Child hunger in US rose by 50 percent in 2007
By Kate Randall
20 November 2008
Some 691,000 children went hungry in America in 2007, a rise of 50 percent over the previous year, while one in eight Americans overall struggled to feed themselves. The figures are reported in a study on food security conducted annually by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Of the 36.2 million people who struggled with hunger during the year, almost a third of these adults and children faced a substantial disruption to their food supply, meaning they went hungry at some point. The number of these most hungry Americans has grown by more than 40 percent since 2000, rising to 11.9 million individuals in 2007.
These statistics are all the more alarming since they do not reflect the impact of the current economic crisis. James Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, predicted the 2008 numbers would show even more hunger.
"There's every reason to think the increases in the number of hungry people will be very, very large," Weill said, "based on the increased demand we're seeing this year at food stamp agencies, emergency kitchens, Women, Infants and Children clinics, really across the entire social service support structure."
The USDA study covered about 45,600 households, selected as representative of the approximately 118 million households in the US. Households were classified as being "food secure," having "low food security" or having "very low food security," according to their answers to a set of questions, including:
• In the last 12 months, were you ever hungry, but didn't eat, because there wasn't enough money for food?
• Did you or other adults in your household ever not eat for a whole day because there wasn't enough money for food?
Households with children up to 18 years of age were asked additional questions, such as:
• In the last 12 months, did you ever cut the size of any of the children's meals because there wasn't enough money for food?
• In the last 12 months, did any of the children ever skip a meal because there wasn't enough money for food?
Children were identified as having "very low food security" if they lived in households that answered "yes" to 25 percent or more of the questions asked (calculated according to a formula designed by the study).
Some 691,000 children met the criteria. At some point during the year, these children went to school without breakfast, ate meals providing inadequate calories and nutrients, or went to bed hungry. Their families could not provide for them because they did not have the financial resources to do so.
These statistics translate into real and lasting suffering for society's youngest members. Research has shown that hunger and malnourishment have a profound impact on the mental and physical development of preschool and school-aged children. They are more likely to exhibit higher levels of chronic illness, anxiety and depression, and behavioural problems than well-fed children.
Uncertainty about the ability to provide adequate food is devastating for parents and families, both physically and mentally. Of the 4.7 million families estimated to suffer from very low food security, 98 percent worried that their food would run out before they got money to buy more. Some 94 percent reported that they could not afford to eat balanced meals.
Close to a third of these households reported that on occasion an adult did not eat for an entire day because there was not enough money for food. In 45 percent of these households an adult had lost weight because he or she could not afford enough food. Often parents went without so that the children could eat, or the youngest children ate at the expense of older siblings.
Conditions of hunger for these households were not adequately counteracted by assistance from the three largest federal food and nutrition programs—the Food Stamp Program, the National School Lunch Program and the Special Supplemental Nutritional Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)—or by help from food pantries or soup kitchens.
Not surprisingly, the study showed that poverty is the greatest contributing factor to hunger. In 2007, the federal poverty line was set at $21,027 for a family of four, an amount woefully inadequate to provide for sufficient food and nutrition, let alone pay for housing, utilities and other necessities. In households where income fell below this line, food insecurity stood at 37.7 percent.
The rate of food insecurity was 22.2 percent for African-American households and 20.1 percent for Hispanic households. Food insecurity was also more prevalent in households headed by a single parent where there were children—30.2 percent for those headed by women, 18 percent for those headed by men.
Southern states saw the highest rates of food insecurity. Measured over three years, from 2005 through 2007, the states reporting the highest figures were Mississippi (17.4 percent), New Mexico (15 percent), Texas (14.8 percent), and Arkansas (14.4 percent).
Food insecurity is not restricted to inner-city or urban metropolitan areas, but is prevalent in rural and less-populated areas as well. The highest growth in food insecurity over the last nine years has been in the states of Alaska and Iowa, both of which saw a 3.7 percent increase in families who faced substantial food disruptions.
