This Was the Week That Was
#37---January 13 – January 19

While the Democratic Party presidential aspirants were busy flagellating each other in the
Hawkeye state, the Shrub and his cronies have been very active. Bypassing Congress, Shrub
appointed Mississippi Judge Charles Pickering to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Pickering
was opposed by civil rights groups. Almost half of his decisions had been rejected “for vilating
well-settled principles of law involving civil rights, civil liberties, criminal procedures and labor
rights.”

Moonstruck...Saluting the successful landing of the Mars explorers, Shrub announced his support
of a program to establish a lunar base and to develop a mission to Mars. While the announcement
surely was part of building his Presidential image, the establishment news media overlooked the
fact that this is a part of a military strategy to control space. Moreover, we can expect that the
usual cast of defense contractors will be called upon to develop the new space mission
technology.

Miracle of Salvation....Pushing his faith-based programs to give religious groups greater access to
federal money, Shrub declared this week that “problems that seem impossible to sole, can be
solved.” How? By the “miracle of salvation.” (Associated Press)

This week the Supreme Court made it easier for the Feds to arrest people without specifying
charges and to hold them in jail indefinitely. The Court rejected an appeal from 23 news
organizations groups who sought the disclosure of those detained or imprisoned following
September 11. The Court’s ruling also facilitated depriving prisoners of their right to counsel.
(Associated Press)

The road less traveled...The Court went further this week ruling that police may set up roadblocks
and stop drivers just to ask them for information supposedly about crimes having been committed.
All of the Justices agreed that roadblocks serve the public interest important enpugh to outweigh
the Fourth Amendment which prohibits unreasonable detention. (Washington Post)

Annals of Corporate Crime....The Securities and Exchange Commission in a review of brokerage
firms found that 13 of 15 they investigated were receiving payoffs for steering clients to
companies who paid them of for doing so. (Washington Post)

J.P. Morgan Chase announced it was acquiring Bank One making them the second largest bank.
The result of the merger will likely cost a loss of 10,000 jobs and an increase in bank fees and
credit card costs. (Chicago Tribune)

A class act.....While Republicans in Congress have been leading an attempt to limit settlements in
class action suits on the grounds that such suits have been driving up the costs of doing business,
a new study released this week indicated that settlements have not increased over the past ten
years. (New York Times)


The Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute published a critical report of the Shrub’s Iraq
policy referring to it as “unrealistic” and having driven the Army to “near the breaking point.” The
writer, a faculty member of the Air War College, also described the Shrub’s anti-terrorism
campaign as “dangerously indiscriminate” and “strategically unfocused.” (Knight Ridder)

On the environmental front....Sir David King, the chief science advisor to Tony Blair, wrote in
Science this week that “climate change is the most severe problem... even more serious than the
threat of terrorism.” The 10 hottest years on record started in 1991.

Denial and Deceit....A report originally issued by the Department of Health and Human Services
in December on racial disparities in health care. was recalled and rewritten. The National
Healthcare Disparities report documented racial/ethnic discrimination in the diagnosis and
treatment of cancer, heart disease, AIDS, pediatric illness, psychological disorders, as well as in
surgical procedures and nursing services. The report was rewritten to give it a positive spin such
as playing up the administration’s “Take a Loved One to the Doctor Day.”

Pennies from heaven.....The City of Seattle agreed this week to pay $250,000 to persons illegally
arrested during the 1999 World Trade Organization protests. The judge said that the police had
no probable cause for the arrests. The City did not admit liability and refused to issue an apology.

Factoid of the Week....When columnist Robert Novak printed the name of an undercover CIA
agent, the Shrub indignantly denounced the act saying that the White House would search out
those responsible for leaking it to the press. Seventy-four days later, he did call for an
investigation. When former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill told the press that Shrub had a hard
time following what went on at his cabinet meetings and that he and his staff had begun talking
about an invasion of Iraq from the moment they entered the office, it took only one day for the
administration to begin an investigation of O’Neill on the grounds that he might have revealed top
secret information.

This week in history....IWW songwriter Ralph Chaplin writes "Solidarity Forever," hymm of the US labor movement, for march organized by Lucy Parsons in Chicago (1915); General strike of workers wins 8 hour day in Peru (1919); Revolutionary socialists Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg murdered in Berlin (1919); African American activist-leader Martin Luther King, Jr. born (1929); Death penalty decreed for strikers in Hungary in aftermath of the 1956 Revolution (1957); General strike in Bolivia demands living wage (1996); General strike against government austerity shuts down Nigeria (2002).