Representative Slaughter demands answers on Gannongate:

According to several credible reports, “Mr. Gannon” has been repeatedly credentialed as a member of the White House press corps by your office and has been regularly called upon in White House press briefings by your Press Secretary Scott McClellan, despite the fact evidence shows that “Mr. Gannon” is a Republican political operative, uses a false name, has phony or questionable journalistic credentials, is known for plagiarizing much of the “news” he reports, and according to several web reports, may have ties to the promotion of the prostitution of military personnel…And just this morning we have learned that “Mr. Gannon” has resigned his post at the, so called, Talon News amid growing concerns over his controversial background and falsified qualifications. In fact, it appears that “Mr. Gannon’s” presence in the White House press corps was merely as a tool of propaganda for your Administration.

Mr. President, I am sure we both agree the White House Press Corps is an honored institution in America that should be beyond the scope of partisan meddling, and that a free and independent media is the cornerstone of our success as a democracy. Likewise, I am sure we can both agree the American people have the right to expect that journalists who question their President everyday are experienced, independent, and perhaps most importantly, unbiased in their approach. I was already concerned about what appears to be an organized campaign to mask partisan propaganda as legitimate news by your Administration. That we have now learned this same type of deception is occurring inside the White House briefing room itself is even more disturbing. That is why I am asking you to please explain to the Congress and to the American people how and why the individual known as “Mr. Gannon” was repeatedly cleared by your staff to join the legitimate White House press corps?

And, as Salon reports, it gets worse:

Last year Gannon and Talon made a blip on the Beltway radar over an interview Gannon did with former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson, whose wife, Valerie Plame, was exposed as a CIA agent by conservative columnist Robert Novak. That potentially illegal disclosure prompted an independent counsel investigation. Gannon apparently attracted investigators’ attention when, in the interview with Wilson, he referred to an unclassified document that may have been distributed to conservative allies in the press to bolster the administration’s case that it was Wilson’s wife who suggested he be sent to Niger to investigate the claim that Iraq tried to purchase uranium, or yellowcake, from the African nation.

It’s likely Talon and Gannon would have remained obscure had the swaggering reporter not popped his now famous question to Bush…Gannon asked Bush, “Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy.” He continued, “[Minority Leader] Harry Reid was talking about soup lines, and Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet, in the same breath, they say that Social Security is rock solid and there’s no crisis there. How are you going to work — you said you’re going to reach out to these people — how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?” Reid never made any such comment about soup lines. That afternoon conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh crowed that Gannon’s question was “a repeat, a rehash, of a precise point I made on this program yesterday.”

Bush has nominated Ronald Meisburg, who as a recess appointment has served as a reliable anti-union vote on defining legal standards of employer deviancy down and eroding legal protections for workers, to serve four years on the National Labor Relations Board. From the Labor Law Blog:

During his recess appointment, Member Meisburg consistently sided with his Republican colleagues over his Democratic counterparts in cases involving important policy issues. See Harborside Healthcare Inc., 343 NLRB No. 100 (2004) (articulating standard for prounion supervisory conduct and finding that supervisors engaged in objectionable conduct by soliciting authorization cards); Crown Bolt Inc., 343 NLRB No. 86 (2004) (refusing to presume dissemination of plant closure threats); Oakwood Care Center, 343 NLRB No. 76 (2004) (overruling Clinton Board decision on user and user/supplier employee units); Brown University, 342 NLRB No. 42 (2004) (holding that graduate assistants are not statutory employees); Dana Corp., 341 NLRB No. 150 (2004) (granting review to determine whether to maintain the voluntary recognition bar); IBM Corp., 341 NLRB No. 148 (2004) (holding that nonunion employees are not entitled to a coworker at investigatory meeting). On the other hand, Member Meisburg was the Republican most likely to break from his party colleagues and join a Democrat to find that an employer violated the Act. These cases turned more on their facts than on an issue of law.

A genuine threat:

North Korea today publicly acknowledged for the first time that it has nuclear weapons and rejected recent attempts to restart disarmament talks soon.
In a statement from the foreign ministry, Pyongyang said it needed the weapons as protection against an increasingly hostile United States. The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, reacted by saying North Korea should not worry about any US plans for invasion.