A majority of US households are concerned about the cost of food. A study released last month by the Opinion Research Group, commissioned by Minnesota-based Hormel Food Corp., showed that 84 percent of Americans are worried about rising food prices and 58 percent have had to make cuts in their food purchases as a result.
More than half of those surveyed have had to take steps to reduce food costs, including using more generic or store brands, eating out less often, buying less expensive cuts of meat and increasing their purchases of cheap staples such as potatoes and rice.
Of those polled, 14 percent said they or an immediate family member had received food from a food bank, soup kitchen, shelter or other charitable organization in the past year due to a lack of money for food.
Among those who had not, 21 percent said it is very or somewhat likely that rising food costs, a job loss or other circumstance might force them to seek help for food from a charitable organization in the future. These conditions will inevitably worsen as the economic crisis intensifies.
The growing hunger crisis should be seen within the context of the massive use of taxpayer funds to bail out Wall Street bankers and financiers. Hundreds of billions are being handed over to these interests, while no serious measures are being contemplated to confront a social crisis that will intensify rapidly over the coming months as layoffs mount and the recession deepens.
Waxman Defeats Dingell, Kicks Blue Dog Ass
By: Jane Hamsher Thursday November 20, 2008 8:40 amIn a stinging rebuke of the Blue Dog caucus, Henry Waxman has defeated John Dingell for Chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Why, it seems like only yesterday the Blue Dogs were sniffing that the Steering Committee who recommended Waxman were a bunch of unrepentant hippies who didn't reflect the overall makeup of the Democratic caucus. (In fact, it was.)
This is a huge defeat for the Blue Dogs, who were hoping to use Dingell as a roadblock to keep any meaningful change from happening with regard to issues under the Committee's jurisdiction -- telecommunications and health care, energy and environmental protection, interstate commerce and consumer protection.
Though she never took a public position, nobody has any doubts that Nancy Pelosi orchestrated this.
This week the Senate voted to remain a bunch of self-protecting hacks by letting Lieberman keep his gavel, but the House voted for progress.
Anyone who thinks that other members of the House aren't soiling themselves over this huge blow to the traditional system of seniority and entitlement hasn't been paying attention.
(Oh Heavenly Day video by Patrick Dwyer courtesy Howie Klein)
Panic Grips Wall Street
Posted Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008, at 7:09 AM ET
The New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal lead with yet another terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day at the stock market. The Dow Jones industrial average plunged 5.1 percent and closed below the 8,000 mark for the first time since March 2003. The market is now down 43.5 percent from a high point hit a little more than a year ago. USAT notes that the market has "wiped out nearly $10 trillion in wealth since the October 2007 peak," and the WSJ highlights that the recent plunges have nearly wiped out "all the gains from the last bull market, which lasted from October 2002 to October 2007." Optimists who had hoped the market had nowhere to go but up after the lows of last month were hit with a cold dose of reality by a string of grim economic news that made it clear the pain is far from over.
The Los Angeles Times gives big play to the stock market woes but leads with news that the California Supreme Court has agreed to review legal challenges to Proposition 8, the voter initiative that banned same-sex couples from getting married in the state. The court's move suggests that it wants to resolve all issues relating to marriage between two people of the same sex in one ruling. The court refused to allow the marriages to continue until a decision has been made, but legal experts warn this shouldn't be read as a sign that the court is ready to uphold the ban.
Investors looking for reasons to be anxious about the economy's future didn't have to look far. The leaders of Detroit's Big Three were grilled for a second day by skeptical lawmakers who made it pretty clear the U.S. auto industry shouldn't be expecting a bailout. The Federal Reserve's leaders warned that they expect the economy to be in a recession through the middle of next year, if not longer; new data showed that builders started fewer homes last month, marking the fourth straight month of declines to reach the lowest level in at least the 49 years since the government has kept track. And those weren't the only data to reach a record. Perhaps most worrying of all, the Consumer Price Index fell 1 percent in October, its biggest one-month drop in the index's 61-year history.
