"Iraq'd." Self-identified "pro-war liberal" Spencer Ackerman's blog on The New Republic Web site is designed for those who think that even though Bush invaded on what we later learned were flimsy pretexts, we're still obliged to stay and fix the mess. In his May 13 posting, you can read how courageous Donald Rumsfeld is -- at least according to him -- as he tells hundreds of U.S. soldiers in Baghdad that he's a "survivor" of bureaucratic warfare in the trenches of Washington ... then dodges their questions about why they're inadequately equipped. www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd?pid=1654
"Proposal for New HSA Tax Deduction Found Likely to Increase the Ranks of the Uninsured." One result of the Medicare "reform" W. backed was Health Savings Accounts, ostensibly an alternate means of health-care funding for uninsured people. But as Edwin Park and Robert Greenstein write for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (May 10), what HSAs do best is provide roomy tax shelters for the rich (who seldom lack for health care). What's more, a new HSA-based tax deduction proposed by the White House would both suck billions out of the budget and encourage employers to drop health coverage for employees (or decrease their contributions to it), thus growing the number of uninsured Americans. www.cbpp.org/5-10-04health.htm
"Red Cross Report Describes Abuse in Iraq (Full Report)." At least initially, the media seemed to assent to official proclamations that American abuse of Iraqi prisoners "was the wrongdoing of a few." But a report released May 10 by the International Committee of the Red Cross suggests that not only were such abuses widespread, "tantamount to torture," and being visited upon prisoners who were mostly arrested by mistake -- they were also known to U.S. officials, who'd been informed of them by the Red Cross throughout 2003. See the Associated Press article (May 10) by Alexander G. Higgins on the Truthout Web site, where you can also download the full Red Cross report. www.truthout.org/index.htm
"Smear Boat Veterans for Bush." Jack Kelly, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's resident right-wing hatchet man, is among those spreading the, um, word about Swift Boat Veterans for Justice and its supposedly nonpartisan attempt to call John Kerry's military service into question. Hear columnist Joe Conason on radio show Counterspin reveal the ties to the Bush Administration binding, among others, Swift Boat's John E. O'Neill -- a longtime Kerry antagonist and partner in a Bush-linked Houston law firm. www.fair.org/counterspin/050704
