So much for the problem being “bad apples”:

Classified parts of the report by three Army generals on the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison say Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former top commander in Iraq, approved the use in Iraq of some severe interrogation practices intended to be limited to captives held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and Afghanistan. Moreover, the report contends, by issuing and revising the rules for interrogations in Iraq three times in 30 days, General Sanchez and his legal staff sowed such confusion that interrogators acted in ways that violated the Geneva Conventions, which they understood poorly anyway.

Military officials and others in the Bush administration have repeatedly said the Geneva Conventions applied to all prisoners in Iraq, even though members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban held in Afghanistan and Guantánamo did not, in their estimation, fall under the conventions. But classified passages of the Army report say the procedures approved by General Sanchez on Sept. 14, 2003, and the revisions made when the Central Command found fault with the initial policy, exceeded the Geneva guidelines as well as standard Army doctrines.

Wal-Mart Watch: The Globe and Mail reports on what a difference a system of labor law not stacked against employees makes:

After years of dogging Wal-Mart Stores Inc., organized labour has begun to make some surprising inroads at the planet’s largest retailer. But only in Canada, where workers at a handful of stores appear tantalizingly close to winning first contracts.

Max Cleeland show up at George Bush’s doorstep to demand a condemnation of the spurious attacks on Kerry’s Vietnam record:

The Kerry campaign announced Wednesday morning that it would surprise Bush by sending former senator Max Cleland (D-Ga.), who lost three limbs in Vietnam, to his ranch here with a letter asking the president to denounce criticism of Kerry’s war record. But the Bush campaign got word of the stunt — perhaps because it was reported on CNN — and had its own Vietnam veteran waiting for Cleland with a letter defending the criticism of Kerry.

With about 30 journalists watching, the two veterans circled each other in the 95-degree heat at a checkpoint outside the ranch, holding their letters as if they were hand grenades. Then — without exchanging letters — the two retreated to face the cameras at a nearby schoolyard, Cleland demanding Bush denounce ads by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the Bush veteran, identified by the White House as “a representative of the campaign,” praising one of the group’s ads as “very telling.” As Cleland’s white Cadillac approached the checkpoint near Bush’s ranch, a Bush aide signaled another Bush aide, who signaled a third, whereupon a man in a Veterans of Foreign Wars cap and a tie with a shotgun-shell print walked up to meet Cleland. “I have a letter for the president of the United States, and I’d like to hand it to the Secret Service gentleman here,” Cleland announced to the media mob.

As long as the success of welfare reform is measured by politicians and pundits of both parties based on how many people are thrown off of assistance, expect more stories like this one:

Internal government documents show that Washington state made an organized effort to kick families off welfare last year. State officials deny there was a directive. Department of Social and Health Services offices used parties and contests as incentives for workers to reduce caseloads, according to documents obtained by the Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition.

Presumably, there would be some kind of outcry if we were to measure the success of the public school system by how many kids total were leaving it – whether by graduating, dropping out, or however else – each year.

A New York Supreme Court Justice rules against United for Peace and Justice’s right to rally in Central Park on Sunday:

Justice Jacqueline W. Silbermann wrote in her ruling that the protesters’ group, United for Peace and Justice, was “guilty of inexcusable and inequitable delay” in bringing its case against the city. The group sued to try to force the city to grant a permit to rally in the park after months of negotiation failed to produce an agreement on where the demonstration could be held. “The Parks Department appropriately applied content-neutral regulations while leaving plaintiff with a reasonable alternate site suitable with ample means of communication,” the judge wrote…The national coordinator for United for Peace and Justice, Leslie Cagan, told the court on Tuesday that if the antiwar coalition was not allowed on the grass of the Great Lawn, “then we simply can’t have the rally.” Ms. Cagan said later that the group still planned to march up Seventh Avenue past the convention site at Madison Square Garden.

Despite the two unfavorable rulings, many protesters say they still intend to go to the park, permit or not, and officials are making plans to police them. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that the authorities wanted people to come to New York and speak their minds, but that some might “get a little bit over the top.” Speaking before Justice Silbermann’s ruling, Mr. Bloomberg said, “We’ll comply with the law, whatever it is, and we expect everybody to comply with the law.” Asked if he thought people might be frustrated with the extra security measures, Mr. Bloomberg said, “I think New Yorkers look forward to having extra security in this day and age.”

Russia investigates the crash of two planes last night:

Investigators picked through the scattered wreckage today of two Russian passenger jets that crashed nearly simultaneously Tuesday night after leaving Moscow, and reported that they had found flight data recorders for both flights, officials said. At least 89 people died in the crashes, according to the latest tally provided by Domodedovo International Airport, from where both planes took off late Tuesday. As airport security was tightened throughout Russia, it remained unclear whether the crashes were an awful coincidence — a case of two jetliners leaving the same airfield and suffering catastrophic mishaps only minutes apart — or a carefully coordinated terrorist act that originated in Moscow’s most modern airport. Russian officials emphasized that the causes for the crashes had not been found, and urged patience and calm. “The experts are working,” Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin, said in a telephone interview. “They are in the field. But it is a little bit early to be clear of the cause of this great tragedy.” Earlier in the day the Russian news service Interfax, citing an anonymous official, reported that minutes after the first plane went down, the second jet issued a distress signal indicating it had been hijacked. Then it, too, disappeared from radar. Mr. Peskov said he was aware of the report, and that it was being investigated. “It is part of the job of the experts,” he said, but neither dismissed nor endorsed the account. “There is no necessity now for speculation,” he said.