While the average consumer is likely to welcome a decrease in prices, the decrease can be disastrous for an economy and has brought back the much-talked-about fears of deflation, a prolonged period of falling prices. The NYT focuses on deflation—"an economists' nightmare"—in its lead story, while the WSJ devotes a separate front-page story to the issue. Deflation was "a hallmark of the Depression and Japan's so-called lost decade," notes the NYT. Everyone still thinks the chances of deflation are extremely slim but the fact that it's even a concern ramps up the pressure on President-elect Barack Obama and lawmakers to pass a new fiscal stimulus package. "Whatever I thought that risk was four or five months ago, I think it's bigger now, even if it is still small," Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said. Even talking about deflation now marks an amazing turn of events considering that this summer the big concern was inflation and many economists openly worried about the prospects of stagflation, the simultaneous increase of inflation and unemployment.
The only reason people aren't more freaked out at the record-breaking price decline is that it was mainly due to falling energy prices, which is good for consumers and is generally seen as a bad indicator of long-term trends. Excluding energy and food, prices fell 0.1 percent in October, which is far more modest but hardly insignificant since, as the WSJ notes, it marked the first decline since 1982. The WP points out that broadly speaking, economists worry that "businesses are losing any ability to set prices because demand for their goods has dried up." Due to all the depressing economic news, more consumers are choosing to play it safe and save what they have. Or as one economist succinctly puts it: "People are scared to death." The LAT points out that this decline in spending suggests that the only way the economy will get a boost is through increased government spending. Indeed, the NYT points to a number of statistics that make it seem "clear that the nation is entering a more frugal era after several years of conspicuous consumption."
The nervousness over the economy's future could clearly be seen in the markets, where, as the WSJ points out, investors seem once again to be willing to accept nearly no returns in order to sink their money into the safe haven of short-term Treasury bills. The pain wasn't isolated in stocks. The WSJ highlights that by some measures, "bonds were hit harder than stocks." The WP points out that this anxiety in the bond markets makes it difficult for companies to raise money.
In the WSJ's op-ed page, Andy Kessler says that while investors are taught that they should listen to the stock market, right now you should "stick wax in your ears and don't listen to the market until February." When it's working properly, the market can be a good indicator of the economy as a whole, but due to the credit crisis, Kessler is "convinced the stock market is at its least efficient today," and investors shouldn't read too much into the declines that are sure to come in the next two months.
While investors have lost trillions in the stock market over the past year, many top officials at companies that are at the heart of the current crisis managed to make a pretty penny over the past five years, reveals a WSJ analysis. Fifteen leaders of large home-building and financial firms made more than $100 million in that time period, for example. Among the 15 are the heads of Lehman Bros. and Bear Stearns. This is hardly a new phenomenon as periods of economic booms usually translate into astronomical paychecks for those who participated in the bubble. During the technology bubble of the late 1990s, more than 50 people made more than $100 million right before the crash.
The LAT and NYT front, and everyone mentions, the latest news from the presidential transition. President-elect Obama has decided to nominate Tom Daschle, the former Senate Democratic leader, as secretary of Health and Human Services. Everyone sees the nomination as a sign that Obama plans to aggressively tackle health care since Daschle is an experienced legislator who wrote a book about the issue. Apparently, Daschle made it clear he would only accept the Cabinet position if Obama also named him the administration's point man to develop a health care plan. "Being a Cabinet secretary is a car and driver and you get to go to the head of the line at the airport, unless you're Defense or State," a Daschle associate tells the WP. "This was key for Tom to have that White House connection." In other transition news, Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona appears to be Obama's choice to become homeland security secretary.
