassified State Department cables showed an abiding interest by Reich in the release from Venezuelan prison of Cuban-American exile Orlando Bosch, who was charged with masterminding the bombing of a Cuban airliner over Barbados, which killed all 73 people aboard.

Upon his release and deportation to the United States in 1990, then-President George Bush pardoned Bosch for terrorist acts of which he was convicted in a US court in the late 1960s.

After leaving government, Reich became a high-paid lobbyist for several big multinational corporations, including British American Tobacco (BAT); Lockheed-Martin, which two years ago persuaded Clinton to lift a 24-year-old US ban on introducing advanced warplanes into Latin America; and Bacardi-Martini, the rum maker and major beneficiary of the Helms-Burton Act, key sections of which were drafted by Reich.

Editorials in the New York Times, among other newspapers, have argued that Reich is not the best man for the job, while the Los Angeles Times said Wednesday Bush’s nomination “caused people here and abroad to shudder, their memories flooding with images from the bad old days of the Cold War.”

Reached in Israel, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican, approved of Reich’s appointment, saying, “South America is burning up, and we are looking the other way,” Ros-Lehtinen said. “Otto is going to be a great fire extinguisher.”

Top presidential appointments are subject to Senate confirmation. The Senate’s Democratic leaders refused to consider Scalia or Reich before the chamber adjourned last month until Jan. 23.

The Constitution gives the president the power during Senate recesses to install nominees, without Senate approval, until the end of the next session of Congress.

Scalia’s nomination to Labor Department solicitor had squeaked by the Senate Health, Education and Labor Committee, which Kennedy chairs.

Unions lobbied intensely to defeat the Washington labor lawyer, in part for his opposition to Clinton-era ergonomics rules killed by Congress last spring that were aimed at reducing workplace injuries. Scalia criticized the regulations as “quackery” based on “junk science.”

At his confirmation hearing, Scalia said he thought ergonomics-related injuries did exist but that the regulation issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration last year went too far.

Scalia becomes the Labor Department’s top lawyer — and third highest-ranking officer — in charge of enforcing nearly all federal labor laws and worker protections.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called Bush’s appointment of Scalia “a slap in the face of American workers.”

“This is an appointment that by all standard rules should not have happened,” Sweeney said.

Sources: AFL-CIO, IPS, Miami Herald, Truthout.com