What was that about turning a corner again?

Twenty-two states reported a drop in payroll jobs last month, double the number for June, according to new Labor Department statistics. Among them were six of the states that could decide this fall’s presidential election. The declines in most cases were slight, but they drove home the frailty of the jobs recovery and highlighted risks to President Bush’s re-election strategy. The White House has been counting on consistent, robust growth by now to restore confidence in the economy and counter grim news from Iraq. The battleground states showing job losses in July were Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Pennsylvania and New Mexico, according to Labor Department figures released Aug. 20.

Everyone’s favorite re-election campaign tries to have it’s divisive, discriminatory social agenda and eat it too:

In a political season marked by Republican efforts to outlaw gay marriage, Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday offered a defense of the rights of gay Americans, declaring that “freedom means freedom for everyone” to enter “into any kind of relationship they want to.” Mr. Cheney said the issue was what kind of government recognition to give those relationships, and indicated that he preferred to let the states define what constitutes a marriage. In contrast, President Bushhas argued that a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is essential. Mr. Cheney noted that Mr. Bush sets policy for the administration. In unusually personal remarks on the issue, delivered at a campaign forum in Davenport, Iowa, the vice president referred to his daughter, Mary, who is a lesbian, saying that he and his wife “have a gay daughter, so it’s an issue our family is very familiar with.” He added, according to a transcript of his remarks, provided by the White House, “We have two daughters, and we have enormous pride in both of them.”

He spoke on the same day that a draft version of the Republican platform was distributed to convention delegates that declared, “We strongly support President Bush’s call for a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage.” The draft platform added, “Attempts to redefine marriage in a single city or state could have serious consequences throughout the country, and anything less than a constitutional amendment, passed by Congress and ratified by the states, is vulnerable to being overturned by activist judges.” Gay rights advocates immediately accused the Bush administration of trying to have it both ways, reaching out to moderate voters one week before the party’s convention in New York, after months of advocating a constitutional amendment that was a key goal of social conservatives. “President Bush must be feeling the heat,” Cheryl Jacques, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, said in a statement. “Millions of Republican families, like the Cheneys, have gay friends and family members and are offended by President Bush’s efforts to put discrimination in the Constitution,” Ms. Jacques said. A leading group of social conservatives, the Family Research Council, indicated it was disappointed at the “mixed messages” from the administgation. Anne Womack, Mr. Cheney’s campaign press secretary, said Mr. Cheney’s position had not changed.

Sam Rosenfeld on those blaming Kerry for the Swift Boat smears:

By this logic, if Kerry had decided to make, say, his Senate record as an aggressive investigator of scandals and malfeasance the centerpiece of his candidacy, and then some erstwhile colleagues in those investigations waited until the summer of 2004 to lob utterly unsubstantiated claims that Kerry was actually on the take from BCCI the whole time or actually fabricated the whole arms-for-hostages thing out of whole cloth — well, that would be his fault. He would deserve it. Because, you know, he “invited” the debate.

George W. Bush, soft on homelessness:

Approximately 40,000 D.C. residents are on a waiting list for government housing assistance, according to a spokesman for the D.C. Housing Authority. “This is a scandal. It’s terrible,” said housing authority Vice Chairman Lynn Cunningham, who claims that the list of persons awaiting public housing units or Section 8 rent-assistance vouchers in the District is closer to 50,000. . . Cunningham, a clinical law professor at George Washington University, pointed to declining federal funding for the housing authority’s HOPE (Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere) VI projects as a contributing factor to the lack of available housing. “Across the country, there are $28 billion in backlog in housing needs. Congress has not come forward to meet that need,” Cunningham said.

Kerry sounds some of the right notes on our ongoing craven war on pot:

When responding to a question in Rolling Stone magazine about whether he favored marijuana decriminalization, Kerry said, “No, not quite. What we did in the prosecutor’s office was have a sort of unspoken approach to marijuana that was almost effectively decriminalization. We just didn’t bother with small-time use. It doesn’t rise to the level of nuisance, even. And what we were after was people dealing with heroin and destroying lives, and people who were killing people. That’s where you need to focus.” He also addressed recreational marijuana use by saying, “I’ve met plenty of people in my lifetime who’ve used marijuana and who I would not qualify as serious addicts — who use about the same amount as some people drink beer or wine or have a cocktail. I don’t get too excited by any of that.

Another area, to his credit, where Kerry is at least running to the left of where Clinton ran in ’92. For more on Clinton’s embrace on the war on drugs, and on the insanity of our drug policy, check out Eric Schlosser’s Reefer Madness.