Daschle's selection not only provides another example of how Obama is filling his administration with Washington veterans, but also promises to test his strict ethics rules. Daschle's wife is a registered lobbyist whose list of clients might provide conflicts of interest for her husband, but her focus is in the aerospace and military industries. And, as the NYT details in a piece inside, Daschle himself is also open to examination. Since leaving the Senate, Daschle has been a board member of the Mayo Clinic as well as an adviser to a law and lobbying firm. Although this might not prevent his appointment, Daschle might have to recuse himself from issues that relate to his former employers, "a potentially broad swatch of the health secretary's portfolio," says the NYT, which notes the lobbying firm has dozens of health care industry clients, including pharmaceutical companies and health care providers.
The LAT fronts an interesting interview with a senior officer, "Zimbabwe's version of the KGB: the Central Intelligence Organization." The meeting between journalist and spy, which was carried out in the utmost secrecy, reveals how a group of people who could once be counted on to be the most loyal to the president have become disenchanted. The senior officer estimates that 60 percent to 70 percent of CIO officers no longer back President Robert Mugabe. "That the dark heart of Mugabe's web of fear is abandoning him underscores how tenuous his grip on power has become," writes the LAT's Robyn Dixon.
In the WP's op-ed page, Slate founder Michael Kinsley writes that Americans may have just elected a president who is part of the one group that suffers from socially sanctioned discrimination in the United States: smokers. Although Obama claims to have quit smoking, "the evidence is ambiguous." Regardless, if he hasn't quit, "we should forgive him" because his "good habits outweigh his single bad one." And perhaps his failure to quit is part of the reason why he's been able to maintain his now-famous calm demeanor. "If he needs an occasional cigarette to preserve it," writes Kinsley, "let's hand him an ashtray, offer him a light and look the other way."
Daniel Politi writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at todayspapers@slate.com.Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2205096/
Krugman on Auto Bridge Failure: You’re putting millions of jobs at risk!
By: Scarecrow Wednesday November 19, 2008 7:10 pm
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Many grappling with golden year disappointments as nest eggs dwindle
It was so close. And then, it wasn’t.
Fifty-year-old Eddie Whitlock thought he was closing in on his hard-earned golden years. According to his master plan, in just five short years he’d retire from his job as executive director for Mental Health America of Northeast Georgia. Then he’d turn his attention to the important things: golf, travel and finally writing that novel.
But this fall, after months of watching his 401(k) dwindle and his stock earnings sink, he accepted his new retirement reality: His golden years would be delayed another 10. If they ever came at all.
“I really think I’ll be working until I die,” says Whitlock, who lives in Athens, Ga. “I’ll be at work till the day they carry me out on a stretcher with a coroner’s tag tied to my big toe.”
One of the biggest worries for those on the brink of retirement used to be how to fill all that spare time. But as the economic meltdown devastates the savings of millions of Americans, a rising number of older workers are now realizing that retirement instead will have to come much later than they'd planned — if at all. And some of those who had only just to begun to enjoy their leisure years are now having to tuck aside their dreams and, in some cases, their pride, to return to the workforce.
For many, feelings of hopelessness, despair, anger and shame have darkened what until very recently they'd banked on being a new beginning.
“It's a real sense of shock,” says Phyllis Moen, a University of Minnesota sociologist who studies adjustment to retirement. “Here they thought they were in control, and they created a life that works — and suddenly, they’ve lost control. I think what's happening is a real upending of expectations of the 50s, 60s and 70s — of what life’s going to be for this group of people.”
Psychologists say those going through this kind of financial crisis may feel a spike in anxiety, panic attacks and depression. And for some, suicide may seem like the only way out. One msnbc.com reader from Cleveland, Ohio wrote " I have contemplated suicide, but my family does not have enough money to bury me.”
During the Great Depression, suicide rates rose from 14 to 17.4 per 100,000 people in 1933, according to the American Association of Suicidology, a nonprofit organization that promotes research and training in suicide prevention.
