Clippings for 22 November 2008

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This Is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites and Noecons to Watch for in Obama's White House
Jeremy Scahill writes on AlterNet: "U.S. policy is not about one individual, and no matter how much faith people place in President-elect Barack Obama, the policies he enacts will be fruit of a tree with many roots. Among them: his personal politics and views, the disastrous realities his administration will inherit, and, of course, unpredictable future crises. But the best immediate indicator of what an Obama administration might look like can be found in the people he surrounds himself with and who he appoints to his Cabinet. And, frankly, when it comes to foreign policy, it is not looking good."

Recommended Audio: The Changing Media Policy in the Obama Administration
From Chicago Public Radio: President-elect Barack Obama will have a chance to dramatically remake the FCC. Free Press co-founder and communications professor Robert McChesney discusses what's ahead.

Shift Seen in Telecom Regulation
BRODY MULLINS and AMY SCHATZ write for the Wall street Journal: "The telecom industry is bracing for a new era. New congressional leaders as well as policy makers in the Obama administration are expected to press for fresh limits on media consolidation and require phone and cable firms to open their networks to Internet competitors."

Waxman Dethrones Gingell as Chairman
Patrick O'Conner writes for Politico: "California Rep. Henry A. Waxman on Thursday officially dethroned longtime Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell, upending a seniority system that has governed Democratic politics in the House for decades."

Why Obama Can Keep Gates
Joe Conason writes for Truthdig.com: "As Barack Obama makes his way through the transition to power, he is learning the steps of an old dance. Having promised change, he now surrounds himself with experience. Having poured scorn not only on the Bush administration but at times on the Clinton administration as well, he now welcomes those who served his Democratic predecessor, including the former first lady who ran against him. And having roundly denounced current foreign and military policies, he may very well ask Defense Secretary Robert Gates to remain in place. "

Will Tom Daschle Be the Secretary of HHS the Reproductive Rights Community Wants?
Amie Newman writes for RH Reality Check: "According to The Los Angeles Times, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle has accepted President-elect Obama's offer to become the new secretary of health and human services. Daschle is currently a fellow with the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank. It was originally reported that he would oversee Obama's health policy working group, but with this appointment, it's unclear what his role will be in that regard."

Obama Names 7 Gays to Transition Team
Lou Chibbaro writes for the Washington Blade: "Officials with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team this week named at least seven openly gay people to transition panels assigned to review federal departments and agencies. Three of the seven gays named to the transition panels — businessman Fred P. Hochberg, former San Francisco Supervisor Roberta Achtenberg, and labor attorney Elaine Kaplan — held high-level positions in the Clinton administration."

A Media Parable for "the Center"
Norman Solomon writes for Truthout: "It's been 16 years since a Democrat moved into the White House. Now, the fog of memory and the spin of media are teaming up to explain that Barack Obama must hew to 'the center' if he knows what's good for his presidency. 'Many political observers,' The San Francisco Chronicle reported days ago, say that Obama 'must tack toward the political mainstream to avoid miscalculations made by President Bill Clinton, who veered left and fired up the 1994 Republican backlash.' This storyline provides a kind of political morality play: The new president tried to govern from the left, and Democrats lost control of Congress just two years later. But, if facts matter, the narrative is a real head-scratcher."

Big Media: Screw the Auto Workers
Jonathan Tasini writes for the Huffington Post: "Memo to the traditional media: You want to see the auto industry go down? Fine. But, at least try to give the facts about what workers have undergone in the industry -- an assignment that most of the traditional media could not live up to in its coverage of hearings on the proposed bailout."

Employee Free Choice Act Would Restore Worker Protections
Aaron T. Knapp writes in The San Francisco Chronicle: "Legislation that makes it easier for workers to form unions died in the Senate last year but union advocates are hoping Barack Obama can perform some CPR. Obama has said that if the Employee Free Choice Act comes across his desk, then he will sign it into law. Still, union interests probably shouldn't count their chickens. The filibuster remains, as does a powerful anti-union lobby, to derail this legislation."