The North Korean statement, which was carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, said: “We … have manufactured nukes for self-defence to cope with the Bush administration’s evermore undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the [North].” North Korea had reportedly already told the US in private that it had nuclear weapons and that it might test one of them. It is thought North Korea may have one or two nuclear weapons but is building its capacity to make more. Analysts said today’s announcement may be a negotiating gambit aimed at improving North Korea’s position in the vexed six-nation talks about its nuclear intentions that started two years ago. The ministry statement said that North Korea retained its “principled stand to solve the issue through dialogue and negotiations and its ultimate goal to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula remain unchanged”.

Wal-Mart Watch: Wal-Mart retaliates against its workers for overcoming its anti-union campaign:

In the latest salvo in a long-running battle between Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and organized labor, the company said Wednesday it will close a Canadian store where about 200 workers are near winning the first-ever union contract from the world’s largest retailer. Wal-Mart said it was shuttering the store in Jonquiere, Quebec, in response to unreasonable demands from union negotiators, that would make it impossible for the store to sustain its business. The United Food & Commercial Workers Canada last week asked Quebec labor officials to appoint a mediator, saying that negotiations had reached an impasse.

“We were hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” said Andrew Pelletier, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Canada. “Despite nine days of meetings over three months, we’ve been unable to reach an agreement with the union that in our view will allow the store to operate efficiently and profitably.” Pelletier said the store will close in May. The retailer had first discussed closing the Jonquiere store last October, saying that the store was losing money. Union leaders promised to fight the move by the retailer, and rejected Wal-Mart’s stated reasons for closing the store. “Wal-Mart has fired these workers not because the store was losing money but because the workers exercised their right to join a union,” Michael J.Fraser, national director of UFCW Canada, said in a written statement. “Once again, Wal-Mart has decided it is above the law and that the only rules that count are their rules.”

A better staff editorial from the YDN:

According to a 2002 report in the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, Yale had the lowest percentage of black tenured professors in the entire Ivy League. (That fact is more distressing given that even at the top-ranked school, Columbia, only 4.3 percent of tenured professors were black.) Likewise, when it comes to the sciences, women are sharply underrepresented, as well. The result is that Yale’s undergraduates suffer, taught by a faculty that is increasingly irreflective of the diversity of the student body…Facing criticism about diversity on its faculty, the University has pursued some worthwhile steps, but often without the urgency or the boldness that suggests the University sees this as a major problem. Now, Yale must convince the University community, along with prospective hires, that this rhetoric is more than lip service intended to defend against public protest. While maintaining its commitment to attracting the best academic talent, Yale must intensify its efforts to recruit throughout the world for underrepresented minorities who are at the top of their fields.

Yale announces its earlier-foreshadowed move on summer opportunities for students on financial aid:

The International Summer Award Program, a pilot plan to begin this summer, will award grants to students for summer options overseas which will be proportional to the level of term-time financial aid they currently receive. Participating financial aid students will receive a grant of $2,250 to fully cover their expected summer earnings contribution, which will be awarded in addition to a personalized grant to pay for their expenditures abroad as determined by students’ individual financial need. Administrators first announced details of the new plan at a meeting with the News on Monday evening. About 125 students — nearly half of the approximately 300 students who officials estimate will study abroad this summer through Yale-sponsored programs — are expected to participate in the ISA program this summer. All of the overseas Bulldogs internship programs, summer language study programs and the Seapine Summer Fellowships fall under the new initiative.

Today’s announcement promises to bring Yale closer to fulfilling its stated goal of removing all financial barriers for students who wish to pursue international opportunities during the summer. “Study abroad and first-hand exposure to foreign cultures are crucial training for those who will live and work in an increasingly global society,” Yale President Richard Levin said in a statement released to the News on Monday. “Providing significant grants for students with financial need will make it possible for them to have an invaluable international experience that is an integral part of their education.” Until now, Yale has not offered any institutional financial aid for these programs outside of competitive, merit-based fellowships.