Psychologists are cautious about saying whether they expect a similar increase during these financial hard times, but seniors are in an age group already at higher risk for suicide: Although adults 65 and older make up just 12 percent of the population, they accounted for 16 percent of suicide deaths in 2004, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“There’s going to be a profound sense of loss for some people who had expected to enter their last stage of life and just enjoy it — and now they’re having to go back to work,” says Jennifer Harkstein, a New York City clinical psychologist. “For people who have expected to be retired by 70 or 75, there’s going to be some loss, some grief, that they can’t go and live these years that they’ve planned for.”
For Whitlock, the biggest blow came from the increasingly volatile stock market, as he watched his nonprofit employer’s account lose 25 percent of its value over the last year and a half. When he says he’s too afraid now to even peek at his 401(k), he’s only half joking.
“In the old days, people would be guaranteed an income for life, and they’d have an age at which it was clear they should retire,” says Alicia Munnell, an economist and director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. “We’re now shifting to an age of 401(k) plans, which is shifting all the risks and responsibility to the individuals.”
Downsizing dreams
For those who have retired, it’s a matter of downsizing dreams. So far, 63-year-old Edith Durrant’s retirement years haven’t turned out the way she pictured.
“My real dream always was to own a motor home and just travel,” says Durrant, a retired postal service worker who lives in Bellingham, Wash. Because she and her husband, Ben, had saved a modest nest egg, she says, “I didn’t think I would ever have to worry so much about money again.”
But five years ago, Edith Durrant, who is both epileptic and diabetic, had a particularly intense seizure that sent her into a coma for seven days. The cost of her hospital stay, her medications and the year and a half of care it took her to get well again drained everything the couple had saved for their retirement. Still, with her pension and Social Security benefits, they were doing OK — until Ben Durrant was laid off from his job as a sales manager at Office Max in June. Five months later, he’s still looking for work.
“Don’t get me wrong. We eat. We have a roof over our heads. By the look of my belly, it’s not bad,” says Ben Durrant, who’s 59. “But still, there’s the other side of it. You look on the Internet and it talks about these high fashion things and the trips and things like that. You look at them and you wonder — where did mine go? I’m not going to be able to do that. It’s a very sobering thought.”
Adjusting expectations
The Durrants have resigned themselves to their retirement reality, which is what experts recommend: During an economic downturn of this magnitude, it’s time to let go of most golden-year fantasies.
“I mean, I’m of that age. We’ve all had a disappointment,” says economist Munnell, who turns 66 next month. That’s the age she typically recommends that people retire, and she always imagined she’d follow her own advice. Now, she’s buckling down for at least another five years on the job.
“I’m very like everybody else — I felt like we had put aside enough money, but I didn’t plan on a buffer of 20 percent,” she says. Speaking for herself, she says, “The feeling is one of failure, even though it was really very hard to anticipate anything like this. You do feel like you failed.”
For those at or near retirement age, there’s no more time to save. There’s no magic investment to uncover. It’s best to face your 401(k) and lower your expectations — fast, Munnell says.
“You’ve got to play the cards you’re dealt, and play them the best you can,” she says. “Mourn if it’s a serious loss for you, but then, candidly — get over it.”
And then get to work. With the unemployment rate at its highest in more than a decade, those lucky enough to have a job should forget all thoughts of leaving, says Munnell, who co-wrote “Working Longer: The Solution to the Retirement Income Challenge,” published earlier this year. “(But) the problem is, it takes two to tango here. Employers have to be willing to hire people or to retain them.”
‘How many no’s can you stand?’
But many of those looking for jobs in their 50s and 60s didn’t plan on leaving their old jobs so soon. Some are pushed into early retirement, or laid off by hemorrhaging industries.
Each day since the day he was laid off from his sales job in June, Ben Durrant has looked for work. But as the days turn into weeks and months, he can feel his self-worth slipping. It doesn’t matter if he’s the best salesman there is, he says. He’s 59 years old. Few places will invest the time and resources into hiring someone that age, who might retire in just a few years, he says.