Time for a Bank Holiday
William Greider writes for The Nation: "Henry Paulson's $700 billion plan to save the world is dead or dying, but the bailout was not killed by his arrogance or his grossly misleading claims about what the public's money would buy. The plan collapsed because it didn't work. The Treasury secretary has launched a PR offensive to revive his falling influence. Too late. The Democrats should be equally embarrassed. In September their leaders in Congress rushed to embrace the Paulson solution, no hard questions asked. They now claim they were duped."

Buried Secrets: Is Natural Gas Drilling Endangering US Water Supplies?
Abrahm Lustgarten reports for ProPublica: "In July, a hydrologist dropped a plastic sampling pipe 300 feet down a water well in rural Sublette County, Wyoming, and pulled up a load of brown oily water with a foul smell. Tests showed it contained benzene, a chemical believed to cause aplastic anemia and leukemia, in a concentration 1,500 times the level safe for people."

President for 60 Days More: Bush Tearing Apart Protection for America's Wilderness
Suzanne Goldenberg writes for The Guardian UK: "George Bush is working at a breakneck pace to dismantle at least 10 major environmental safeguards protecting America's wildlife, national parks and rivers before he leaves office in January."

How the Rich are Destroying the Planet
Herve Kempf's new book: "There is an emergency. In less than a decade we will have to change course -- assuming the collapse of the U.S. economy or the explosion of the Middle East does not impose a change through chaos. To confront the emergency, we must understand the objective: to achieve a sober society; to plot out the way there; to accomplish this transformation equitably, by first making those with the most carry the burden within and between societies; to take inspiration from collective values ascribed to here in France by our nation's motto: "Liberty, ecology, fraternity."

Stuff Happens: The Pentagon's Argument of Last Resort on Iraq
Tom Engelhardt writes for TomDispatch.com: "It's the ultimate argument, the final bastion against withdrawal, and over these last years, the Bush administration has made sure it would have plenty of heft. Ironically, its strength lies in the fact that it has nothing to do with the vicissitudes of Iraqi politics, the relative power of Shiites or Sunnis, the influence of Iran, or even the riptides of war. It really doesn't matter what Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki or oppositional cleric Muqtada al-Sadr think about it. In fact, it's an argument that has nothing to do with Iraq and everything to do with us, with the American way of war (and life), which makes it almost unassailable."

US Right Stymies Sensitive Medical Research
Andrew Jack reports for The Financial Times UK: "Important US research to reduce HIV infection may have been prevented in recent years because scientists have censored their funding requests in response to political controversy, according to a study published on Tuesday."

The Wrong Place to Be Chronically Ill
The New York Times writes in an opt-ed: "Chronically ill Americans suffer far worse care than their counterparts in seven other industrial nations, according to a new study by the Commonwealth Fund, a New York-based foundation that has pioneered in international comparisons. It is the latest telling evidence that the dysfunctional American health care system badly needs reform."

FCC Stuck in the Netscape Era
Matthew Lasar writes for ars technica: "Something has got to be done about the FCC Web site, which still looks like it was thrown together 10 years ago. The only people who can really access it are telecom lawyers, public interest groups, and wonks who have dedicated years to exploring its mysteries."

More Groups Call for National Broadband Strategy
Grant Gross writes for IDG News Service: "Iraq War veteran Randy Hickman had a better Internet connection while deployed than he does at his home in rural Alabama. Hickman, a member of the Alabama National Guard, said many soldiers were able to communicate with their families through video conferencing while deployed in Iraq, but his family had only dial-up Internet service not capable of transmitting video."

The Morning After, Voting Problems Remain
David Herbert writes in the National Journal: "Anyone walking through Election Protection's headquarters on Nov. 4 could have been forgiven for thinking the invasion of a small country was under way rather than an election. Dozens of volunteers fielded calls from harassed or confused voters in a command center complete with a 20-foot-high wall of digital maps and statistics. Upstairs, teams of lawyers hunched around conference tables littered with soda cans and cups of cold coffee, working the phones and dispatching legal teams to troubled polling stations ..."