This represents a meaningful victory towards achieving the much broader goal of comprehensive reform. Lots more work to do.

Inertia on financial aid narrows Yale’s applicants:

Yale is the only Ivy League school to report a decrease in the total number of applications it received this year, with all but one of the eight universities having released their statistics. Applications to Yale decreased by 1.2 percent from 19,675 applications last year to 19,430 applications this year. Princeton received an unprecedented total of 16,077 applications, a 17 percent increase from last year, and Harvard received a record high of 22,717 applications, a 15 percent increase from the total number of applications received for the class of 2008. With a 10 percent increase in applications, Brown also received its highest number of applications yet, with over 16,800 applications. Other Ivy League schools enjoyed significant increases Cornell University, Dartmouth College and Columbia University saw their applications increase by 14 percent, 7 percent and 5.5 percent, respectively. Cornell received over 24,000 applications, Dartmouth received 12,625 applications, and Columbia received 18,236 applications…

Yale Dean of Admissions Richard Shaw said he was not concerned about the small drop in Yale applicants, and that he thought the University — which received a record number of applications last year — was still “way up there” in terms of the aggregate number of applicants. “We have to put this all into context,” Shaw said. “Numbers don’t make the institution. There’s a huge mistake in assuming that because A went up 5 percent, B went up 10 percent and C went down that C is falling from grace. That’s just not true. These trends go up and down. If it was a precipitated drop I’d worry, but we had a record high last year.” But Josh Eidelson ’06, a member of the Undergraduate Organizing Committee, said he thought that the decline in applications to Yale would continue until the University moves towards financial aid reforms in line with reforms Harvard and Princeton have recently instituted…In a Jan. 17 interview with the News, Yale University President Richard Levin said the University was trying to assess whether it should move in the direction of the financial aid reforms implemented by Harvard last year. Levin also said he thought Yale was successful this year in recruiting low-income students.

Montana’s new Democratic majority gives working Montanan’s a raise:

The Senate voted Monday to raise the state’s minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $6.25 over Republican objections that it would actually cost low-income workers jobs because employers couldn’t afford the pay increase. The increase would take effect July 1. Senate Bill 78, by Sen. Dan Harrington, D-Butte, won debate-stage approval by a 30-20 margin, with all 27 Democrats voting for the bill, joined by Republican Sens. John Cobb of Augusta, Sam Kitzenberg of Glasgow and Corey Stapleton of Billings. The bill faces a final Senate vote before heading to the House. Montana’s minimum wage has been fixed at $5.15 an hour since 1997 when the federal minimum wage went up. SB78 set the new minimum wage at $6 an hour, but Sen. Mike Wheat, D-Bozeman, successfully amended it to $6.25 an hour. Wheat said if the Legislature can afford to give its pages – high school aides who run errands for lawmakers – a pay raise to $6.25 an hour, it should set that as the minimum wage for everybody. Another amendment, by Sen. Vicki Cocchiarella, D-Missoula, changed the bill to reflect an agreement reached earlier in the day by the Montana AFL-CIO, Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, Montana Restaurant Association and her. She said it would enhance the bill’s chances in the House, split 50-50 between the parties. Under the deal, when future minimum wage increases pass at the state or federal level, tipped employees such as waiters or waitresses would get half of the increase, with a guarantee they would collect the remaining half in tips. The amendment passed over Harrington’s objections.

The debate over increasing the minimum wage featured the contrasting economic philosophies of the two parties. Harrington called it a “moral question,” saying someone working full time in Montana for the minimum wage now makes about $10,700 a year, which is below the federal poverty level. He said Montana has 5,000 workers, or 2.1 percent of its work force, making $5.15 an hour, while 7,000 workers are paid between $5.16 and $5.64 an hour – 2.9 percent of the work force. “What we are doing here is trying to help the poorest of the poor and give them a standard of living that’s slightly better,” he said, adding that many of these workers are forced to work more than one job.

Everywhere Democrats have a majority, they should be building models of what progressive governance can mean for a state – or for a nation.