“In a lot of ways, it’s disheartening,” Durrant says. “How many no’s can you stand? It hurts after a while. It tears away at your self-image and your self-respect. We determine our self-worth out of the job we have. And you’re sitting at home and you’ve got three days worth of whiskers on you and you say, ‘I just want to stay home in my jammies,’ but you can’t.
“It knocks your self-esteem down, but you just have to say, ‘I’m worth this,” and go out and try one more time,” Durrant says.
He’s getting used to the idea that he’ll be making much less money than he was as a manager; he’s now looking at jobs that would pay $10 or $12 an hour. “That’s pretty hard to deal with when you want to go visit the grandkids,” says Durrant.
Finding ways to cope
“For people at the top of their earnings, regardless of their area, when they're offered jobs that are eight or nine dollars an hour, they just can't reconcile that. They think, ‘I'm worth more than that,’” sociologist Moen says. But that was then. Now it’s key to “get away from the idea of what you were, ‘cause you’re not going to get paid what you used to get paid,” she says.
For those facing dire financial problems, take the job you get, Moen says. Think of it as a stop-gap, because “it’s easier to get a job when you have a job,” she says.
And each time a self-loathing idea floats through your brain — Could I have worked harder? Saved more? — squash it.
“The biggest thing to recognize is, yes, you’re in this and yes, you’re going to have to cope, but it isn’t your fault. It’s a public issue,” Moen says. “This is not something you caused. You need to try to weather it, but it’s not your fault.”
If you can get a job, “it will be satisfying in the sense that this is a scary time, because it seems like everything is out of control and no one knows what’s happening, but if you can control something like that, you can say to yourself, ‘Well, I got out and I got a job,’” Munnell says. “Control what you can control.”
In order to gain a little control herself, Munnell has banned herself from watching too much Bloomberg or CNN and obsessing over how far the market dipped today. Other experts suggest squirreling away what little you can — even just $50 extra a week, to experience the magic of watching a savings account that’s slowly growing, to remind yourself that some things are still in your control.
Otherwise, let your family talk you down, take long walks with the dog and keep in mind: No one has this thing under control, experts say.
“We know that life hasn’t handed us a bowl of cherries. We got half a bowl of pits,” Durrant says. “But, dangit, you do what you need to do. You pop your head up the next morning and go on.”
John McCain has two words for Jackson Browne: You're welcome.
That's the gist of a response to Browne's lawsuit that the McCain campaign's sampling of his classic (or, as they put it, "long-ago published") "Running on Empty" implied that the famously lefty singer-songwriter was endorsing the maverick but nevertheless Republican presidential candidate.
And, oh yeah, added in for good measure are we didn't exactly do it and whoever did it is protected by fair use.
"Given the political, non-commercial, public interest and transformative nature of the use of a long-ago published song, the miniscule amount used and the lack of any effect on the market for the song (other than perhaps to increase sales of the song)," reads the memorandum, "these claims are barred by the fair use doctrine."
McCain's national campaign maintains it had nothing to do the 120-second-long commercial, which ran in the battleground state of Ohio, and that it was the sole work of the state's Republican Party. The ad contains 30 seconds of Browne's song in a reference to Barack Obama's suggestion that people inflate their tires to save gas.
Use of the song in an ad would typically require the permission of the rights holder in the form of a synchronization license, but permission was neither sought nor granted. Browne has a rigid policy against his music being used in commercials, according to attorney Larry Iser, which is why he says potential damages could run high.
McCain argues that Browne's stance only "strengthens the fair use argument." Their emphasis. You're welcome!
TMZ has the memorandum, filed on November 17, as a .pdf. A hearing is set for December 8.
South Texas county indicts Cheney, Gonzales
By Alex Lantier 
20 November 2008
A grand jury in southern Texas' Willacy County has indicted US Vice President Dick Cheney and former US attorney general Alberto Gonzales on state charges of misconduct involving private prisons. The indictment, brought by District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra, also names several local officials.
