Bad Deeds for 5-6-2009

Bush Officials Try to Alter Ethics Report – Former Bush administration officials are launching a behind-the-scenes lobbying campaign to urge Justice Department leaders to soften an ethics report criticizing lawyers who blessed harsh detainee interrogation tactics, according to two sources familiar with the efforts. “In recent days, attorneys for the subjects of the ethics probe have encouraged senior Bush administration appointees to write and phone Justice Department officials, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process is not complete.

 

US Interrogators May Have Killed Dozens, Human Rights Researcher and Rights Group Say – United States interrogators killed nearly four dozen detainees during or after their interrogations, according a report published by a human rights researcher based on a Human Rights First report and follow-up investigations. In all, 98 detainees have died while in US hands. Thirty-four homicides have been identified, with at least eight detainees — and as many as 12 — having been tortured to death, according to a 2006 Human Rights First report that underwrites the researcher’s posting. The causes of 48 more deaths remain uncertain.

 

Limbaugh Says Republicans Don’t Need to Listen to the People; Eric Cantor Disagrees with Himself So That He Can Agree With Limbaugh – Rep. Eric Cantor led a much-publicized GOP listening tour this past weekend — or so we all thought. “What we’re trying to do here today is kick off a series of town hall forums so that we can get back to listening to the people,” Cantor told CNN on Sunday morning as he kicked off the rebranding effort. “Listening to people can make a difference,” declared Mitt Romney while sitting on stage with Cantor during the first event. “That’s what we’re talking about here, we’re listening to people.”

But then Rush Limbaugh spoke up. “We do not need a listening tour,” the conservative radio king made clear on Monday. “We need a teaching tour. That is what the Republican Party, or, slash, the conservative movement needs to focus on. Listening tour ain’t it.”

And so it was on Wednesday morning, when Eric Cantor appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, that he cleared the matter up. “You know, Joe, really, this is not a listening tour.”

 

Records Show Appointees Gave Gov. Perry $5 Million – Texas Gov. Rick Perry has accepted nearly $5 million in political campaign donations from people he appointed to state boards and commissions, including some in plum jobs that set policy for state universities, parks and roads, records show. Nearly half the appointee donations came from people serving as higher education regents, including more than $840,000 from those at the University of Texas System, according to a Houston Chronicle review of campaign-finance records.

In some cases, Perry’s appointees gave money in the weeks before or after being selected. A commissioner on the Prepaid Higher Education Tuition Board, for example, gave $33,000 two weeks after his appointment. Rick Francis, an El Paso banker who has donated more than $180,000 to Perry, including a $25,000 donation six days before his appointment to the Texas Tech University Board of Regents, said he was proud to support the governor financially.

 

Democrat Leading Charge Against Global Warming Bill – Democrat Rick Boucher (D-VA) supports reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 — but he’s leading the charge to water down the first-ever legislation to control greenhouse gases. A key moderate Democrat from coal country, Boucher solidified his resistance to Democrats’ massive carbon trade global warming bill after being ousted from his seat on an energy committee, according to a report Tuesday.

 

Merck Published Fake Medical Journal – In its efforts to sell fatally flawed drugs, Merck produced and published a fake journal, the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine. Articles called “Reviews” were generally brief, poorly documented, poorly or not referenced, and often didn’t give authors’ names, other than to specify “B&J”, presumably meaning “Bone and Joint” as a reference to the fake journal. Most, if not all, of the studies were reprints or summaries of existing studies that had previously been printed in Elsevier journals.

 

The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 Gave Tax Breaks to Corporations, But Didn’t Create Jobs – The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 allowed companies that had earned profits overseas to inexpensively bring that money back into the States. The customary tax rate on such profits was 35 percent. But this elegantly named process — repatriation of profits — gave companies a one-time chance four years ago to haul the money home, paying only 5.25 percent. The act was a tax holiday sought by a coalition of companies, primarily big pharmaceutical and high-technology corporations, all because they sought to pay little or no taxes on profits generated overseas — and they concocted a successful scheme to pull it off. But did the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 actually lead to a net gain in jobs? Nope. Did it provide “a new source of investment for American companies”? Not even close.

Regards,

Jim