Russ Feingold on losing Muslim hearts and minds:

The Malians I met, like the Algerians and Nigerians and Kenyans I have met, do not hate the US, although many have grave concerns about some of our policies. Malians I spoke with had concerns about everything from the invasion of Iraq to the effect of US trade policies on Mali’s textile industry. They are happy to discuss their views on issues of terrorism. But they’re even more interested in talking about their own priority: the fight against poverty, the struggle for a reason to hope that life for their children will be better than life is today. The generous outpouring of American support for tsunami victims in South Asia is a credit to our nation, but it doesn’t make up for our neglect of many other regions. That neglect has serious implications for our security in the post-9/11 world. The US is in a long-term fight against a radical ideological movement in the Islamic world, yet our policy toward many struggling Muslim nations is either shortsighted, underfunded, or both. From Somalia, where we have no policy at all, to Tanzania, where we have no ambassador (despite the fact that terrorists attacked our embassy there in 1998), the US is not rising to the policy challenge. Our indifference can create a vacuum that others – whose interests may clash with our own – can easily fill.

I suspect that Mali hopes to get some much-needed assistance from Iran. Saudi money is funding the establishment of extremist schools and mosques around the world. With a different agenda, the Chinese government is offering the kind of tangible support across Africa that creates goodwill and longstanding relationships, building roads and soccer stadiums, making long-term loans, and trying to secure access to African oil markets. Mali, a Muslim democracy and one of the poorest countries in the world, has attracted more American interest than many of its neighbors, but our diplomats still struggle to find the resources to compete for hearts and minds there. Meanwhile, other forces quietly make their own long-term investments in the region. Many of the Malians who lined the streets to welcome the Iranian president were children. The US needs a policy today that will turn these children into adults who view America as an ally, not an enemy; who will see Americans as partners, not competitors; and who reject international terrorism and those who support it.

Bush proposes a budget to further shake down the poor and the middle class so that the rich will have to sacrifice less:

The president has already vowed to cut or eliminate entirely about 150 nonmilitary programs, including 48 in the Department of Education, that he says have become ineffective. The White House has estimated that this trimming and consolidation can save $20 billion a year…Mr. Bush’s spending plan, which has already sparked opposition on Capitol Hill as details have leaked out, is certain to be furiously debated in the months ahead, and not just on strict party lines. The Senate minority leader, Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, quickly issued a statement calling Mr. Bush’s package “the most irresponsible and misleading budget in our nation’s history.” The budget does not provide for money to finance military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The White House has signaled that it will soon ask Congress for $75 billion to $80 billion more in the current fiscal year for those operations, and in all probability a similar, or larger, sum will be requested once the 2006 fiscal year is under way…Mr. Bush did not back off his oft-stated position that the “temporary” tax cuts enacted over the past several years should be made permanent as their expiration dates come up over the next several years. In fact, his proposed budget assumes that the tax cuts will remain in effect, and that inflation will continue at its moderate pace…And while the budget provides for food stamps for some 29 million people, it pledges to reduce inefficiency and dishonesty in the program, partly by giving states access to a national data base to more easily verify employment and wage information on applications for stamps. The Department of Education’s discretionary spending would fall by 1 percent, to $56 billion. The 48 programs that the White House would eliminate include grants to states to keep drugs out of schools, and other programs to further vocational education. These proposals are likely to ignite complaints in Congress, especially by House members from big cities.

Don’t let anyone get away with calling this “fiscal discipline.”

Reason to be hopeful about Howard Dean’s term at the head of the Democratic National Committee: Unlike many in the party, he seems to have learned the right lesson from the Clinton years:

Howard Dean, the man Democrats are poised to name their new party chair, admires Newt Gingrich more than he does Bill Clinton. We learn this from Fox television’s Major Garrett, who penned The Enduring Revolution: How the Contract With America Continues to Shape the Nation . Garrett interviewed Dean for the book on the GOP revolution that occurred during Clinton’s first term. Dean says Gingrich and former Christian Coalition strategist Ralph Reed “created a real success for the right wing.” Clinton, meanwhile, led the Dems into complacency and defeat.

Here’s hoping Howard Dean gets to work organizing around a Democratic Contract With America – or even better, a democratic social contract for America.