The indictment alleges conflict of interest stemming from an $85 million investment by Cheney in the Vanguard Group, a company that holds shares in private companies running federal detention centers, noting that Cheney had influence over the federal contracts awarded to the prison companies held by the Vanguard Group. The indictment also names Cheney as responsible for "at least misdemeanor assaults" at these prisons. The indictment accuses Gonzales of intervening, as US Attorney General in 2006, to stop an investigation into abuses at private prisons.
As of this writing, the presiding judge has declined to sign the indictment, halting any further action on the case.
Willacy County hosts a series of federal, state and county prisons, some of which are outsourced to private prison companies such as MTC and the GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut). These prisons have a long history of corruption and misconduct. In 2005 Guerra obtained guilty pleas from three former county commissioners while investigating bribery charges related to MTC's federal prison contracts.
In 2006, a Willacy County jury ordered GEO Group to pay a $47.5 million fine in a civil judgment on a 2001 case, when Wackenhut guards allowed other inmates to beat inmate Gregorio de la Rosa Jr. to death with padlocks stuffed into socks.
Guerra told the Associated Press the current indictment is a "national issue" and that experts from around the country had testified before the grand jury. The indictment reportedly refers to the de la Rosa case.
The indicted officials brushed off the charges. Agence France-Presse wrote, "Cheney's spokeswoman [Megan Mitchell] declined to comment because his office had not yet received a copy of the indictment." Mitchell arrogantly added, "Let's wait and see if we even receive one."
Gonzales' attorney George Terwilliger III said, "This is obviously a bogus charge on its face, as any good prosecutor can recognize," adding that he hoped Texas authorities would stop "this abuse of the criminal justice system."
Michael Cowen--the attorney for State Senator Eddie Lucio, who is also named in the indictment--issued a statement declaring, "It is a shame that Guerra has chosen to dedicate his energy to fighting with his fellow public servants, rather than actually prosecuting criminals." In a revealing comment, Cowen added that Guerra dismissed so many cases that local officials disparagingly called him "The Great Emancipator"--a common name of respect for President Abraham Lincoln, whose Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves after the US Civil War. Cowen added that his office was planning to file a motion to quash the indictment.
The pose of incredulity and aggrieved innocence struck by Cheney and Gonzales reeks of hypocrisy and bad faith. Far from clearing them, their record as members of the Bush administration suggests that accusations of misconduct directed against them deserve due consideration.
Cheney is hated in the US and around the world for framing and executing the Bush administration's policy of aggressive war, most notably in Iraq, in flagrant violation of international law. His longstanding policy is to shield himself from public oversight, notably evading Congressional attempts to obtain records of his 2001 Energy Task Force meetings on Iraq with the grotesque claim that his office is not part of the executive branch.
As for Gonzales, he resigned as Attorney General in disgrace last year, after refusing to answer Congressional inquiries into the Department of Justice's improper firings of US attorneys. As White House counsel during the first Bush administration, he played a key role in promoting the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program and helped draft legal memoranda arguing that the Geneva Convention's provisions were "quaint" and need not be applied to Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners. Gonzales also requested the "torture memo" that defined torture so narrowly as to permit US forces to use abusive interrogation methods banned by US and international law.
District Attorney Guerra, on the other hand, has been the continuing target of a campaign of official harassment, facing bogus charges of extorting money from a bail bond company and using his office for personal business.
In March 2007 Guerra was jailed during a grand jury investigation of these charges. Two special prosecutors were appointed in the investigation: former US attorney Mervyn Mosbacker and Gus Garza, who ran against and lost to Guerra for the position of District Attorney in 1992. Since 1996, notes the Harlingen, Texas Valley Morning Star, "Guerra has won three elections, largely drawing support from working-class residents." However, Guerra lost the 2008 Democratic primary elections.
An appeals court later ruled that the special prosecutors were improperly appointed to investigate Guerra, and last month Judge Manuel Banales dismissed the indictments altogether.
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