Stocks are down dramatically again in trading so far today, dropping 200 points in the first minutes of trading. The $85 billion federal loan to insurance giant AIG didn’t calm investors. Today’s drop followed Monday’s loss, which was the single session’s biggest fall since the days after Sept. 11.
Does the Bush administration really see tanks, fighter jets, missiles and warships as peacemakers? “The Department of Defense has agreed so far this fiscal year to sell or transfer more than $32 billion in weapons and other military equipment to foreign governments, compared with $12 billion in 2005,” reported the New York Times, naming Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Romania, Poland and Morocco among recent customers, including some that use U.S. aid to buy the weapons.
Bruce Lemkin, an Air Force deputy undersecretary, said the dealing “is about building a more secure world” and asked: “Would you rather they bought the weapons and aircraft from other countries? Because they will.”
The 154-page legal filing by George Tiller’s attorneys is meant to persuade a judge to dismiss 19 misdemeanor charges against the Wichita abortion provider. Its point of view is strong and some of its claims so shocking as to be hard to believe, such as that former Attorney General Phill Kline lied to judges and had his investigators give false information in affidavits. And it’s accurate, as Operation Rescue’s spokeswoman argues, that the current criminal case was filed by former Attorney General Paul Morrison, not by Kline.
Still, it’s remarkable to learn of the claim, based on internal memos, that Kline tried to obtain search warrants and have armed officers raid abortion clinics, by force if necessary, to seize patient records, employee files and license plate numbers of cars in the clinics’ parking lots. And that it reportedly took two years for Kline investigators to begin looking into records of live births to underage girls, though he’d said all along that his primary concern was unreported sexual abuse. The filing also details more about Kline’s reported copying, mailing and other mishandling of women’s medical records.
David Brooks wrote an interesting column arguing that if the GOP is going to modernize, as it needs to, it should focus less on the individual. “The problem is, this individualist description of human nature seems to be wrong,” Brooks said. “Over the past 30 years, there has been a tide of research in many fields, all underlining one old truth — that we are intensely social creatures, deeply interconnected with one another, and the idea of the lone individual rationally and willfully steering his own life course is often an illusion.” Brooks said the GOP should emphasize “society as well as individuals, security as well as freedom, a social revival and not just an economic one, and the community as opposed to the state.”
One city that isn’t happy about the Pentagon’s decision to put the Air Force tanker contract on hold is Mobile, Ala., where the final assembly of the Northrop Grumman-European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. tanker would take place. But city officials offered a backhanded compliment to Reps. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard, and Norm Dicks, D-Wash., for their politically savvy efforts to block the deal. The two lawmakers “fought a fantastic fight,” Bay Haas, director of the Mobile Airport Authority, told the Mobile Press-Register. “It’s amazing what they did with nothing to work with.” But a Press-Register editorial wasn’t as complimentary, charging that lawmakers from Kansas and Washington state threw temper tantrums and misled their colleagues while doing “Boeing’s political dirty work in Congress.”
Stocks are down dramatically again in trading so far today, dropping 200 points in the first minutes of trading. The $85 billion federal loan to insurance giant AIG didn’t calm investors. Today’s drop followed Monday’s loss, which was the single session’s biggest fall since the days after Sept. 11.
